On the one hand, Clement was happy that his betrothed was not some sickly young lady, but a self-assured beauty. She had dragon charm. Uncle hadn’t let him down after all. It was worth thanking him, if only he could persuade Raymonda not to give up a marriage imposed by circumstances. Clement was not so naïve as not to realize that Raymonda needed him only for some ambitious purpose. Court ladies are not amorous, unlike cavaliers who sigh for them. And what to speak of the dragon princess! Though she is of fire, she is as cold as ice when it comes to love feelings.

«You speak to me as if I were an outsider!» Raymonda frowned. She seemed to have known Abraham for a long time. «Why should you? It is because I’ve changed a little since I turned into a dragon.»

«By the way, how do you feel about your new appearance?» My uncle was glad to see her at her mercy, and so he switched back to the familiar «you,» as if Princess Raymonde were as related and apprenticed to him as Clement himself. Abraham was used to teaching magic to royalty. Maybe Raymonda’s magic skills were his doing?

«Scales like armor, but fire sometimes suffocates from within. I need to burn something or someone. For instance, if I don’t breathe out a jet of flame on the first thing that comes up (even a field of plowmen I pass by), I’ll suffocate,» she described her current state.

«So you can’t control yourself?» Abraham looked worried.

«Not always!»

«And when Clement is around you don’t feel an influx of magical power? They say it’s supposed to happen to the protector of the chosen one.»

«Who says so?»

«Well,» his uncle hesitated. «My living witchcraft folio says so.»

«And these…» «Raymonda retracted the claws she’d already released. «You can’t argue with witchcraft books. You still keep them in chains, like prisoners, so they don’t draw an army to the library. Think what it would be like if their voices turned a mass of people into zombies, ready to wreck the world. By the way, if your nephew wants to get great power, he should talk to your books. They might make him lose his will and make him smash everything, or they might make him the wisest! He may be the lucky one.»

«He might be more comfortable with you.»

«I am not with him. He is more of a burden than a gift. And what guarantee is there that he’s the one I’m looking for? You remember how many mistakes I’ve made.»

«Don’t be so fussy! He may be the one who can help you.»

Clement suspected something was wrong. Wasn’t it her job to help him?

«He’s cute, but he’s talentless,» Raymunda pronounced.

«He could be the Chosen One who could save everyone, humans and your supernatural friends alike. If he weren’t, Shai’s Lord wouldn’t be after him.»

She had her ears pricked up long before Clement could hear the sounds below the cave. A party of riders was galloping through the valley. In the darkness they could not even tell if they wore black armor or regular armor.

«If they weren’t from Shai…»

But Raymonda was already at the cave’s exit, hovering in flight over the rocks and blowing out a jet of hot, bright fire. The orange flames seemed like dawn in the night. The squad of riders burst into flames like a handful of matches.

And she could do that without turning into a dragon! Clement couldn’t help but marvel. Well, now! He was beginning to admire her atrocities instead of dreading them. He would soon get to the point of what the rogue had foretold of him in the Piazza.

Raymonda turned and stepped lightly back into the cave from the light, silvery cloud that appeared to have formed under her feet as she hovered over the mountain. The scales that had grown a half-mask over her face instantly disappeared when she stopped breathing fire. Clement noticed that the scales on her face only formed when she was ready to breathe fire.

«The threat is gone!» Raymonda proclaimed, brushing the unruly strands behind her ear. Her ears were as sharp as an elf’s, with tracery along the length of their stalks.

«Well done!» His uncle complimented her on the fact that she’d just made an entire auto-da-fe. They didn’t even know if the cavalcade was a threat. «You must keep him safe!»

Clement is tired of being talked about as if he isn’t around.

«And how did you two meet?» He asked his uncle and Raymonda.

They both looked at him in confusion.

«You could ask the same question about how we met you,» uncle grinned. «I paid courtesies in the Southern Kingdom of Livellin long ago, and am a friend of the King, and therefore tutor to all his children.»

«What does this have to do with the kingdom of Livellin? Wasn’t Princess Raymonda an elf?» Clement didn’t understand. «She lived in the woods! I was sure she was an elf!»

Abraham laughed this time. «She is a Livellin’s princess. But you’re right about the elf blood. Her mother was of elves’ blood. So my lessons have taught you something. You’ve learned a thing or two, even though I thought you were a slacker.»

«Am I slacker?» Clement flared up.

His uncle had never spoken to him so familiarly before. He would never have dared to call the Crown Prince a slacker. But now his title was in doubt. Clement felt like a criminal on the run.

