Chapter 3 #3
“Baldewin,” Alric greeted in a warm voice. “Come and properly meet Cameron.”
Oh, this was the other guy—dragon?—who had been with Alric the day before.
He stood just inside the door leading into the castle interior, content to watch them come to him.
If a wall could be given human form, then this was the man.
He wasn’t particularly tall, a little over six foot, but he had a solid build that made him imposing.
Cameron irreverently wondered if all dragons were good-looking, as Baldewin was no slouch in that department.
He had a very different look than either Alric or Ravi, with amber skin and gorgeous grey-green eyes.
The closely trimmed stubble beard and square dark glasses made him look like a hot college professor in search of a blackboard.
Not that any of Cameron’s professors had been that attractive.
Baldewin held out a hand, which Cameron took. He spoke in a deep voice, smooth on the surface but with a gravelly undercurrent that tantalized the ears. “Cameron. I’m very happy to see you. We all wanted to come out and greet you, but I think you’re overwhelmed as it is.”
Cameron managed a strained smile. “Yeah. You can safely say that.”
“I’ve hot tea and brownies waiting inside. Some comfort food might make it easier to adjust your world view.”
“Even if it doesn’t, I turn down brownies exactly never.”
With a subterranean chuckle, Baldewin turned and led the way.
If the exterior of the castle wowed Cameron, the interior threatened to melt his eyes.
It was so incredibly detailed—every molding, every tile.
Just stepping into the connecting hallway that led inside was full of carved wood paneling, wooden floors laid out in a cross-square pattern with inlays, and breathtaking murals painted on the walls depicting people feasting, riding, picnicking.
Of dragons flying and soaring through skies with billowing white clouds.
He could spend a year in this hallway alone trying to see every detail of it.
Just how much time had it taken to really build this castle? He felt like Alric’s answers before were too vague. Wait, should he be calling him King Alric? His Majesty? Cameron had zero clue on how to address dragon royalty. Which hadn’t seemed an oversight until precisely now.
He had no chance to ask before he was led into a room where Baldewin had obviously set up in.
It was, like everything else, filled with carved wooden panels on the bottom half of the walls, the top section with gold filigree over the white in ornate contrast. The very center of the room held a round table with a red velvet tablecloth, a two-tier tray of brownies set on little paper doilies, and a tea set of white porcelain with gold trim ready to serve.
Alric pulled a chair out for him, which Cameron took thankfully. He really needed to sit and process all of this. Baldewin took the last empty chair after Alric settled next to Cameron.
Alric sat and poured a cup of tea before asking, “Sugar, cream?”
“Two sugars, thanks.” Should a king be serving him? The expression on Baldewin’s face said no. But he wasn’t about to argue.
Alric handed him the tea with a slight smile before pouring his own. “Baldewin, to catch you up, we discussed a bit of mage lines and dragons on the way up here. Cameron is of the Noh Clan.”
“Oh!” Baldewin’s face lit up in understanding. “That makes so much more sense.”
“I thought it might. But the family did little to pass down their history, so for his sake, I will speak of the basics. I don’t want him further confused.” Alric stirred his tea with an idle motion, speaking to Cameron directly. “I told you of how mages like to bond with dragons, and why.”
Cameron nodded, showing he was following.
“There is much to tell you on that score, but I will give the gist for now. What I said before is only one reason. We dragons can only bond—or marry as you humans like to put it—with mages. We cannot bond with each other. We cannot have children with each other. When a dragon meets the person they are supposed to marry—a fated mate, if you will—we know it. It might take days or weeks or even months for that realization to come, but we are sure of it once it does. But we’re hardly chaste until the right person comes along, as frankly we never know at what time that will happen. ”
Baldewin snorted, helping himself to a brownie. “Dieter was three hundred and twenty when he met Lisette, if that tells you anything.”
Cameron had no idea who those two people were but took the point.
“God, could you imagine being celibate that long, waiting for your fated mate?” Cameron murmured, talking mostly to himself.
He shivered and saw a matching look of discomfort on Baldewin’s face.
“So you date until you find the right person? I mean, that’s pretty obvious to me. Humans do that too.”
“Precisely. But it doesn’t always end well.
” Alric sighed. “Many, many years ago, before the Dragon War, there was a young mage by the name of Kaiser Jaeggi who fell in love with a dragon. The two were lovers, a casual affair, as the dragon knew Kaiser wasn’t his fated mate.
Then, one day, the dragon found who he was looking for.
Naturally, he broke off the affair.” Alric paused, licking his lips.
He looked uncomfortable and maybe even sad.
“Some don’t handle such breakups well—in this case, the mage handled it very poorly indeed.
He went mad, beyond heartbroken that he wasn’t the dragon’s choice.
He became unhinged and chose to curse the mage lines. ”
This rang a distant bell. Cameron felt like he’d heard part of this story before. “Wait. Wait, you’re telling me the Dragon War started because a guy was jilted?”
Grimacing, Baldewin answered around a mouthful of brownie.
“Basically. He secretly took up a collection of every bit of blood he could lay hands on, targeting the larger of the mage clans. Five hundred years later, we’re still not entirely sure how he did it, but he cursed the lines and killed most of the mages overnight.
Only the smaller magical clans remained, the ones he hadn’t targeted. ”
“There were hundreds of smaller clans, but the Twenty-Six—the major clans—were wiped out overnight. In the wake of that destruction, dragons lost mates as well. Not to mention friends and companions.” Alric’s eyes closed, dark and pained.
“It was what sent us to war against Kaiser’s clan.
We couldn’t let what he had done stand. We fought him viciously and lost even more, as the dragons without their mages battled magic without protections.
The war was brutal, horrifying, and at the end, the decimation was almost complete. ”
Baldewin gave Alric a sad nod, a man who knew precisely what the other felt.
“We lost whole clans of dragons, too. The smaller mage clans who survived the fallout went into hiding, fearing Kaiser might still be alive. Or that his surviving clan might go after them for revenge. We dragons have been searching for any members of the magical clans for centuries and haven’t had a speck of luck. ”
“Until you.” Alric smiled at Cameron and it was like the sun peeking out from behind cloudy skies. “You’re the first mage we’ve seen in five hundred years, Cameron Park. And I cannot express how joyous we are to find you.”