Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3) (2 page)

To say nothing of the people who’d rather not live in a world with dragons. I don’t know how many there are, but there are a lot. Some of them are farmers. You haven’t seen tears till you’ve seen a grown man weeping over the remains of his prize cow.

Chapter 2

I showered, patched myself up, and went to see Mina in her apartments. These were underground, in what used to be storerooms.

My political rivals would say that my house is full of dungeons and torture chambers. The truth is that the family has never been into cruelty. Our motto, in fact, is
Swift Death to Our Enemies
. Emphasis on swift. When we must kill, we do so cleanly. Not a very cheery motto, I know. I’d have changed it to
It’s Always Happy Hour Somewhere
, but the heraldic court is a hassle.

Veneanar Castle never had prison cells. What it does have are cellars big enough to feed a small army. Mina doesn’t lack for space. I found her in her office, arranging my itinerary.

“Don’t I have an assistant for that?” I asked.

“Dagonet is meeting with your tenants.” She didn’t look up from the feybooks. “Lamemheth or Pithe?”

“We start with Pithe and end with Lamemheth. This way we don’t run out of money because
somebody
had a bad day at the casinos.”

“That only happened once! And I paid you back!”

“And that time with Conrad?”

She pouted. I crossed my arms. “Won’t work on me,” I said. “I’m not your boyfriend. Where is he, by the way?”

“Probably still bathing.” Mina’s apartments didn’t have a shower. We’d had enough problems with humidity.

I pulled up a chair. There were a few regular-sized ones for guests: they seemed oversized among the rest of Mina’s furniture.

The place had come a long way. It used to be dark, dank, and dungeonlike. Worse, it had smelled of armpits and old towels. I’d almost given her rooms upstairs. She refused. Just because I was prince didn’t mean I could ignore the law, she said. In fact, I should set an example
because
I was prince.

“Stupid law,” I’d said. “Just wait till I’m king...”

I was referring to the decree that barred dwarves from the surface. They could go out to trade, but they were forbidden from making their homes aboveground. This didn’t sound so bad. I used to think dwarves were like moles, happy to dig and tunnel and snack on earthworms. But then I learned that dwarves didn’t always live underground. Many had been miners, yes, but many more were farmers, foresters, traders. They lived on the plains, but for the most part the dragons left them alone. Dwarven magic didn’t threaten the beasts. Dwarven goods made excellent bribes.

Like magpies and wyverns, dragons loved shiny things. A jewelled crown would buy your village months of ‘protection’, nevermind that a dragon couldn’t possibly wear it.

After the Dragon Wars, we elves called out the dwarves on their so-called neutrality. Elf and dwarf met on the battlefield. We won, and that’s why the world is the way it is.

“Anything I need to know about your rooms?” I asked. “How’s the ventilation?”

She looked up. “Are you trying to change the subject? You can’t dodge this tour forever.”

It had taken a lot to make the cellars liveable. They were close to the moat so dampness was a problem. I’d personally sealed the walls, floors, and ceilings with teflar and armorglass. The teflar was cheap but I went all the way to Drystone for the glass makings.

I was the only one who knew where Valandil had gotten his white sand and telling others didn’t feel right. Not unless they were my apprentice, and really, when was I going to have time to train an apprentice? Politics is a full-time job.

I’d wanted to insulate Mina’s apartments, but it wasn’t necessary. It was cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and constant no matter the weather. I had still needed vinyrral tiles, however. The solar chimney didn’t work at night, or on cloudy days. With the tiles the chimney had a dependable supply of heat, allowing it to work around the clock. Problem was, they don’t make vinyrral tiles anymore. I’d been forced to buy an old townhouse for materials.

Afterward we found out that when you pump air underground you get another humidity problem. No matter how much you seal the walls they’ll still sweat when warm air hits cold masonry. I sketched a system to draw off the excess moisture but Mina said I didn’t have time for that. Shame.

We compromised by installing brine waterfalls. The stone panels hung from the walls and the salt water trickled down and filled the rooms with a gentle sound.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Gotta visit the bathroom.”

The waterfalls took care of the wet-dog smell. And, I must admit, they were soothing when you didn’t have a full bladder. I took a look at one on my way back. The stone was carved with a pattern of leaves and branches. The water glittered under the spotlight, sunshine piped down from the roof.

