“We can make all the suppositions we want to make,” Cinnia said. “Only the dragon can tell us what is to come, Father. Even I acknowledge that. I am sorry she did not come tonight, but I know how hungry she is after one of her little naps. She must eat before she can consider the solution to our problem.”

And Nidhug was indeed enjoying her evening feast. She praised the cook lavishly for her presence of mind in including the poultry offerings. “No one, Sarabeth,” she said to the cook, “can roast a goose as you do.” She popped a whole bird into her mouth, crunching down upon it, her thin tongue whipping out to lick her lips. “Delicious!” Nidhug pronounced as she swallowed the goose. “And capon, too! Is it stuffed?”

“Of course, mistress, and with that apple and walnut stuffing you so like,” the cook replied, forgetting entirely that it had been Tavey’s suggestion to include a bit of poultry. “I only did two of them, but I roasted two ducks in the plum sauce you favor, as well,” Sarabeth told the dragon.

“Excellent!” the dragon said. “I shall need all my strength tomorrow, for the king is not an easy man to deal with, I fear.”

When the dragon had finished her meal she went up upon the battlements of her castle and stretched to her full height. Then unfolding her delicate wings she rose up into the night sky. Belmair possessed twin moons. One of silver, one of gold. Their phases were identical, and tonight they shone in their first quarter, lighting the landscape below her as she flew. Peace flowed through the dragon’s veins as she looked down.

Belmair was not a large world. It consisted of four islands of varying size set in a great sea. The largest island, which bore the name of Belmair, was the king’s land. The three provinces were the smaller islands of Beldane, Belia and Beltran. Beldane was a lovely land of valleys, gentle hills and glens. Belia was mountainous. Beltran consisted mostly of great tracts of forest and meadows. Each province was ruled over by a ducal family, and each duke answered to the king.

The kings of Belmair did not always follow a familial succession. From the beginnings of time as far back as the Belmairans could remember, it was a dragon who had chosen the king from among the ducal families. And if the preceding king had a daughter of marriageable age the new king was required to wed her.

Once many centuries back, a king designate had been betrothed to a woman he loved when he had been chosen to be king. The betrothed maiden was willing to step aside for her beloved’s sake for no one chosen by the dragon to be Belmair’s king could refuse the honor. The previous king’s daughter was willing to give up her place for she saw the love the king designate had for his betrothed, and she was a maiden with a kind heart. The dragon settled the matter by sitting both maidens in a pen filled with peas. Somewhere among the peas was a pearl. Whoever found the pearl would be the king’s bride. The rumor was that the princess, finding the pearl first, surreptitiously pushed it into the other girl’s view thus giving up her place. The dragon, who knew all, saw the princess married to the young duke of Beltran, who was also in need of a wife, and blessed her with healthy children and many happy years with her husband to reward her for her good and thoughtful heart.

The dragon stopped to rest herself upon a mountaintop in the duchy of Belia. It was spring, and the snows were melting. The sea surrounding the island, visible from her perch, sparkled in the dappled moonlight. She closed her eyes briefly and breathed deeply of the fresh mountain air. There had been but one Great Dragon of Belmair before her-her father. And when her time was over there would be another Great Dragon, but as she had yet had the inclination to raise a hatchling, she knew she would continue her watch over Belmair into the distant future.

The problem before her was to choose a successor for King Fflergant. But there was no successor here on Belmair. She knew each ducal family, and she knew all the men in those ducal families. But none of those males was the next king. She might have changed tradition and chosen Cinnia to be Belmair’s queen. But Cinnia, while a great sorceress although Nidhug would never tell her so, was not capable of ruling Belmair no matter what the girl thought.

“Greetings, Nidhug. How beautiful you are in the moonlight,” an elegant voice said, and then Kaliq, the great Shadow Prince of Hetar, laughed as the dragon’s eyes flew open with her surprise to see him standing before her. “My lord Kaliq, I greet you in friendship,” Nidhug told him.

“What brings you to Belmair?” Indeed what did bring him to Belmair? She had not seen him in at least a thousand years. Kaliq of the Shadows did not come casually. There was a purpose to his visit. And to come at this particular time? He had intrigued her as he always did.

“The purple sands in Fflergant’s glass are almost gone,” Kaliq began. “You need a king, and there is no king at this time here in Belmair, is there?”

The dragon shook her head. “Nay, there is no one, my lord Kaliq.”

“That is because Belmair’s new king is in my palace, Nidhug,” the prince said.

“He is Hetarian?” This could not be!

“He is my son,” the Shadow Prince surprised the dragon by saying. “His mother is called Lara. She is the daughter of Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries in Hetar, and of a Hetarian called John Swiftsword. Lara has always believed that Dillon was the son of her first husband, Vartan of the Fiacre. We were once lovers long ago, and I told her that we Shadow Princes no longer reproduced. But how could I deny myself the joy of having a son with her for she was perfect. I left my seed in Lara, and when she was ready to give Vartan a child that seed bloomed. I saw to it that the boy had Vartan’s coloring, and when people looked at him as a boy they saw Vartan through the magic with which I surrounded him.”

Kaliq chuckled. “Lara has always thought Dillon gained his magic through her and her faerie blood. But he has my blood, too. He came to me for training when he was twelve. He is now twenty-two, and a great sorcerer. The perfect king for Belmair, and the perfect mate for the fair Cinnia, the sorceress of Belmair.”

“She is a great sorceress,” Nidhug said proudly. “I have taught her myself. But a Hetarian as Belmair’s king? I do not know, my lord Kaliq.”

