To Marry a Dragon

27. Invincible Elvira

The part of Elvira that was still alive registered three things at once.

One, that Cerne rushed to Ferrante's side and pressed her green hands over the mortal wound.

"Let's see whose magic is fickle!" Cerne darted a cocky glance at Lord Eldwin, before her flesh veined through the fallen paladin's like ivy. Out of rich garden soil, the golden-orange pot marigolds pushed, and yarrow and plantain, covering him in a living shroud—no!

Not a shroud, no, please, no! Elvira's heart begged.

Two, Elvira herself stood over two fallen dragons in the company of the High Priest, Baron of Lotarna from the South, and the equally important barons, at least one each from the West, East and North, and their ladies.

Three, Lord Eldwin rolled to his chest, and attempted to get to all fours. He moved slower than he must have imagined, painfully, but he tried to crawl away. The ground and rose branches around him whitened with hoar frost. His every breath was ice smog.

Elvira turned to the Baron of Lotarna. "Your sword, Sir."

The stout man hesitated, but his Baroness nudged him. He knelt—an obvious source of Theophil's fine manners—and extended his sword.

It was a ceremonial weapon, heavily decorated, but Baron of Lotarna was the kind of man who kept all his weapons sharp.

She hefted the sword up in a two-handed overhead grip.

"In the name of deBriavel, in the name of Gallicia, we, Queen Elvira, sentence you to die for the murder of the Crown Prince Eugene and the Royal Princess Clarice deBriavel and for your blasphemous strike on a man, when bound by the life-giving light's oath."

The High Priest nodded to her words, agreeing.

She swung and chopped down, never expecting to take the head clean off Lord Eldwin's shoulders. But the strike, powered by all her fears, grief and the desire to avenge her family, landed true. In that moment, Lord Eldwin was all evil in the world for her, every oppressor and reprobate in one.

And she beheaded him.

In the silence that greeted the sight of the head rolling under the rosebush, Sigvart bit into his apple with an explosive crunch. Even princes can't chew apples soundlessly.

The crunching re-animated the gathering.

"What now, my Queen?" the Baron of Lotarna asked, as Elvira plunged his blade into the fertile soil to clean the steel. "Would Your Majesty marry the Prince of Oest..." he gave Sigvart a look of distaste, "as your parents had wanted?"

Ferrante, who dazedly set up just now, made a choking sound and ripped a bunch of marigolds out of his chest.

Cerne whispered urgently into his ear.

He waved her off and struggled to his feet, also glaring at Sigvart.

Sigvart clapped Baron of Lotarna on the shoulder. "Your Lordship, I expended colossal efforts to not marry Her Majesty. Why, I think no man alive labored harder to avoid being hitched to a lady of rare beauty and grace. Don't allow my achievement to be in vain. Keep me out of Gallicia's sovereign business of succession, my lords and ladies."

Elvira almost sniggered in a non-majestic way. She yearned to run over to Ferrante, press her ear against his chest and listen to the beats of his heart. Instead, she stood her ground.

"Barons of South, West, East and North," she said, "Lord Eldwin's execution changes nothing in what I had promised already. I stand ready to serve Gallicia as the Queen. But I will not wed at all, or I will wed Count Ferrante Rastelli."

Sigvart helpfully inserted, "That's him, the black dragon paladin." He pointed, and Elvira couldn't resist looking at her beloved. Ferrante brimmed with health, despite the strange outfit of greenery. Cerne disappeared, but an acorn lay in the middle of his gauntleted hand.

"I do not wish to press you into any decision that you would regret. Deliberate at your leisure, under the guidance of the Holy Priests of Light. If you chose to crown me..."

Elvira untangled the tiara from her hair and handed it to Baroness of Lotarna. It took longer than expected because of all the running and squeezing her temples in terror and cracking her head back to watch the dragons... so her cheeks flushed with embarrassment when she finally handed the tiara over, hung with more than a few brown hairs.

She cleared her throat and repeated herself, "if you chose to offer the last deBriavel the crown of Gallicia, you will find me in Rastelli's Castle in Monterrey."

Then she finally did what she had dreamed of every night. She approached Ferrante, walking as if on clouds, her arms outstretched, and took his hands in hers. "If you would host me, Count."

"I shall deliver you there in two days, my lady, without ever stopping," Ferrante promised. "Your dryad friend... Oh! The acorn! Here."

He stuffed Cerne's acorn into her belt-pouch.

"Your dread friend cast the spell of exceptional power to save my life. It imparts a living force and energy of ten men on me, so if I stand still much longer without my heart exploding. I will carry you, and I require no sustenance or respite."

Indeed, his always passionate eyes glittered maniacally, and his gesticulating became alarmingly intense. A vein throbbed on his neck with an accelerating pulse.

"Maybe you don't, but she needs to eat," Sigvart said, tossing his shoulder bag over to Elvira. "Bread and cheese, Majesty, Highness... or whatever you are at this particular hour."

"A Knight," Elvira said, smiling. "I am still a knight and I'll always remain a knight."

Next to her, Ferrante flowed into his dragon form and stretched his great wings. They flapped once, twice... lifting him up into the air again. He scooped her up into his claws and the square rushed away.

Sigvart cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed his farewell. "Go easy on the prunes, Your Knightness!"

Or maybe he screamed something else. Elvira didn't care, because pressed to Ferrante's chest, she could hear the loud, even thumps of his heart just like she wanted to. And it was the only thing she wanted to listen to for a while. This was all that mattered just now.