The Dragon Queen
Book One: Dragon Child
Prologue

The sun was setting to the west, but the sky was already black. Storm clouds gathered overhead, their underbellies painted red by the dying light. The first fat, warm drops fell on the parched earth below and were absorbed instantly by the thirsty ground. Rain fell but seldom on this high desert plateau, and the earth drank it in eagerly. But as if to make up for the infrequent visits, when rain did fall it fell fiercely. Soon the rain was coming down in sheets that seemed solid, drenching the earth past its ability to drink it in. It ran off the now sodden ground to race down gullies and ravines that were normally dry, though water had shaped them. It shaped them now, wearing the soft red sandstone away and picking up the equally red dirt and carrying them with it until the water itself turned red.

The muddy water churned and rushed downhill, the gullies now full to the brim, until it reached a place where the world suddenly stopped. A massive cliff ran, straight as an arrow, from west to east. The drop was dizzying, but the water poured over it with enthusiasm, creating dozens of sudden waterfalls that plunged down to vanish into the gathering darkness. The sun had set and now and the frequent flashes of lightning provided the only illumination.

The bolts jumped from cloud to ground, or from cloud to cloud, with stunning claps of thunder. They were in every color possible, blue, yellow, green, purple, and pure white, and they were blindingly bright. One bolt flashed between the clouds and hit a dark form that passed between them on laboring wings. The light slid and danced for an instant across rain-slicked scales, and then the shape vanished again into the darkness. The next bolt didn't strike it, but it revealed it again, now beneath the clouds, circling down to the drenched earth below. Another flash illuminated its flared wings as it landed. But the next flash after that showed nothing. It had vanished in the instant between one bolt and the next.

The village inn was small, consisting of a moderate public room, a small kitchen in the back, a pair of private rooms above, and a small stable. Right now there were no visitors to stay in the private rooms, there seldom were. The public room as well was nearly empty that night. Only a few souls were hardy enough to brave the watery downpour in search of more pleasant liquids. The innkeeper and his wife sat together at the bar, only occasionally needing to rise and fill a patron's mug. They held hands when they weren't busy, both young and obviously in love. They had run the inn for only a year, since the inkeeper's father had retired and passed it to his son. They didn't make a great deal of money, but they made enough to get by on, and that was all that mattered to them.

So in the relative quiet the sound of the door banging open, letting in the rain and the thunder outside, was loud. The innkeeper turned to see a stranger standing in the doorway. Even if he had not known the face and name of every person in the little village he would still have known she had come from elsewhere. Her clothing was rich, the dress of nobility rather than the peasants that lived there. She was tall also, taller than any man in the room and a wealth of golden hair, wind-blown and rain-sodden now but still striking all the same, fell down her back. She walked into the room and closed the door behind her, shutting out the sound of the storm. Her movements were slow and awkward, and with a kind of shock the innkeeper realized that she was pregnant.

Her manner imperious, despite her condition, she demanded a room. The innkeeper's wife led her up the stairs to one of the private rooms. A few minutes later she came down and, after a quick word to her husband, hurried out the door into the driving rain. When she returned the village midwife was with her. Both women disappeared up the stairs. Some hours passed and the last of the inn's patrons went home, though the storm hadn't abated one bit. The innkeeper waited in the public room, knowing better than to intrude on the women upstairs. The sound of thunder was a nearly constant roar as lightning struck nearby again and again, and it drowned out any noises that might have come from the rooms above.

At last the midwife descended. The smile on her face was enough to tell him that all had gone well.

Only moments after she had gone out the door it was flung open again. A man stood there now, tall and broad-shouldered. He too was dressed in fine clothing, somewhat the worse for the storm, and his hair was as golden as the woman's had been. He bore down on the suddenly frightened innkeeper and with a snarl demanded the location of his wife. The innkeeper directed him upstairs, and breathed a sigh of relief when the man went, then went to close the door which the stranger had left open behind him.

Upstairs the woman was lying in bed, gently cradling a tiny golden-haired babe. She was tired, and even more bedraggled than she'd been when she arrived, but she was smiling also. The innkeeper's wife was sitting by her side, admiring the child. Into this tranquil scene burst the man, throwing the door open with a crash. At the sight of the baby the man began to curse her, to curse the child and curse the innkeeper's wife as well. When at last his storm of temper had passed his wife looked up, weary and sad, and said, "I know what I have done. She may never have her true birthright. But if she had been born to it she would be doomed, to death or to life as a pawn of our enemy. Now, whatever happens to us, she will live. She is my only child, and the only child I will ever have, and her life is more important than her birthright."

The anger went out of the man at that and he knelt beside the bed. "You are right. Forgive me. I would rather see her raised among her own, but... you are right." He looked down at the tiny baby then and said, "Whatever may happen to us, or to her, I cannot leave her without some sign of what should be hers." As he said this he removed a heavy gold bracelet in the shape of a dragon devouring its tail from his own arm and placed it on the child's arm. It shrunk until it fit perfectly around that tiny wrist. Then, without a further word he turned and left.

The woman looked after him with heartbreak in her eyes. Then she rose from the bed, ignoring the protests of the innkeeper's wife that she was too weak, that she needed to rest. She carried the child down the stairs. At the bottom she stood, cradling the baby, for a time. The innkeeper's wife came down the stairs and stared at this strange woman. The golden-haired woman turned to her and handed the baby into her arms. "Care for her. Love her. I wish I could, but I cannot." Then she turned to the innkeeper and dropped a dozen gold coins, enough to buy the inn twice over, into the startled man's hands. Without a further word she was gone into the raging night.

Outside the lightning flashed yet, and now it illuminated, in a series of still frames, two great scaled forms that appears as if from nowhere, flew up to the roiling clouds, and vanished into them.

Back at the inn the stunned couple regarded their sudden double wealth of gold coins and gold-haired child. The child began to fuss as any baby might, and indeed she looked like any other baby, her golden bracelet the only sign that she was not. The woman cradled her close. She had been told to love the child, but she needed no such commands now. Her husband stood by her side and put his arm around her. The baby quieted and looked up at them both with leaf-green eyes that showed no sign of whatever potential might lie within.

Chapter 1