“He was not born in Hetar, nor has he ever lived there. He was born in the Outlands into the Clan Fiacre. He was raised by the Fiacre, and later in Terah by his mother and his stepfather, Magnus Hauk, its Dominus. And for almost half his life he has lived with me.”

Nidhug nodded, but then she said, “For all its lands with their differences it is still considered the world of Hetar, and the boy’s grandsire was Hetarian.”

“With faerie blood in his veins, as well,” Kaliq responded. “Trust me, Nidhug. Dillon is meant to be Belmair’s new king and Cinnia’s husband.”

“Show him to me,” the dragon said quietly.

The prince held out his palm, and blew into it until a large iridescent bubble had formed itself into a perfect sphere. Then he gently waved his hand over it.

The dragon peered into it and saw a handsome young man with dark hair and blue eyes. He sat on a bench in earnest conversation with a lovely young girl while three young children played about them. “Who are the others?” Nidhug asked.

“The girl he speaks with is his sister, Anoush, daughter of Vartan. The other three are Magnus Hauk’s offspring. The older girl is Zagiri, and the twins are Taj and Marzina.”

“The twins are quite dissimilar,” the dragon noted.

“Yes,” the prince replied. “Kol, the Twilight Lord, caught Lara on the Dream Plain, and implanted his seed within her. As her husband had just gotten her with child that seed quickly took root, and the children were born together, and assumed to be twins.”

“I thought Kol was imprisoned,” the dragon said.

“He is now,” Kaliq told her. “And he has been forbidden from the Dream Plain for what he did there.”

The dragon nodded. “This is an interesting family whose blood you would mix into Belmair,” she said drily. She peered more closely. The young man was fair of face and sturdy of form. Was he strong enough, however, to rule both Belmair and its sorceress? “Can he wield the power of a Belmairan king firmly? He looks to be a gentle man. But he cannot be! You are asking me to introduce a stranger into Belmair as its new king. The ducal families will not be pleased by a decision such as this.”

“Only Dreng of Beltran has a son,” Kaliq said. “And he is married.”

“But all three dukes have grandsons,” the dragon pointed out.

“Most are not old enough to be king, and the two who are could not control Cinnia,” the great Shadow Prince said quietly. “Fflergant’s sands will be gone in less than three days, Nidhug. Do you think I did not know this time was coming? I did not give Lara my son on a purely sentimental whim.”

“Does he know?” the dragon asked candidly.

“He will before he comes to Belmair,” Kaliq answered her. “I believe he has suspected it, though, for the last few years.”

“And his mother?”

Kaliq smiled. “In time, Nidhug. Lara has only partly fulfilled the destiny that was planned for her. In time she will, but for now it is Belmair’s future we must concern ourselves with. Have you seen enough?”

The dragon looked a final time into the bubble. “He is loving,” she said. “Tender with his three sisters, and thoughtful of the little boy. I can only hope you are correct, my lord prince, and that your son is strong enough to master Cinnia. If he can then he will rule Belmair well. She would be queen of Belmair in her own right, you know. Swear to me that your fatherly pride has not blinded you.”

Kaliq blew gently upon the bubble and it dissolved. “I love him well, I will admit, but he is strong, I promise you, Nidhug. He will be one of Belmair’s great kings.” Reaching out he placed his hand on the dragon’s forehead between her two eyes pressing the heel of it firmly against her skin. “Here is all the knowledge that you will need to know,” he said. “We will speak again soon.” Removing his hand from her forehead, he disappeared from her sight.

The dragon stood for a moment longer, absorbing the knowledge the prince had transferred into her head. Then she looked up at the star she knew as Hetar. It was a crystalline-blue, and it twinkled coldly in the black silk night sky. She would be fortunate not to have an insurrection on her hands when she announced that the next king of Belmair was a Hetarian. While Hetar had lost the history of its beginnings, Belmair knew that history well. Those who called themselves Hetarians were not originally of that world. They had been Belmairans once. But they had chafed against tradition, and caused such trouble among the world’s people that the king of that day had gathered them all up, placed them into a bubble and sent them to the world of Hetar.

She had never bothered to consider exactly what had happened to them because it didn’t matter as long as they were no longer able to cause trouble for Belmair; Kaliq had given her that knowledge when he had touched her forehead. For centuries in their arrogance and pride, the Hetarians had existed in another bubble of sorts, believing themselves the only denizens of their world but for a people they called Outlanders.

The Outlanders and the Terahns were Hetar’s original inhabitants. Like the Hetarians, the lord of the Dark Lands had come later. But now all knew that the other existed. The women of Hetar were in revolt against the government that kept them subjugated because of their sex, as their ancestors had once been in revolt against the ruler of Belmair for wanting change. And from this madness the next king would come.

Nidhug shook her head. She had to trust the great Shadow Prince, for of all the creatures in the cosmos he was the one who stood highest in the Originator’s favor. If he said Dillon of Hetar was to be Belmair’s next king, then it must be so. The dragon unfolded her golden wings again and rose into the night sky to fly back to her castle. The dawn was just beginning to pull at the edges of the sky when she gained her own battlements. As her large, clawed feet touched the stone roof she shrank down to a more manageable and less frightening size.

Watching her come, Tavey marveled at the beauty and the magnificence of his mistress. He stepped forward immediately as she landed, bowing. “Your oil bath is ready, mistress. And Sarabeth has prepared a small breakfast for you,” he told her.

“I will soak my scales first,” Nidhug told him. “Will there be cinnamon rolls?”

“Only three trays, mistress. The cook thought that while you would be hungry this morning, you would not want to feel too full. She’s done a nice kettle of porridge, two hams and four dozen boiled eggs for you, as well.”