Page 100 of Dragon Slayer

Val wasn’t proud, but he fled. Retreated back to his body, his hiding spot in a corner of the palace wall, lacy strands of ivy trailing over his face. He scrambled to the side and vomited in the crushed rock of the path.

That night, when he laid down to sleep, he went to find his brother again. The post-battle Mircea that sat slumped in front of a dying campfire looked pale and unsteady, his face still dirty. A deep cut marred one brow; it would scar, Val thought.

There were others about, but they were at a further distance, half asleep in their bedrolls, too exhausted to notice a spectral boy pick his way up to the fire and settle on the hard ground beside his brother.

Mircea had always been startle-prone when it came to Val’s dream-walking, and tonight was no exception. But tonight, a man now, a warrior, Mircea ripped his dagger from his belt and brandished it – firelight dancing across the freshly-whetted edge – before he realized it was Val beside him.

“Radu,” he breathed in relief, and his arm dropped. The knife clattered against a stone and fell out of his hand to land in the dirt. “My God. How did you find me?”

“I found you earlier, too.” Val swallowed against the images that tried to overtake his mind.

“You’re getting stronger, then.” Mircea’s face fell. “You saw the battle?”

Val nodded.

Mircea licked at cracked lips. Dirt had worked its way into the creases around his eyes, lines of stress that hadn’t been there a year ago. “We lost.” He said it matter-of-factly, too tired and battle-sick to try to paint it in a flattering light. “Hunyadi escaped, as did we. Ladislas is dead. They cut his horse out from under him. I saw them take his head.”

Val swallowed again. “The crusade failed?”

“Yes.” He blinked, and his eyes looked wet. “I’m sorry, Radu. I wanted to bring you home–”

Val couldn’t throw his arms around his neck, so he smiled at him, and wished that felt like enough.

~*~

He found his mother in her bedchamber, staring sightlessly into the fire, embroidery hoop forgotten in her lap. Utterly still. He’d never seen her like that, and it frightened him.

“Mama?”

She started, head lifting with a gasp, hands clasping the embroidery hoop and lifting it in front of her. A shield – a weapon, more likely. In that first moment, before she recognized him, he saw that her pale eyes were wild, her fangs visible. A growl built in the back of her throat, and then quickly died. A moment of his mother the shieldmaiden, and then her face crumpled, and tears filled her eyes, and she said, “My darling,” and reached for him.

He went, though he turned to smoke under her hands.

She wiped her eyes and forced a sound that was meant to be a laugh. “Look how big you’re getting,” she said, hands hovering over his projection. “Your hair is so long. It’s beautiful.You’rebeautiful.”

They talked of silly, sweet things long into the night. And when he left, before he faded away, she finally let fall the tears she’d been holding in check the whole time.

Her hands hovered beside his face. She gritted her teeth. “I will get you back,” she said. “Iwill.”

He wanted to believe her, but he knew better.

~*~

Quiet, well-mannered, fluent in Turkish and a favorite amongst the women of the harem – they liked to braid his golden hair and buss his cheeks and smile into his eyes until he blushed and looked away, which made them laugh – Val heard not just the palace gossip, but the truth behind it. From the servant girls who attended to Murat’s Serbian wife, he heard that Murat had left the palace so that he could rouse his own troops in order to run to Mehmet’s aid. Not just aid – he crushed the forces that Mehmet had been unable to, shaming his sultan son, all but taking the title back from him.

The day of Mehmet’s arrival dawned in creamy pinks and oranges; an autumn storm sky. Clouds built slowly all day, stacking up like gray wolf pelts until it seemed the weight of them would crush the horizon.

Val had trouble eating, belly full of nameless dread. The electricity in the air – dancing tongues of lightning that flirted along the distant tree tops – kept inducing little shivers. Goosebumps that ached and prickled up the back of his neck. He felt restless; he wanted to spar, an urge so alien to him that it sent him into a quiet panic attack beneath the oils and combs of the slaves sent to beautify him for the reception banquet.

It had been years since he’d last seen Mehmet, and it occurred to him now, wincing as tangles were tugged free, that those had been peaceful years. Years in which Vlad suffered the riding crop less; years in which there were no near deaths in the practice yard; years in which Val had started to hope that, maybe, just maybe, if they minded their manners, and learned their Ottoman history, they could go home soon.

But Father had betrayed the treaty.

Mircea’s men had died in a field of mud, and blood, and horse shit. All for nothing.

And Mehmet, defeated and shamed, marched home now. He’d been an arrogant, angry boy before. Now…

Val closed his eyes against the threat of anxious tears and prayed feverishly that Vlad wouldn’t do anything stupid tonight.

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