It felt very strange, approaching the Fanelian palace, as if the last six years had never happened. This time, however, when she announced herself at the gates, she received an immediate response, and one not to her liking.
'I'm sorry, miss, but we have orders not to admit you,' said the guard.
'Whose orders? You do know that I am a personal friend of Prince Van?' It was stretching the point a little; she doubted Van would recognise her, having been only five years old last time they met, but it was worth a try.
'All I know is that I have orders from the Regency Council not to admit a Miss Carenza Fassa,' replied the guard, looking somewhat embarrassed.
She turned to Dryden.
'This is Balgus's doing,' she said. 'He never liked me. You know he couldn't get rid of me fast enough, after...'
Dryden shrugged.
'Well, these guys don't look the bribeable type, and I don't see how else we can get in there. C'mon, sis, we're just wasting our time here.'
They climbed back into the carriage and Dryden signalled the driver to return to the Parunachian.
'What were you hoping to find out, anyhow?' he asked as they drove off.
'I don't know. Van is so young; I don't know how much he remembers about his mother and brother. If they were the only other Draconians in Fanelia, he might know nothing about his heritage.' She sighed. 'I just can't bring myself to believe that Folken is dead. When I found out he was a Draconian, I thought there might be a chance that someone had seen him fly away...'
Dryden nodded thoughtfully.
'Maybe they did, and didn't realise that that's what they saw. Why don't we try and find out where he was last seen? I figure the dragons must live quite a way from here.'
She smiled.
'That's a great idea, little brother!' She hugged him. 'What would I do without you?'
It took them over a week to find the forest where Folken had disappeared. The general opinion was that Prince Folken was a coward who had run away from his Rite of Dragonslaying, and that if he wasn't dead, well, he wasn't wanted in Fanelia. Discreet enquiries on the subject of Draconians proved Carenza's other suspicions; that many Fanelians were not impressed that their king had married one, and were rather relieved that the Queen had died before she could pass on any 'demonic' ideas to her surviving son. Carenza was coming to think that maybe her father hadn't been so wrong about these people, calling them barbarians.
Then, in an inn in a village whose name she had never bothered to ask, they met a wolfman who claimed to have seen an enormous white bird flying above the forest around the time that Folken and Varie disappeared. Carenza had been tempted to write him off as just another crank, until he went back to his cottage to fetch his evidence. It was a snow-white feather, larger than any she had ever seen before. Dryden confirmed that it was too large to have come from any bird.
'Even the royal swans of northern Zaibach don't have wings that large,' he commented.
'May I buy it from you?' Carenza asked the wolfman.
'How much?' he growled.
She showed him a couple of silver coins. He held up five stubby fingers. She shook her head.
'Three.'
'Four.'
Carenza was about to suggest a compromise price when she caught herself. This is the first tangible evidence I've found, and I'm haggling over its value. I'm getting as bad as Father!
'Four it is,' she said, and counted out the coins. The wolfman handed her the feather. 'And another five if you can lead me to the place where you found this,' she added.
Eager as she was to complete her quest, Carenza decided to wait until next morning before searching the forest, so as to have as much daylight as possible. After all, it had been six years; one more day would make little difference. They rose at dawn, therefore, and followed the wolfman deep into the forest. Dryden complained endlessly about the uncomfortable saddles, the heat and the mosquitos.
'We should have flown,' he grumbled for the umpteenth time.
'There's nowhere to land up here,' Carenza replied. 'Besides, a little exercise is good for you. You spend far too much time hunched over a book.'
Dryden made a rude noise and tried to ignore their guide's sniggering.
Aroung midmorning they topped a low rise and found themselves looking down on a wide pool, almost a lake really. A covey of ducks took off from the bank, their legs dangling below bullet-shaped bodies, but they only went as far as the centre of the pool. They landed in a flurry of ripples and then swam about, wagging their rumps as if to say, see, we were just coming out here anyway.
'This is the place.' The wolfman gestured to the bank.
Carenza thanked him and handed over two silvers.
'You said five,' he complained.
'Two to bring us here, one to wait until we've done, and two to guide us back to your village.'
