The Queen had had a harrowing night. Having learned of the Earl Rufus’s fate from the Grand Master, she had been faced with the task of breaking the heartrending news to his daughter. A daughter who loved her father, who dreamed of flying at his side; a daughter who had grown so much in the last year, showing the first hints of who she would become as a woman. By the time the Queen’s Constable returned with Quenelda and her esquire from Dragonsdome, the girl must have known. She could not have failed to hear the tolling bells, or see the standards flying at half-mast over the palace. Queen Caitlin had met Quenelda and gently told her of their loss; had explained that many lost those whom they loved in times of war. That her beloved father was dead – to the eternal grief of them all.
Caitlin was prepared for heartbreak. But instead of tears, there had been defiance. A stubborn refusal to believe that her father was dead – and the shocking accusation of betrayal by the Grand Master.
‘He’s not dead,’ Quenelda insisted tearfully. ‘He survived. Stormcracker bore him away.’
Sir Gharad looked at her in pity. ‘How do you know, child?’
When questioned, Quenelda revealed to the Queen and her Constable a dream she’d had on what she believed to be the night of the battle. A dream of dragon fighting dragon. Dark dragons like Midnight Madness, only worse, far worse. A dream of Stormcracker bearing her injured father away from the battlefield, the cry of treason on his lips. But where he was now, or why he had not returned to the Howling Glen or Dragon Isle, she could not say.
‘Maybe he’s too badly wounded,’ she insisted tearfully. ‘Or Storm is too injured to fly, or they are hiding from the Grand Master’s men.’
Stunned, shocked, suddenly hopeful, the Queen’s heart leaped within her, despite her Constable’s gentle restraint.
‘Majesty,’ Sir Gharad cautioned, knowing what she was thinking. ‘Even if the Earl survived the battle he may yet have died from his wounds.’
The young Queen knew he was right. When the weather allowed flying, the SDS Search and Rescue patrols had found nothing; but there were thousands of islands and caves off the rugged west coast where survivors could be concealed. She was foolish, she knew it, but she wanted to believe, like Quenelda, that the Earl was still alive, hidden somewhere, nursing his wounds, waiting until spring came to return home. Nothing could fly in the howling blizzards that now swept the north.
But if they were to believe Quenelda’s dream that the Earl had survived the battle, then they must also believe the horrifying, unthinkable news that the SDS had been betrayed by a man at the heart of the kingdom – the Earl’s childhood friend and Grand Master of the Guild. But who could they tell and what could they do? Who had the power to defy a warlock? To betray their suspicions would tear Court and Guild apart, and there was not a shred of proof for any of it save Quenelda’s word.
The Queen and Sir Gharad decided to reveal Quenelda’s dream to the new SDS Commander, Jakart DeBessert. He needed to know – all of it. But no one else, they agreed. Their fears and hopes must be hidden from the Guild – and particularly from the Grand Master himself. An opportunity came as the Dragon Lord was given a private audience with his Queen to confirm his new rank.
On the way he passed Quenelda and her esquire stumbling numbly along the corridor. He looked at their tearful, distraught faces with sympathy. He had lost many friends, but soldiers knew the risks they took. Few considered the price their loved ones paid when they failed to return home from the war.
But that sympathy did not extend to believing Quenelda’s story.
‘Majesty,’ he gently protested as the Queen wept, ‘the Earl’s daughter is twelve – how can you believe her? It is just a childish dream. A fantasy born of fear and hope.’
When the Constable revealed that the Grand Master was a warlock whose folly had nearly killed the Earl at the jousts, DeBessert was still unconvinced.
‘Majesty, the dragon turned rogue through its injuries. The Lord Hugo and the Earl are virtually brothers – you just need to look at the Grand Master to see how distressed he is by this terrible news. And anyway, why would a man who already has everything want more?’
The Queen was determined to be believed: the future of her kingdoms depended upon this. ‘Quenelda says that the hobgoblins have dark dragons, birthed by Maelstrom Magic, conjured by the warlock in our midst.’
The new Commander’s face froze in place. Their own dragons? None know that save the Inner Council. Can the rest of the dream be true then too? Doubt unravelled in his mind. ‘But, Madam,’ he stuttered, ‘how could you know this? I …’
Seeing the man’s hesitation, Sir Gharad took a gamble. ‘Quenelda is no ordinary twelve-year-old girl. She is a Dragon Whisperer, Jakart.’
The constable had once commanded the SDS before injury and old age retired him to Court. His word was enough for a young man brought up on tales of this old knight’s legendary valour on the battlefield.
DeBessert’s mind raced at this new information. ‘The lost Dragonsdome Chronicles are said to foretell the rise of a Dragon Whisperer,’ he whispered.
‘A Dragon Lord of unparalleled power who would return to protect the kingdoms from the rising darkness in one final cataclysmic conflict …’ Sir Gharad finished the legend for him. ‘Where does it say that it has to be a man?’