“We had to act fast to repair the damage that had been done. Fortunately, Draconas provided us with the means. He came up with the idea of the human king mating with the human female— a High Priestess of Seth—producing a son that would be strong in the dragon-magic; a son who would then be sent in to deal with Maristara. Draconas later abandoned that plan, but Grald and I saw how it could be useful to us. I persuaded Draconas to go through with it. The humans mated and the female was impregnated. Then Grald also planted his seed in the human female, impregnating her with a child that would be half-human, half-dragon.

“Even that went awry. Grald’s orders were to abduct the human female and carry her safely to Dragonkeep before impregnating her, but he could not control the lust of the human body in which he is housed. Still, all would have been well if Draconas had obeyed my orders. He was supposed to bring the two babies to me. He took it upon himself to defy me, however. He had developed a bond with these humans, and he felt guilty about being the cause of the death of the mother. And he now knew that there was someone in the Parliament in collusion with the dragons. He felt he could trust no one among us.”

“He was right,” Malfiesto growled.

Anora ignored him. “Grald feared that Braun had discovered the location of Dragonkeep. Whether that was true or not, we’ll never know. We couldn’t chance it. He argued that Braun had to die and, reluctantly, I agreed. I was afraid that Braun’s death would only increase Draconas’s suspicions, which it did. He tried to keep the children hidden from us—an impossible task, for they had the dragon-magic in their blood, and that meant that, sooner or later, they must open their minds to us.

“Grald and I found the half-dragon child, but Draconas intervened before we could capture him and spirit him away. Draconas warned the child against using the magic and, wonder of wonder, the child obeyed him, at least until he reached manhood and found himself in trouble. Then he turned to his father. Grald discovered his half-dragon son and rescued him from humans, who thought he was devil-spawn or some such superstitious nonsense.

“The other child, the king’s son, went insane, as do so many human males with the dragon-magic, and we hoped he would die and we would not have to worry about him. But Draconas meddled in this and saved the boy. Not only that, Draconas taught him how to use the magic. The boy grew to manhood and is one of the strongest in dragon-magic we have produced. And one of the most dangerous,” Anora added grimly, “for the prince has the ability to enter the minds of dragons, something no human has ever been capable of doing before.