St. George’s Day, 619

“If you could piss away stupid, I daresay the majority of the candidates today might actually stand a chance against you.”

Edilyn ferch Iago bit back a squeak of laughter at Virag’s unexpected words. “Shh … you get me into enough trouble as it is.”

Barely the size of her index finger, he looked up at her with a cocked, innocent brow. “Can’t help it if the rest of those wankers are too dim-witted to see your ebullience right before them.” Walking along the edge of the shoddy, worn sill, he mocked the village voices they could overhear passing by her open window, making faces and rude gestures to go along with their innocuous conversations. It was all she could do to not burst into laughter.

“Stop it, or I shall force you back into your bottle.”

He snorted dismissively. “As if that’s a threat. I like my bottle. Much better than being out here with all these —” He glanced out the window to the street and wrinkled his nose. “—people.” With a fierce shudder, he sat down on the edge to eye her with an expression of even greater distaste. A light breeze fluttered his golden, gossamer wings. “Why are you dressed like that again?”

“St. George’s Day.”

“Ah.” Virag released a long, tired sigh. “This year went fast. So what are your plans for being unacceptable to the dragons this time?”

Biting her lip, she stepped forward and revealed the small vial she’d purchased from the old witch woman who lived on the edge of the forest. She held it out toward him. “’Tis the scent of rotted bear guts.”

He let out a fierce sound of protest before he fell back and kerplunked on the sill. “That would do it,” he choked between gasps for air. “Yeah. Please … bathe that off your skin before tonight. My eyes are watering. Burning, too.” Crossing his eyes, he stuck his tongue out and feigned a dying pose that left one arm and leg dangling off the edge as he continued to sputter and gasp.

Edilyn laughed at her half brother and his antics. It was hard to take him seriously in his natural state of a gold-skinned, golden-haired and -eyed, winged sprite. Like this, he was ethereally beautiful and a far cry from the terrifying dark-shadow beast she knew he could transform into. “What kind of pixie are you?”

“Not a pixie,” he snarled indignantly as he kicked his fur-covered legs at her. “Kikimora! Sheez! Inhaling those fumes has already addled your noggin. Any more and you’ll be as daft as those lackwits outside.”

She snorted at him. “Like you don’t smell worse than that on a regular basis.”

He laughed. “Only when I’m drunk on elderberries or mulberries … or…” He paused to consider the truth of her accusation. “Well, you might have a point.” Sitting up, he bent his knee and propped his whiskered chin on it to watch her while she finished belting on her mismatched costume. He was devilishly handsome with his short, spiked hair and angular features. But it was his personality and the way he always looked after her that made her love him best.

Since the day he’d magically appeared in her room three days after the death of her father, she’d been hopelessly devoted to her older brother. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

Not that he needed her help, given the depths of his godlike powers. Honestly, she had no idea why he’d come to her or why he stayed. She liked to think that he loved her, but the tales said that his kind were incapable of feeling such things. Immortal nightmare spirits were supposed to be devoid of any tender emotions whatsoever.

Rather, they were self-serving, vain creatures who used human weaknesses to prey on others. To manipulate humans for the gods and higher powers they were enslaved to or had bartered with.

Yet in spite of his random, surly threats, he remained by her side. Ever loyal. Ever caring, and even kind to her.

He was just like their mother, who’d been as full-blooded a kikimora as he was. Only her mother had made a pact and given up her immortal life to become human so that she could marry Edilyn’s father.

It was something they never spoke of, as it angered Virag to an unholy level.

“How do I look?” Edilyn turned around and held her arms out to show him her outfit for the day.

He burst into raucous laughter that would have offended her had it not been the reaction she wanted. “Ridiculous.”

She grinned as she reached for her horned helm. “Good. That’s what I was going for.”

He made a sound of utter pain-filled disgust. “What in the name of all Samhain is that on your head?”

“My battle helm.”