He couldn’t help but think of the moment uncle Abraham had found him in the woods after the fight with the boar. Clement had no life left on him. If he hadn’t found the forest spring of healing water, he would have died of blood loss himself. The black boar, which he chased, turned out to be a witch creature. He could not shoot it to death. Even with a dozen arrows in its hackle it was strong. She had to fight him in a fight. That’s when Clement realized he could wield a dagger as well as an arrow. In the morning, as he was aiming his wounds at the spring, his uncle appeared out of nowhere to tell him the kingdom was gone. That is, it had been occupied by the beasts of Shai.

«And why didn’t all those monster invaders live in Shai?» Clement asked belatedly.

«It was too small for them,» Raymonda answered in place of his uncle. She must have known the monsters of Shai well. Perhaps they had taken her country, too. «They want to conquer the world.»

«And they have started with us! It was bad luck!»

«Well, all right! You’ll settle this without me!» Abraham was glad that Clement and Raymond could communicate without an intermediary. «Your wedding will most likely take place in the woodland realm of the elves. Princess Raymonda’s relatives live there. They may also reveal to you some magical secrets to help you fight Shai’s lord. I’ll pass. My meager knowledge of magic is not enough to fight the invaders.»

And that’s the advice of a wizard! Clement had hoped that his uncle, who had sat through some witchcraft folio, might have found some means of combat. It was all an empty hope! He would have to survive on his own, just as he had when he fought the black boar. Except there was only one boar, and the Shai invaders came in hordes. And if he were to disappoint Raymonda in any way, she would be more attacker than protector.

She had a sly twinkle in her eye as she watched Clement. He already knew that she could light a witch’s fire right there in the cave and start dancing around it through the air, so that her feet barely touched the flames. If one day she drags him into such a dance, as in a dream, he will burn.

Uncle was about to leave, and not in the usual way, but in a magical way. A dark shimmering cloud formed around his feet, shod in oriental shoes with sharp curved toes.

«Learn! Work! Get married! What else can you do?» gave uncle Abraham’s parting admonitions, before finally disappearing into the black shimmering vortex.

Indeed! What else is left? Learning magic is almost a waste of time. For a non-talented student, it’s gibberish. He was accustomed to toil with a mediocre sword. Marrying a dragoness, on the other hand, was new. Raymonda shot a steady stream of flame through the air.

«If there’s no wedding, are you going to burn me?» Clement guessed.

«I can burn you before the wedding!»

What a beast! But she’s pretty.

«But don’t be afraid! You’re very pretty, so live for now.»

In a way, Clement was glad. After all, his fiancée was the girl he’d fallen in love with for the first time in his life. There you go! The fool had been made happy! At least Raymonda was a werewolf! He’d marry a dragon for that much gold.

«Don’t think of it as my dowry,» she said. Raymonde surmised what he had in mind. She’d probably had suitors who’d asked her out of greed before. She must have been scorning them all for a reason.

«I don’t give a damn!» Clement sneered. «I’ve got enough gold in the palace myself.»

«You don’t own the palace now,» said Raymonda reasonably.

Well, she’s right. Clement looked grim. No alternative but to take up residence in the cave or the woods.

«Don’t worry! We’ll try to fix that.»

She picked up the blue star-embroidered cloak she’d draped over the pile of treasures below.

«Where are you off to in the middle of the night?»

«To look for someone to burn and eat instead of you!»

Is she serious?

«You mean you’d roast a traveler on a spit with your breath?»

But she was already gone. He wondered what she was doing to her victims. Maybe she’s burning them without a spit.

Clement didn’t want to spend the night in a dragon cave, but there was nowhere else to go. There wasn’t even a bunk, so he’d have to sleep on a pile of gold. That’s romantic, of course. Everyone dreams of gold mines, but when there’s nothing left around, gold doesn’t seem so valuable anymore. What he needs now is a soft bed and a feather bed, or at least a straw mattress. But there’s nothing like that here! It was only hard metal all around and hard gems.

He caught hold of a pile of coins, from which large elves’ doubloons immediately fell and rolled across the floor. Either Raymonda had put new coinage on them herself with magic, or she had taken them from the magical creatures. She probably robs not only humans, but elves as well. Seizing the mint and forcing the intimidated workers to melt coins with the new coat of arms is unlikely.

In the silence, the gold seemed to sing as the coins tinkled against each other and rolled along the bottom of the cave. Perhaps Raymonda was right, and her gold was enchanted.

Clement looked outside. The mountains of ash left by the burned troop were settling in the valley. The ash swirled over the ground. It was too high, swirling in spirals and resembling faces. Clement had the feeling that the ghosts from the ashes were calling to him again. Here, as there, the ashes were folded into living moaning masks. They were squirming and giving disgusting advice.

«Lead her away! Seduce and kill her! Are you on the side of the arsonist?»

And now it was no longer the masks, but the faces of the demons of Shai.

Clement stepped back from exhaling from the cave and hid between the golden slides. He didn’t want to hear the advice of the evil spirits. It was a good thing they hadn’t even looked into the cave.