Dragons and Princes - [COMPLETE]

7. Faeana

Back at the Den, Faeana held Prince Marquis Morganthe’s letter, reading it over for the fifth time, her heart racing. The ink was spattered with what looked to be small drops of water, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was not water but tears. Fae smelled the salt even as she smelled the ink and the parchment. Faeana wanted to believe what the enemy prince had written, but she could not shake the feeling of foreboding. Something about what he wrote set her ill at ease– or perhaps it was that he had sent her a message at all. Every word was written with haste, and the ink bled where the pen had stopped twice just after a quiver of the stroke in a previous word that made it difficult to read. The hand was fine, but its elegance was less because of the haste, and it made her ponder when it had been written. A full day, it would have taken for Arrand Arkary, of the Lair of the Woodsbite, to reach the perimeter of the mountain on foot with that letter. It had only been a few days since both of their brothers had died.

Faeana winced every instance she read his inappropriately informal use of her first name. She was uncomfortable reading the message, but she continued to read it despite how familiar and informal it was. It gave her an insight to his character that made her want to look away. She wasn’t used to seeing into anyone, and it was strange that words on a paper could give that insight. Even journal entries from her ancestors had been more formal and less revealing.

Sweet Faeana,

You gave my brother Eirik more than I was able to in his last moments. You, a Freyja woman. I was sure you would end his life when I saw your dagger unsheathed, and I was enraged that you would take him from me before I could reach him, but instead you gave him hope of living longer, and you did for him what not even I was able to do in my absence, giving him a sense of peace as he passed. I am indebted to you for the gift you gave to Eirik. I imagine that had he survived, he would have made sure you were not harmed, and I would have agreed with that wish because you knelt by him instead of killing him, because you sang to him rather than gutting him.

Never have I heard a song such as the one I heard you sing, nor could I have imagined the destruction nature could be punished with, should one of your kind show the force of such a song. It occurs to me there are a great many things we have not learned of each other’s race, and that our ignorance is perhaps why every attempt at peace has failed so miserably in the past. Again, I want to iterate to you alone, beyond my cousin Arrand’s delivered words, that peace must come between us. I cannot lose more of my family, and I know you to be just as determined. Because of the compassion you showed Eirik, I pray I can spare you another loss as well, sweet Faeana.

Send Fae to the peak of Mount Raya when the moon is black, and you will soon after see that our forces are withdrawing, if peace was your answer that Arrand should send to me. We will speak without messenger next time, but that does not seem soon enough, given how this war kills both of our people and takes from us those we love. This war will end one way or another, this I swear on the blood of my ancestors. I pray only that you will assist me, not betray the only hope I have after what I saw and heard in the hours of my brother’s death.

I must warn you, I cannot contain what is to come if we cannot reach peace. There is a danger greater than you might imagine that could end this war, and the cost of that end is horrifying even to me.

Marquis Morganthe

Faeana bit her lower lip again and stopped instantly when she tasted blood, appalled that she had bitten deep enough to draw a cut with her canines. Tonight the moon would be black. Mount Raya was within the Freyja’s own territory. It was the highest peak within their mountain range, and it would take Fae most of the day to reach it. The dread she felt was how close the Fenrir army had drawn, if she was to see it withdrawing with Fae’s eyes. Fae could see far, farther than any Freyja could, but she didn’t have the sight of a dragon.