To Marry a Dragon

20. Knife in the Back

There was no explosion. The branches withered and crumpled into black dust as if imbued by venom in a subtle show of magic the likes of which Elvira had never seen. Without the bombastic side, the spell felt sinister. Her jaw hung ajar, making her look even stupider for sending the soldiers running. Luckily, all eyes were on the gibbet that kept disintegrating, not on her face.

The wooden platform was empty.

"The Light's command is done," she said in a shaking voice.

The Lord Protector echoed her with an unruffled, "Indeed, it is."

His face showed absolutely nothing. No anger, no disappointment. Nothing. Then, without much of a pause, he added, as if they hadn't fought a duel of wills just now, "I request the pleasure of your company for dinner, Dame. We have the matters of policy to discuss."

"Splendid," Elvira replied, digging deep for a sweet smile. "I would be grateful to partake of your wisdom." Stuff it in your pipe and smoke it.

She couldn't defy him openly, not yet. This wasn't her battlefield. Lord Eldwin had been a de facto ruler for a dozen years, and a popular advisor to her father for many years before that. He wasn't a man to be ignored by a princess or a knight. After a polite farewell, she begged a leave to attend to her toilette.

It was still a mystery to her if Lord Eldwin had achieved what he wanted, but dared not to scan the wall top for Raul. The only way to find out if Sigvart was alive was terrible. Yet, with that wicked spell she had witnessed, she couldn't stand not knowing if the unfortunate vagabond had dissolved into nothingness.

As soon as she caught a lull in the flow of servants in a narrow hall, she threw herself at Theophil, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Theophil, you are so brave!"

I like him, like him very much, why not him as my lover? I am so lonely and afraid; oh, light, I need a man, I need somebody to love me if I am to survive this. The feverish litany came easily enough—she liked him, he was built to comfort, and he was close to her in every way that counted.

The knight's honest face flushed with such a genuine unhoped-for surprise, the fulfillment of his every wish that 'I am so sorry' slipped off her tongue before she tried to press her lips onto Theophil's...his lips parted behind the curls of his moustache, either in astonishment or in anticipation...

The strike of lightning was comforting in several ways.

Firstly, Theophil wouldn't be the first man she'd kiss. Secondly, the gnomes' spell was failable. And, most importantly, Sigvart was still alive!

The discoveries jolted Elvira as much as the electricity did, as she kneeled over the fallen knight. She wore silks and velvets, he wore a metal armour, so he got the worst of it.

"Theophil? Please, wake up!" Oh, Light life-giving, she shouldn't have trifled with lightning!

"Theophil?" She shook his shoulder, and, to her relief, his eyelids trembled.

"You are alive! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She would have smooched him on both cheeks if she didn't feel that it might finish him. Sturdy as he was, Theophil didn't have Ferrante's dragon blood to take on the barrage.

"What happened, Your Highness?"

"I am not a Princess yet, good Sir," she corrected quietly, patting his arm.

His insistence on using the title that hadn't been confirmed yet by the nobility of Gallicia send her mind spinning. It made her proud despite rejecting her birthright years ago. Did she want it? Theophil's fealty and the fealty of others like him? No matter. It wasn't what she wanted to do; it was what she must do.