Princess Phillipi's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Phillipi returned to the council chamber with Sir Alaric at her side and the dragon's head still bleeding on a cart outside. The elders would not sign. The eldest rose and named a new price. Before any wedding, the knight must go to the pit at the edge of the kingdom and bring back a living serpent from the queen who ruled there. The slighted lord stood at the back wall with his hand on his sword. He said he would take Alaric's life instead if the knight refused. Alaric bowed. He turned to Phillipi and kissed her on the mouth in front of every lord in the room. He promised he would come back. She watched him walk out and pressed her hand flat to the stone table to keep from freezing the wood. Alaric rode for three days before the road climbed into snow. On a bare peak he found an old man in a blue robe, leaning on a staff tipped with pale crystal. The old man said his name was Aldric Frostborne. He said he had watched the knight coming for a week. He held up a second staff, black wood coiled by a green serpent with purple eyes. He said the staff would make the serpent queen kneel without a fight. He would trade it for one dragon's egg. Alaric turned his horse north. He rode back to the crags where the dragon's body still lay under a slick of frozen blood. He climbed past the carcass to a shelf of rock behind it. In a hollow lined with ash he found three eggs, each the size of a helm. He took one. He wrapped it in his cloak and carried it down the slope on foot, one hand on the reins, one hand under the shell to keep it warm. He rode south again with the ice-edged sword across his back and the egg against his chest. On the peak, Aldric Frostborne was waiting. The old man took the egg in both hands. He passed the serpent staff to Alaric and closed his fingers around it. The runes on the shaft warmed under the knight's palm. Alaric turned the staff in his hand and looked south, toward the pit and the queen who lived in it. He had the weapon he needed. He did not have the serpent yet, and the lord in the council chamber was still counting the days until he could call a blade against a man who did not return. Alaric mounted and rode. Far behind him, in a tower window above the council yard, Phillipi watched frost climb the glass under her fingers and did not wipe it away.