He screwed his face into a mask of horror. “What are you? A bull?”

“What?” She feigned innocence. “Dragons have horns. I’m trying to blend.”

“You’re not a dragon.” His tone was flat and dry.

“True.”

He let out another pain-filled groan. “Thank the gods your parents are dead. I shudder at what they’d say if they could see you looking like this.”

She stuck her tongue out. “Don’t you have an old lady to frighten or torment?”

Virag scratched at his chin and lowered his legs to swing them over the sill’s edge. “Not really. Rather harass you. It’s far more entertaining.”

“Great.” She sighed wearily.

As she started to smear the gut scent on her skin, Virag stopped her. “Really, precious … overkill. Given the heinousness of your ridiculous outfit, you don’t need to smell on top of it. No dragon is going to choose anyone wearing that scytel. You’ll be lucky if they don’t all flee at your approach. Probably vacate the hall like it’s afire. They might even leave the whole of the Ynys Prydein.”

She capped the vial and smiled again. “Good.” Last thing she wanted was a forced mating with some hybrid creature who’d eaten her father. And probably his own as well. “I don’t understand why we need them for our army, anyway. What’s wrong with riding horses?”

“For one? They can’t fly.” He fluttered his wings at her. “Something I’m rather fond of doing myself, and I highly recommend. Poor you, to be so deprived.”

“So? There’s much to be said for having two feet planted firmly on the ground. I can’t break a wing and fall three hundred feet, where I shatter all my bones and land as a big bloody stain to be spooned up later.”

“The second reason?” he continued, ignoring her interruption. “Horses tend to burst into flames when dragons attack them and spew their fire all over them. Other dragons don’t do that. They fight back.”

He had a point. Still, she wasn’t willing to give it to him. “Horses take up a lot less room and they don’t eat you out of house and home.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Horses eat quite a lot, including your shoes.”

“Humph.” She wrinkled her nose as she belted on her sword. “This is a stupid tradition to hold on the day that celebrates a saint known for slaying dragons, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps. But it’s more a taming celebration. Man over beast, and all that rot.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“You’re asking a nightmare demon if I think a dragon can be tamed by a mere mortal? Sure. Why not? I’ll go with it. I’ve seen much stranger things in my day—like a kikimora who gives up her immortality to be a dirt farmer in some backwoods village kingdom no one’s ever heard of. Penllyn … really?”

She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm over their mother’s decision that he still held against her. Meanwhile, the dreamer in Edilyn thought it was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard of.

If not the most practical, given what it had ultimately cost her mother.

And father, too.

Sadly, she’d never met a man as honorable as her father. Nor as loving or fierce. If one existed, he definitely didn’t live in Penllyn. It was little wonder that her mother had been so reluctant to let go of so rare an individual as her father. Such a unicorn needed to be cherished and kept.

Edilyn cast a wistful smile at Virag. “I just want to be a warrior on my own. Like my father was.”

“Then I wish it for you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. May you never live to regret the decisions you make.” And with that, he pushed himself to his feet and flew from the sill to the small, dark green bottle that made up his home. In a flash of white light, he vanished inside it.

Edilyn carefully picked the bottle up and secured it to her neck by the thick black leather cord, then settled it in the pocket of her tunic.

“Can’t see. Let me out!”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. I want to witness this coming travesty firsthand.”

Laughing at his dry tone, she obliged him and placed the bottle to hang outside her orange tunic so that he’d be able to see as it swung loose about her neck. Then, she grabbed the handcrafted bow her father had made for her so that she could leave for the Great Hall, where the day’s celebration should be in full swing.

But as always, her heart wasn’t in the coming festivities, and it definitely wasn’t light. “Why is it ever the curse of humanity that the most cherished dreams of our lives are oft the hardest to achieve?” Edilyn sighed at the rhetorical question that had haunted her for years. A sane woman would give it up and let go this useless pursuit of her heart.