The wolfman grumbled, but tied up the mounts and settled himself under a tree.
'I wait until the sun is halfway down the sky, and if you not back I leave without you. And if I smell dragon I go anyway.'
'All right, all right,' said Dryden. 'We'll be back soon, I promise.'
They left the wolfman to his nap and wandered down to the water's edge.
'I don't know what you expect to find, after all this time,' Dryden said.
'I'm not sure, either. I just know I won't be happy until I've proved things to myself, one way or the other.'
She walked along the edge of the pool.
'This way!'
'How do you know?' he asked, trailing behind her.
She shrugged.
'I just know.'
The invisible trail led away from the pool, through the trees, across a small stream and along a game trail to a small clearing. As she crossed the clearing, the Heart of Fanel seemed to tremble on her finger, as if excited by its master's presence.
'Here we are,' she announced.
'It looks like every other part of the forest to me,' Dryden said.
Carenza looked around. The ground was mostly bare leafmould, the accumulated debris of years. Of six years? She fell to her knees and began scrabbling at the mould. The top layer of dead leaves soon gave way to rich brown humus, with a warm earthy scent that seemed almost edible. Shiny black beetles scuttled back into the shelter of undisturbed ground. Then, a glint of metal.
'Dryden, I've found something!' She picked up a piece of fallen bark and began scraping at the earth.
'What is it?' He hunkered down next to her.
'It looks like...a sword.' It was a sword. A little rusted now along the edge of the blade, but not terribly old. 'Ah, here's the hilt. Oh god, that's the badge of Fanel. Th-this really is Folken's sword...'
She rocked back on her heels.
'Here, let me have a look.'
Dryden took out a small leather case and held up a narrow trowel. 'Archaeologist's tools. Bought them in Daedalus,' he explained. 'Thought they might come in handy for investigations.'
He scraped around the hilt a little more and tried to pull the sword free. It wouldn't move.
'Damn, it's caught on something.'
'Could be tree roots,' she suggested.
He dug the trowel under the crosspiece and levered the sword free of the earth. Some of the roots came with it...no, they weren't roots, they were bones, skeletal fingers clamped around the haft-
He dropped the thing with a cry of alarm.
Carenza stared, horrified, for a long moment then turned away and retched noisily into the piled leaves. Tears stung her eyes. Folken!
'Sweet Jeture...' Dryden murmured.
They made a desultory search for more remains, but found nothing, and eventually they buried the sword and the few bones in a pathetic little grave, with such prayers as they could remember. Carenza picked some wild flowers and placed them carefully in front of the makeshift headstone.
'What I can't understand,' she said, 'is why no-one found anything at the time. There were search parties out looking for Queen Varie, and I'm guessing that those wolfmen have a pretty good sense of smell...' Her voice trailed off. She didn't like where her thoughts were leading, but could not let the matter go.
They stood in silence for a while.
'Well, maybe-' started Dryden.
'What?'
'No, you don't want to hear it.'
'Please, tell me.'
'Well, maybe they didn't find...the sword, because it wasn't here when they searched. That was only a couple of days after he disappeared, right?'
'Yes.'
'We-ell, reptiles have a slower metabolism than mammals, so if a dragon ate something it couldn't digest, it might be a while before it...sicked it up again.'
Carenza pulled a face.
'Eeww! You're right, I did not want to hear that!'
He shrugged.
'You did ask.'
There was another long silence.
'So, what now?' he asked.
'I guess I go home to Palas,' she said.
'What about father's plans?'
'I don't really care any more. Whilst there was still some hope of Folken being alive there seemed some point in-in waiting, but now...'
He put an arm around her shoulders.
'You know you're welome to stay with me as long as you like.'
'I know. But I'd like to see the princesses again, too. I've been away for months, and Eries is probably rather lonely now that Marlene is in Freid.'
'All right, if you insist. Next stop, Palas.'
* * * * * * * * * * *
Author's Note: the first draft of this chapter was one of the first bits I wrote - call me a ghoul, but I just had a morbid fascination with what happened to Folken's arm...