“It was a deep wound,” she said, taking a roll of soft gauze from the folds of her robe and cutting the old bandage away with a tiny knife. “A lot of poison seeped in, and I feared infection.”
“Am I all right?” Felix asked, watching her uneasily. Everything she did looked as though it should hurt him, yet her fingers were so gentle that he felt no pain. Still, he winced back uneasily from the knife.
“You will be,” she said. “But you must listen to me and do as I ask, or things may go the worse for you.”
He scowled a little. “I’m not a baby,” he muttered, low enough that he didn’t think she would hear. But the corner of her mouth lifted, and he knew she had.
“What did you say your name was?” Felix asked once she had finished applying the new bandage.
“I am Dame Imraldera,” she replied.
“And you are Aethelbald’s servant?” Felix shook his head. “You people have the strangest names.”
She laughed outright at this, and Felix blushed. “Perhaps not so strange as Felix,” she said, “though I think your name suits you. And the Prince is my master, yes. But he is more than that to me. He rescued me from . . . from an evil such as I will not describe to you here and now.” A dark expression passed across her face as she remembered, but she shook it aside. “He rescued me, and now I call him my brother as well as my lord. I am the keeper of this Haven, which belongs to him.” She gave him a reassuring smile.
But Felix did not feel reassured, and his head hurt. He looked down at his hand resting on the soft blankets of his bed. “How long must I remain here, Dame Imraldera?”
Her smile disappeared, as though the sun dropped out of the sky and behind a dark horizon. “I do not know, Prince Felix,” she said. “It may be that you can never leave.”
“What?” Felix jumped to his feet. “What are you saying?” he roared. “Of course I must leave! I can’t stay in this Faerie place forever! What about my father? He needs me. I have to go back!” He ran to the edge of his strange room and discovered that the forest was gone and once more he stood on the edge of a precipice. Far below him the river snaked by, a silver thread. He gulped and paled, backing into the room. “I have to go back,” he said. “There must be a way out of here.”
“Of course,” Imraldera said, coming up beside him. She was shorter, but when he looked down at her he felt almost as though he looked into the face of his own mother. He blinked back tears, hating himself for crying.
“My father,” he said, his lip quivering. “He’s in trouble, you understand. And he sent me away to protect me, but I’m afraid he’ll need me, and then I won’t be there, and . . . and what if he thinks I’m dead? What will he do then? As it is he’s worried sick about my sister, Una. Don’t you see? I’ve got to go back!”
Imraldera touched his shoulder gently. “Please come sit again, child. My Prince has gone to your father. All will be well.”
“I’m not a child.” Felix sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand but allowed himself to be led back to bed. He sat on the edge of it, scratching his left ankle with his right foot. “What about Una?” he asked.
Imraldera did not answer but poured more water into the silver bowl. “Drink this.”
Felix obeyed and felt sleep weighing down his eyelids. “Dame Imraldera?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to me in the Wood? Why was I brought here?”
“A dragon, Prince Felix. He breathed poison into your mind, made you see what he wanted you to see. Such is their way, such is the power of their venomous breath. And when he tore you, the poison of his claws sank deep inside of you. I have extracted most of it, but some I may not be able to get out, and if you leave the safety of our Haven, an infection would set in.”
“Is there a chance you can get it all out?”
“There is always hope, Felix.”
Felix lay back on his pillow and turned his face away from her. Sleep claimed him soon after.
–––––––
The flames were so hot, and the young dragon flew and burned and flew and burned. The fire would not die, and she could not escape it, so on she went, aware of nothing but the burning. She did not notice the passage of time, neither the rising nor the setting sun. Her world was all flame, which sometimes built up so horribly that it burst from her mouth, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. The people she passed over cowered in terror as her shadow darkened their lands, but she did not see them. Nothing but fire and ashes filled her mind.
At last – she couldn’t say how much later – some of the flames began to wane. Her vision cleared, and she looked down to discover where she had come.
Below her stretched the vast expanse of the Red Desert.
World of dragons.
When she looked west toward the setting sun, she could still just make out a green stretch of land. But east, where twilight deepened, all was barren.
She flew on, feeling strength leave her body as the fire cooled inside.