Page 36 of Dragon Slayer

9

A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

Tîrgoviste, Capital of Wallachia

1439

“Vlad! Vlad, wait for me!” Val panted as his small legs worked and his arms pumped and he struggled to catch up to his older brother. Vlad was only four years his senior, but they were a dramatic four years for boys who were four and eight, and Vlad had always been sturdy and large for his age. Val, by contrast, was a pale, slow-growing, delicate thing. “No bigger than a bouquet of flowers,” Fenrir’s wife and mate, Helga, liked to say, smiling and ruffling his golden hair. Vlad hadn’t meant to run off and leave him, Val didn’t think, but his legs were so much longer, so much stronger. And now Val was alone as he rounded the corner and saw that Vlad was long gone.

He took a ragged breath and redoubled his efforts, soles of his boots slapping across the stone floor.

The scents of the palace household flowed through his sinuses, down into his lungs. He smelled his parents, and Father’s wife, who was Mircea’s mother; smelled his brothers, and the family wolves, their mates. Smelled the maids, and nurses, and Father’s human advisors; smelled fresh bread baking three floors down in the kitchen. And very near, just around the next corner, a scent and a sound – the steady thump of a heartbeat – he sensed–

“Got you!” Fenrir crowed, scooping Val up in both arms, tossing him into the air, so his head almost brushed the ceiling, and then catching him securely against his chest, held tight in his strong embrace.

Val shrieked in delight. Father could dismiss Fenrir as dumb and huge all he liked, but Val loved him. He was Val’s favorite wolf.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry, little prince?” Fenrir asked, still holding him. He began to walk in the direction Val had been heading, his much-longer strides eating up the distance.

“Vlad said I could go with him into the city. There’s going to be acrobats!” His stomach swooped excitedly at the thought.

“Oh, well, you won’t want to miss that,” Fenrir said, and lengthened his stride.

It was a warm, bright summer day, and though the windows were set at sparse intervals, all the shutters were flung wide to let in the heat, and the corridor swelled with light, the stones the color of toasted bread, warm even through the soles of Val’s boots – when he’d been walking, anyway. Now, carried securely in Fenrir’s arms, he had a rare, high view of the tapestries on the walls; a glimpse out the windows, as they passed, of the bailey, and the moat, and the red tiled rooftops of Tîrgoviste spreading out down the hill, a wide stretch of packed humanity, the hustle and bustle of commerce and busy commoners, all the way to the jagged peaks that stood ink-blank against the horizon.

The capital city of his father’s principality may have been the only home he could remember, but he still found it irrepressibly lovely.

“Are you done with your lessons for the day?” Fenrir asked as they reached the stairwell and started down.

“Um, well…” Val fidgeted. He didn’t want to lie. So he said, “Mostly.” His tutorhadended their lesson. After the fifth time he asked if Val was feeling well – “Radu, are you well?” and that name, his father’s picked name for him, had set him into a fresh batch of wriggling in his chair – the tutor had sighed and said, “Clearly, you’re distracted today. Go on. I saw your brother walk past the doorway three times already.”

Val hadn’t wasted any time after that.

But though he had waited at first, loitering outside the study where Val had been attending to his Greek and Latin lessons, Vlad hadn’t been able to wait anymore, far outdistancing him.

Sometimes it wasn’t much fun being the youngest.

At the bottom of the spiral staircase, Val and Fenrir encountered Father’s preferred wolf, Cicero, named for the Roman orator, in company with his packmate, Caesar, and Val’s oldest brother, Mircea.

Father’s wolves had been with him, according to Mother, for centuries. Loyal Familiars who served as confidants, generals, political advisors, and, even, friends. They’d been Dacian, originally, bearing Dacian names. Father had renamed them for Roman notables, and he’d taught them all the languages he knew, given them access to the finest tutors and books, so that they could be of greater use to him. They were unfailingly loyal. They took the protection of the heir, though Mircea was half-human, very seriously.

Too seriously, in Val’s opinion. They rarely smiled, and Mircea rarely did so either in their company.

“Mircea!” he called. “Vlad’s taking me to see the acrobats. Come with us!”

Mircea smiled the warm, but regretful smile that had become the only one he exercised. Val thought he had vague memories of his oldest brother when they still lived in Sighi?oara, before the palace, before father was officially sanctioned as prince. A toddler’s fuzzy memories, snatches of sounds, and colors, but he remembered Mircea laughing, and leaping, and being a child. He was the heir now, officially, and all he ever did was train and study.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Radu.”

Val frowned at the name.

“But I’m sure you’ll have more fun without me.” He rolled his eyes, first to the left and then to the right, indicating his wolf escort.

Fenrir broke out in a hearty chuckle.

Cicero and Caesar shared a glance over top of the heir’s head.

But Val frowned. “We’ll miss you.” And he already did, a tug of regret in his gut. Vlad’s friends were never unkind to him…but they weren’t outright welcoming either. Not like Mircea, who always went out of his way to ensure Val felt included, asking for his opinion, even though he probably hadn’t earned the right to give it.

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