The Dragon's Arranged Mate(24)

My father was waiting for me when I returned to my chambers. I was  surprised to find him seated by the hearth, though I realized upon  seeing him there that I had expected him, somehow. And I had wanted to  flee to him, to pour my heart out. He was wise enough to come to me,  instead, in order to spare me the shame of running to him.

He knew exactly what I was feeling, for he had felt the very same mix of  emotions in his own youth. "You're feeling frightened, aren't you?  You're unsure what to do with the power that was unleashed within you." I  wanted to deny it, but saw in Rogan's eyes that there was no point in  pretending.

"My son," he said, not unkindly, "what you must now learn to do is  control yourself. You are possessed of a great, ancient and revered  power. But without the wisdom and temperance to know when to unleash and  when to hold back, you are nothing but a walking weapon. You will be a  danger to yourself as well as to those you love. And every act of  vengeance you attempt to enact, no matter how warranted your vengeance  is, will come back to you tenfold."

"How can that be?" I asked him at the time.

"It is the way of life, Caside," he said. "It is simply the way the  world works. The pain you inflict will be inflicted upon you in some  way. If you are foolhardy and undisciplined, and you menace or terrorize  simply because you're contain the power of the dragon within you, the  pain will come back to plague you."

"How do I learn to control myself?" I asked him.

"Time. Practice. You'll come to understand yourself better and accept your true nature."

"What if I repress my nature?" I asked him. "What if I refuse to shift? That way I won't be a threat to anyone."

Rogan grimaced. "That would be just as dangerous. We cannot deny our  true nature, whatever that may be. Those who deny themselves become  perverted and twisted. Their nature will always find a way to reveal  itself, and usually that revelation is unhealthy in some way. It is  better to face who we are and learn to live in the world than to deny  ourselves. Your dragon self will explode from you when you least expect  it. You might harm others. You might destroy yourself from the inside  out. None of this is desirable."

He had left me with a lot to think about, and we had many such  conversations in the months and years following that day. I prayed that I  could remember his words when the time came to battle Arthur, but that  would only be possible if I practiced control of my emotions now.         

     



 



When I walked back through the doors of the castle I was informed that  my presence was requested in the library. I knew all too well that  Dogal, Seamus and the rest had been spending every free moment there,  digging through the documents Gaeth pointed them toward. I hoped they  had good news for me.

Instead, the news was of a mixed nature. "My King," Dogal said  excitedly, "we have found a series of scrolls which seem to document the  progression of Arthur's destruction over the centuries."

It was not exactly the good news I had hoped for, but it was a start. Whether the start had come too late, who could tell?

I bade a torch be brought to the table on which the scrolls had been  spread. They were primitive in nature, many of them written in a  language I myself could not comprehend.

"Can any one of you read this?" I asked, looking around at the eager  faces by which I was surrounded. All of them shook their heads.

"But!" Seamus pointed out, "They are very finely illustrated. The images  which have been painted upon the parchment tell a story."

And sure enough, they did. When taken one at a time, the images might  not have made sense. But together, in order, it was clear the tale that  was woven. Of course I doubted that any of the men who had created these  scrolls knew that they were continuing a long saga; they were simply  recording the happenings of the day. Little did they know the  significance in terms of how their piece of the story fit into the  greater whole.

"Do you believe that these have been arranged in order by the time in which the stories presented took place?" I asked.

"We do, Sire," Dogal replied. "We cannot be absolutely sure, of course,  but the age of the parchment does give us some clues as to the time at  which the writings were done."

Every scroll featured lines and lines of indecipherable script, but there was something else they all had in common.

"Someone, quickly, find me the record of my lineage. The lineage of the  Celtic dragons who ruled County Cork," I said. If I was correct, this  series of parchment scrolls told a deeper tale than even I had imagined  in my wildest fears.

Soon the book was brought to me; in the thick, heavy volume was a list  of every King of County Cork to rule for countless centuries. We were  all described there, along with descriptions of the battles we had  fought and won.

I flipped back to the very first name in the book: Laisrean. He was  considered the first true Celtic dragon, and his name alluded to the  fire of his nature. I looked down at the first scroll. There was a crude  drawing of what looked like two dragons battling each other … and one of  them was wearing what appeared to be a crown. I scanned the lines of  writing quickly, and a name jumped out at me: Laisren. It was close  enough. This was how the first great King was destroyed: By another  dragon.

The second name in the book was that of Laisrean's son, Mackinnley. I  looked at the second scroll. This time, the crowned dragon lay  prostrate, with the second dragon standing over it as if lording over  its conquest. The name McKinley appeared several times throughout the  text.

Then there was the next King, Sheehan. He had been a peaceful king as  befitting his name. He ruled benevolently for many years before, as had  apparently happened to the two kings before him, he was slain by a  dragon. The name Siodhachan appeared throughout the scroll, another  version of the name Sheehan.

On and on, I compared the scrolls to the names in the great volume of  kings. Over and over, on the scrolls there sat evidence of the deaths of  these mighty kings. Over and over, it appeared as though a black dragon  had sent them to their death.

"How is this possible?" I murmured, as I went on. The rest of the men  were utterly silent, transfixed by the pattern I was revealing to them.

"They were all killed, in one way or another, by a dragon," Dogal quietly observed.

This was true until approximately halfway through the list of names.  After that point there was only one dragon, with a crown upon its head.  There was no indication that I could tell as to how the dragon had died.  This was the same for the next dozen or so scrolls.

"Sire, perhaps there is some clue in the book," Seamus said. He stood  beside me and began scanning through the words there. "Here is  something, under King Ruaidhri," he said, and pointed with his finger to  the lines in question. "It states here that he died of some mysterious  illness. None of the wise men of the kingdom ever came to a solution as  to what it was that felled him."

I flipped to the next name: King Vaughn, who had suffered what was described as "disturbed blood".

"It could be that he lost his sanity, Sire," Dogal murmured. "That is  often how such conditions were described in those dark days, when there  was less understanding of illness than we currently possess."         

     



 

I quickly turned the pages. None of these Kings, for centuries and  centuries it seemed, had died in battle. They were all felled by sudden,  mysterious illness.

Just as my Queen was currently suffering under.

I had a flash of insight. "Seamus, page back to Ruaidrhi," I suggested. When he reached the page in question, I read aloud:

"The great and fair Ruaidrhi is renowned not only for his kindness and  wisdom, but also his skills as a hunter. While in his dragon form he was  known to fly for days at a time in order to hunt the most verdant and  challenging lands known to man or beast, it was on one of these hunts  that he came across a stone of rare size and beauty. A heart-shaped, red  stone which appeared to burn as if aflame, Ruaidrhi was so impressed  with the stone's beauty that he had it fashioned into a piece which he  decreed would be handed down to all future generations of Celtic dragons  to rule County Cork.

"He called it The Heart of the Dragon, both for its shape and its  likeness to the very fire which is so central to a dragon's nature.  Ruaidrhi wore the Heart proudly, until his sudden death. The Heart was  passed on to his son, Mackinnley, who became King after his father's  passing."

The room was silent.

"I cannot be the only person here who sees the connection between the  Heart and the deaths of these Kings," I murmured to no one in  particular. "It is clear that once this black dragon stopped killing  these Celtic dragons in battle, the Heart replaced the black dragon.