When he found Sena, he would pull the boy into an embrace. He would tell his son: You are noble, you are strong and pure, and I will never be a weak father to you, for you make me proud.
Down several staircases and halls, he reached the tall bronze doors of his children's chamber. Without knocking, desperate to see his son and daughter, Raem barged into the room.
He froze.
His heart seemed to fall still.
His breath died.
The chamber was large, nearly as large as a throne room. A mosaic featuring birds, beasts, and fish covered the floor, and blue columns topped with golden capitals supported a ceiling painted with suns and stars. Stone figurines—carved as hunters, cattle, boats, and chariots—stood in alcoves. The chamber's giltwood beds, tables, and divans had been pushed against the walls. In the center of the chamber, nearly filling even this vast room, stood a dragon.
The dragon sported blue scales—blue as the sea outside, blue as the columns, blue as the god Taal's banners. The beast's horns were long and white, and its eyes seemed young, afraid.
Raem's youngest child, the beautiful Princess Issari, stood before the dragon. Her raven braid hung across her shoulder, and a headdress of topaz gemstones and golden olive leaves crowned her head. Clad in a slim, white gown hemmed with golden tassels, she had her hand upon the dragon's snout.
"Father," the princess whispered. She withdrew her hand and stepped backward.
"Father," said the dragon, speaking with the same fear . . . and changed.
The beast's wings pulled into its back. Its scales, horns, and claws vanished. It stood on its rear legs and shrank, becoming a young man clad in white.
"Sena," Raem whispered. His eyes watered. "My son . . . you are . . ."
Raem trembled. He could barely see; the world turned red with his rage. He raised his sword, and he shouted, and his children fled from him, and all the palace, and all the city, and all the kingdom seemed to collapse around him.
LAIRA
On her twentieth autumn, Laira knelt in the mud, scrubbing her chieftain's feet.
"Clean them good, you maggot," Zerra said and spat upon her. "I think I stepped on some boar dung. Fitting for a piece of shite like you."
The chieftain—clad in furs, his face leathery, his shaggy hair wild—sat upon a fallen log peppered with holes. Mud squelched below them, and patches of yellow grass covered the surrounding hills like thinning hair on old scalps. Few trees grew here, only a few scattered oaks and elms crowned with red leaves. Mossy boulders lay strewn like the scattered teeth of a giant. It was a place of mist, of wind, of mud and rock.
The Goldtusk tribe had been traveling south for two moons now, seeking the warm coast for the coming winter. There would be fish there, herds of bison, and geese to hunt, a place of plenty for the cold moons. Zerra boasted that the weak villagers, those who built walls and plowed fields, suffered in the snow, while he—leading a proud tribe that followed ancient ways—would give his people warm air and full bellies even in the winter.