If only she were sane.…

With a deep breath, she glanced about the sparse, unwelcoming room that had served as her dormer since the day her father had died in battle. How she prayed that after today she’d look at it no more. Nor would she be forced to work in the dreadful fields with the other impoverished orphans the church had taken in.

That this year, she’d finally succeed in making Brenin Cynfryn realize that she could stand as a warrior without a dragon lord to partner with.

Determined to be steadfast in her goal, she took her weathered war bow into her gloved hand. Yet as she did so, an unbidden memory of the previous eight years of failure and heartache brought a most bitter lump to her throat. Don’t think about it. The past didn’t matter.

Only today did.

Today would be different. She could feel it deep in her bones. Destiny would finally take note of her and reward her diligent persistence.

It would.

Hoping desperately that she wasn’t lying to herself—again —Edilyn lifted her chin. She slung her brown leather quiver over her shoulder before making her way from the small hut toward the Great Hall where everyone in her village had gone for the day’s celebration and test of arms.

For the last eight years on this very day, she’d won every game she’d participated in. Everyone knew that, like her father before her, she was the best archer among them. Her sword skills were at the top of their clan— while she could be overpowered, she could never be out- skilled. She’d even won the obstacle footrace.

Eight years straight.

And still Brenin Cynfryn refused to grant her freedom.

Stop it! Life’s not fair, you know that. It’s not supposed to be.

If it were, her parents would still be with her.

She categorically refused to let her negative thoughts impugn her courage or undermine her confidence as she neared the massive building that dominated their small town.

Nothing and no one would get in her way. Not this time. One way or another, she was going to prove to them all that she was worthy of being one of the brenin’s marchoges.

“Get out! You’re not welcome here!”

Concerned that angry shout might be directed at her, Edilyn slowed as she neared the oversized oak doors that were marked with ornate iron hinges. Then she realized the two guards shoved at an old man who was dressed in dirty rags and matted furs.

“How many years do we have to throw you out, slagge?”

With an admirable obstinacy, the old man refused to budge. “I was given an invitation, same as the others. Is this not open to all?” The ancient voice was barely a raspy whisper that came from the depths of his filthy hood. Oversized and in the shape of a wolf’s head, the cowl revealed no trace of his features.

“Beggars aren’t welcome. Now begone with you before I set the dogs on you! Bother us no more!”

This time, they shoved him so forcefully that the one would have fallen had Edilyn not caught him. But that charity cost her, as it was quite painful when his back slammed into her front, proving that he was much heavier and more hale than his shabby, hunched-over appearance gave him credit for.

Stifling her cry of pain, Edilyn helped him regain his balance before she stepped away to address the guards. “He’s right. ’Tis St. George’s Day. Should we not all be on our best behavior? After all, that blessed saint gave away everything he had before he died to those who were less fortunate. Surely we can find a modicum of charity for those in need?”

The guard sneered at her. “You would break bread with something that reeks like the back end of a horse’s arse?”

Rather that than feasting with a dragon.

Wisely, she kept that thought to herself.

Instead, Edilyn cast a kind smile to the old man, who was strangely quiet now. “Better to break bread with someone who smells like an arse than to be one. Stenches can be washed off. But an ass today is an ass tomorrow.”

The guard curled his lip as Edilyn boldly took the old man’s arm, and in direct defiance of their cruelty, led him inside. However, her victory was short-lived as the guard’s parting words struck her like a blow.

“Speaking of asses, you can tell by the ample girth of hers that she’s never skimped a meal or been picky over when or where she finds sustenance. Never mind with whom.”

The other guard laughed at his snide tone while she ground her teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing that those cruel words had struck their mark, and left another bloody wound on her heart.

“Ignore them, my lady. You are by far the most beautiful one here.”

She smiled at the old man’s kindness and patted his arm. Poor thing must be blind as well as indigent. “Thank you, gentle sir. But I’m no lady. Merely a simple archer’s daughter.”