Page 118 of Dragon Slayer

“Yes, of course. But.” He winced. “There was a revolt amongst the boyars.”

“Which boyars?”

“Those aligned with the Dânesti. It was – it was most of them, your grace. Your father and brother were not in the palace at the time. They had some of their most trusted guards with them, but…”

The wolves. Their faces flashed through Vlad’s mind: Cicero, Caesar, Ioan, Vasile. Fenrir would have been with Mother, in the palace; he was her wolf.

“Your father,” Cazan continued, “told me that he and your brother Mircea were separated in the melee. He lost sight of him, but, one of his guards was able to help him get away…and he ran to me.

“He was scratched and bleeding, his clothes torn. I could tell he’d been running through the forest on foot. And his eyes – they were wild, like a spooked horse. Something terrible had happened, I knew. His grace gave me two tokens, and he told me to get them to you, through whatever means necessary. ‘Should anything happen to Mircea,’ he said, ‘then Wallachia belongs to Vlad.’” Cazan took another series of breaths, blinking against tears. “He told me what had happened in Tîrgoviste, and I begged him to allow me to hide him. I have an old cellar beneath the stables; no one could have found him! But he would not risk my safety, he said. All of the Wallachian nobility had turned against him. And so he fled again, through the forests.

“I could not leave him to make his way on his own, though. I gathered some of my men – my best fighters – and we followed. He’d left a path of footprints in the soft earth, and broken branches to mark the way.

“We caught up to him. But…” He shuddered, and closed his eyes.

Vlad wanted to shake him.Just say it!

“Your grace.” The man’s voice cracked. “The enemy was upon him, men in Vladislav’s armor. They had a hunting hound with them, something massive and hairy – it looked like a wolf! And…and…

“What?”

“They had cut his heart from his body. One of the soldiers held it. It steamed, fresh and hot. It…” He choked a moment, coughs that tried to disguise sobs.

Vlad didn’t care. Someone could have swung a sword at his neck, and he wouldn’t have noticed.

His heart. They’d cut out hisheart.

Vlad lurched forward and grabbed Cazan by both shoulders. He did shake him this time, hard, and the man gasped.

“Your grace–”

Vlad growled, and the boyar went silent. “You’re sure? The heart? They took the heart out? You saw it with your own eyes?”

Cazan gaped at him a moment – whether in response to his tone or his growl, Vlad didn’t know or care – but finally swallowed. “Y-yes, your grace. I saw. And they – theyburnedit.”

Six long years had passed since that awful day at Gallipoli; six years of Ottoman captivity. Vlad had long since lost hope that his father would manage to bring him home – or so he’d told himself. The Ottomans might kill him for Dracul’s treaty-breaking, or they might keep him until he was a grown man, numb, a usable puppet.

But he found now, as he was unable to draw breath into his lungs, that hope had lingered. A tiny scrap of it, lodged deep between his ribs. So long as Father was alive, there was a chance for freedom.

He thought of a tiny pyre, just big enough for a heart, and something in him…broke.

He turned around, and vomited on the pristine floor tiles.

He hadn’t had breakfast yet, and so it was only bile. He wiped his mouth with the back of a shaking hand and said, “Where is he?”

“Your grace?”

“My father.Where is he?”

“He is – buried, your grace. After – they left him, and I couldn’t…I left strict instructions with my men to see that his body was properly wrapped and carried to the chapel near my home. He’ll have a proper Christian burial, I assure you. I myself rode straight here. To deliver the news – and these.”

Vlad turned back, and Cazan was unwrapping the sword he’d brought. It was Dracul’s Toledo blade, given to him by emperor Sigismund at Nuremburg in 1431 – the year of Vlad’s birth.

“There is also this,” Cazan said, and from a pocket on his person produced a gold collar engraved with a dragon. “They belong to you now. You are the reigning Prince of Wallachia.”

Vlad couldn’t bring himself to touch either item. “My brother is the heir. Where is he?”

Pale and shivering, Cazan answered carefully. “I do not know, your grace. But I know that his survival is – unlikely.”

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