“If you’re done being an artist, Angrod, I’d like to you to try being a prince.”

I coughed. “We’ll just do the tour like we did time before last. Start with Pithe and continue clockwise around the map. Focus on coastal villages this time.”

It was hard to be crown prince when there hadn’t been a royal court for a thousand years. Civilization had moved on, which was bad, because I needed to stay ahead of my enemies. How to do that, when the realm worked fine without me? How to restore a monarchy, even a constitutional one, when the council of governors ran things well enough?

But as Mina pointed out, they
didn’t
run things to everyone’s satisfaction. Silly me. Many dwarves lived and died without ever seeing the sky. And there were the halflings, the invisible majority. There were even the humans. By elven law, none of these people had any rights.

There was also the youngest generation of elves, my age group. The few, the frustrated, the future. We hated how our elders denied us real responsibility. We resented how they looked down on our lack of experience. Just because most of us were barely in our second century…

It turned out there was a lot that a budding politician could do, if he was willing to start at the bottom. As Mina put it, where else could you gather compost for your mushroom farm?

“I love your metaphors,” I said.

“I suppose you would call it starting from the grass roots.”

“No, no, I like your wording better. When do we start spreading bullshit?”

Heronimo and Cruix joined us as we were going over the details. The dragon was in elf form. His hair was silver while mine was wavy and black. Otherwise we could have been twins. If Cruix hadn’t mastered that hair-colouring spell early on, we’d be identical.

His ability to shapeshift was a lucky accident. We’d focused on survival, on creating a viable body so Cruix wouldn’t have to share mine. There hadn’t been time for anything fancy. As a result, Cruix could choose to be a dragon or an elf.

Can I shapeshift too? In theory, yes, but I’ve never tried. Changing your body that drastically is like giving birth, or turning inside-out starting with your arsehole. The pain is horrendous, let me tell you, worse than gnawing off your own arm. I don’t know how Cruix does it. Anyway, I don’t have to change shape to fit in, so I won’t be turning into a dragon in the foreseeable future.

Cruix elbowed Heronimo. “Look at him, deep in thought,” Cruix said. “Either that or he’s constipated.”

“Do you need more fibre, Angrod?” Heronimo asked. “Shall I brew some Northlands tea?”

“Gods, no,” I said. “Not a fan of the lichen.”

“You sure? It’ll put hair on your chest.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What’re you afraid of?” Meerwen asked. She was coming down the stairs.

“Meerwen!” I said. “I mean, it’s good to see you.”

I got up to embrace her and she cocked her head. “You’re limping,” she said.

“I was just training with Heronimo.” I hobbled back to my chair.

“You both take sparring too far. What did they break this time?”

Mina didn’t look up. “A landscape by kirlianist painter Meleth Lanraion. The only known portrait of General Angus Veneanar. Two Lavin III chairs and one table shaped out of a living tree. One full suit of armour in the Iminyan style. Numerous antique weapons of considerable craftsmanship. Plus the fountain in the courtyard. All damaged and diminished in value.”

“Pfft,” I said. “It’s just old stuff. The castle is full of it. I’d have unloaded it years go—”

“Your Uncle and Auntie were shocked when you said you were going to have a ‘dungeon sale’ and invite the whole city,” Heronimo said. “Auntie Marilla was in tears.”

“Haha, I remember,” Cruix said. “They offered to take a pay cut because they thought you needed money. To spare you the humiliation of auctioning off the heirlooms, they were even going to hand over their savings.”

I grimaced. I loved those two old servants. They’d practically raised me. “I didn’t expect them to take it so badly.”

Cruix snickered. “Uncle Erumaren said:
No Lord Veneanar has ever needed to fall upon charity. To sell the family treasures for so little of their true worth…
”

I threw up my hands. “I was just trying to lighten up the place! It’s like living in a military museum!”

“It’s nice that there’s so much history here,” Meerwen said. “Not many heirlooms in my father’s house.”

Cruix grinned. “I wouldn’t expect there to be, considering—” I gave him a look. “I mean, what brings you here, Angrod’s girlfriend?”

“The Royal Guard was on a training exercise nearby. I’m here on leave.”

“Couldn’t get enough of me,” I said, leaning back on my hands.

She poked me in the belly. “Getting a little full of yourself, aren’t we? But it’s good to see you guys.”