Page 50 of Dragon Slayer

When Val glanced over, he saw that his brother was playing with bits of Storm’s mane, scowling at his own hands.

“Can I what?”

Vlad flicked him an impatient look. “Talk to her? To Dancer. You can – you can dream-walk. Can you talk to animals too?”

“Oh.” The question caught him off guard. “I don’t think so.” He frowned. “No. We can’ttalk. But I can tell she loves me, and I think she knows I love her. I get on well with animals.”

“I noticed.” It could have been a scoff, but wasn’t. Vlad glanced away, out across the waving grass, thoughtful line pressed between his brows. “You’re only six, and you can already do so much. Who knows how much power you really have?” He sounded melancholy. “I don’t think I haveanypower.” The last just a whisper.

Val’s sudden shock was so strong that Dancer came to a halt, head lifting. She craned around and nudged the toe of his boot with her nose. “What?” It was almost – almostdistressingto hear Vlad say something like that. “What are you talking about?”

Vlad shrugged and wouldn’t look at him.

“Vlad, you’re a vampire, and a prince, and you’re going to be the best warrior in all of Eastern Europe. You’re the best archer, and the best swordsman, and you could probably beat Fenrir up with your bare hands right now. What do you mean you don’t have anypower?”

“I–” Vlad started, and then went still. Storm came to a sudden halt. “Shh.”

Slowly, slowly, slowly, he unslung the bow from his back and drew an arrow from the small quiver buckled around his shoulders.

They returned to the stable a half-hour later with a brace of hares slung over Storm’s withers. They hadn’t had a chance to resume their conversation about power, but Vlad seemed looser after the two kills; the line had smoothed between his brows.

At least until Vali came running up to them, red-faced, panting. He stopped and pitched forward, braced his hands on his knees.

“What?” Vlad snapped, and sounded every inch the lofty prince.

Power, Val thought with an inward snort. The way Vali’s eyes widened in a brief flicker of panic was all the proof anyone needed that Vlad was destined to be the most powerful creature in the whole palace.

Vali straightened. “Your mother – sent for you – guests tonight – banquet.”

“And she wants us to wash the horse smell off ourselves,” Vlad said, already sliding down off Storm’s back. “Yes, tell her we’re coming.”

Vali hurried off.

Val lingered a moment, idly stroking the fine strands of mane at Dancer’s withers. Watching his brother drag the hares off his horse and stroke Storm’s nose with a rare, fond smile. He smiled less often, now. He had grown lanky, thin, pale. Dark shadows lingered beneath his eyes.

“Come on, little brother,” Vlad said.

Val shook himself and slid down to join him. “Who do you think the guests are?”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

~*~

Freshly-scrubbed, pink-faced, and buttoned into fancy dinner velvets and glossy boots, Val joined his brothers, father, and Princess Cneajna at the high table that evening. His eyes sought his mother, first, an old familiar spark of guilt and longing flaring in his chest.

Two long wooden tables sat perpendicular to the high table, creating a horseshoe shape in the midst of the wide hall. Candles blazed in the iron chandeliers, and in the candelabrum along the walls, and on the tables, suffusing the room with warm, flickering light. Eira, dressed in rich gold, sat at the near end of the table to the left, surrounded by the family wolves and their mates and offspring, smiling in response to something Fenrir had said. She caught Val watching her and sent him a reassuring smile.

He smiled back, weakly, wishing she was up here with the rest of his family. Their family.

The high table was packed to capacity, though, even if it had been appropriate for Eira to join them. Father’s guest tonight was the governor of Transylvania, John Hunyadi.

A tall, sturdy man with a bull neck and a headful of thick auburn hair, he sat between Mircea and Dracul, gesturing animatedly as he spoke.

Val kept leaning forward to peek around Vlad and sneak glimpses of him. Politically-motivated dinners were a near-constant thing in the palace, but Hunyadi was an anti-Ottoman hero of near-mythic proportions at this point.

Val kept playing Uncle Romulus’s words over and over in his mind:Give them whatever they want. And now Father was at table with a man who believed just the opposite.

Nervous sweat began to gather between his shoulder blades.

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