Dragons and Princes - [COMPLETE]

5. Marquis

Marquis Morganthe watched the Freyja retreat in the early morning light, his mind in chaos. Morgana had been lulled by the song, had felt a stirring of the sorrow that hummed beneath the words, and she pulled out of her dive before she landed upon the Freyja to devour and destroy them. They never saw her, never thought to look up beyond the very trees over them, for the great black dragon of the night would surely have been spotted in the golden morning light had they done so. Even when she fled the sound of that terrible, dark song, she could not get away from it. Her acute hearing carried the haunting echoes with her until she twisted with her wings in mid-stroke and crashed into the forest. Marquis’s heart continued to beat at an odd rhythm, twisting in his chest. He saw through his dragon’s eyes as his brother took his last breath, saw the silver tears in Faeana’s eyes when she wept and bowed her head to scream, and he felt Morgana’s anguish when the great black dragon echoed the scream with a roar. Faeana’s guards had resorted to dragging her away when she tried to cling to the body, refusing to accept that her enemy had died. She had cried for his brother– his brother.

The Freyja princess felt–and more strongly than he had ever imagined any Freyja capable of doing so. More strongly than any Fenrir or human he’d known. It dawned on him that the Freyja hid that they felt because it penetrated everything around them. Marquis had seen the trees beginning to wither with the sorrow she unleashed, had watched her guards driven to their knees by the weight of it, had witnessed how it affected their armored cats and even the Fenrir and their wolves farther in the forest. Could a being truly feel so strongly that they had to wall it off in order to keep from destroying what was around them . . .? Could emotions be powerful enough to affect the environment . . .? His eyes had seen the very proof of this, and yet he was almost unable to accept what he’d seen. It felt unreal.

Even as he and his men approached his brother, Marquis’s body weakened, and he went to one knee and clutched at his chest. "My prince!" several exclaimed, catching him even as he lifted his blood-red gaze to his brother’s body.

Eirik is dead . . . It could not be, yet even as he stared at his brother’s empty eyes, the words kept repeating themselves in his head. Over and over, and over. Eirik is dead . . . He couldn’t cry . . . He swallowed, and his tongue was dry, and his body was trembling, but he could not . . . A void had opened in him; it felt as though everything he had ever known had been ripped into pieces and been burned within him. He could hardly breathe, and his heart hurt still from that song. His men were uneasy, as they had been struck by it as well, but the song struck him more strongly because of Morgana the Black, and something else, though he knew not what. It left him weak, and though he looked upon his brother’s fresh remains, he could not believe Eirik was truly dead.

He bowed his head, shutting his eyes tightly when his vision began to blur, and he felt Morgana snarl, shaking off the effects of the lulling song. "What have I done . . .?" he whispered, horrified. If he’d waited . . . if he’d just waited . . .

Morgana’s scales ruffled, and her claws dug into the earth, tearing the rock and ruin beneath her great black body, and he jolted when she seized his mind with hers to examine him. She was a curious dragon, and deadly. With a scoff, the great beast tested his knowledge of his own name and slapped her tail against a tree bitterly. Marquis Morganthe. A werewolf prince. She was curious about why he stalled in his wish to kill the werecat female. Morgana wanted to eat her just for having been sung into a trance. Her will was her own, not her dragonling’s. He might have taken her mind and merged his with it, but he did not own her like he did his wolf, and she would punish him if he tried to control her again. She would kill everything he loved and hated, and leave him with nothing to love or hate. He would have nothing to drive him but Morgana’s will if he tried it again.

The great dragon lifted her talons and inspected them with her great golden eyes, purring rather like a Freyja’s armored frey cat. She had a dragonling. How odd, but she rather liked it. He was her little treasure. She didn’t mind leaving her lair so much now. Her dragonling was a Fenrir prince. No other dragon had a dragonling who was not pure Ajatar. She was special, and it excited her. Dragons loved rare things more often than naught.

"What have I done . . .?" Marquis choked again. He opened his eyes and stared in the direction the Freyja princess had gone.

"That was a dragon roar," his men were whispering. "Why is a dragon so far south?"

"It’s a bad omen," one muttered, staring upward through the dead trees. "The trees are dead, like the life’s been drained from them."

"Sorrow," Marquis whispered, dazed as he gazed at the dead trees and the withered leaves. "Her sorrow did this . . ."

What else were Freyja capable of . . .? The idea was frightening, that the Freyja had other secrets, just as he did.

"The dragon did this?" a soldier asked.

No one except for Morgana and himself knew that he had spoken a dragon from the Ajatar lands. Why had that woman shown compassion for his brother? Why now?

Hope bit his burning chest sharply, like a snake had latched onto his flesh and injected its venom. Perhaps there a chance to end the war another way . . .

He put the thought from his mind. He would see to solving the mystery Faeana Dagur had planted in his mind later. Morgana was the key to the end, a key he had stolen, but a key, nonetheless.