Chapter Three

I awoke in a nest of golden hair, with my arm around his waist and my face pressed up against his back. He was still asleep. Apparently, with a naked man in bed with me, I became a cuddler. It was an inconvenient time to discover this inclination in myself, and potentially compromising if he took it as an invitation.

I hoped the dragon returned soon before I had to spend another night in bed with this dangerously beautiful man.

His hair carried the masculine, incense scent. This was his bed, he slept in here, and it was his scent that permeated the cave, I realised. I eased myself back from him carefully, alarmed, and embarrassed. I slid from between the covers, placing my bare feet upon a floor covered by a fur rug as luxurious as any in the castle of Vienthrey. He did not move.

I picked up my shoes and crept around to the tunnel and down to the main cavern. Daylight lit the entrance to the cave, but the interior remained shadowy. The torches no longer burned though I could smell the shadow of their smoke and whatever they had been dipped in to make them burn.

I washed my face and hands in the fall of the water in the small back cavern. The view through its doorless entrance showed me the thrones, and the mouth of the cave. There was no sign of movement from the cave containing the bed. No naked golden-haired man walked towards me.

I had to make myself useful, I told myself. I was not entirely sure how I would go about that, but I decided that starting breakfast would be a good beginning. I regarded the kitchen. I had never prepared food before, nor started my own fire. There was a first time for everything, I told myself sternly. How difficult could it be? I had to make myself useful or the golden-haired man would not permit me to stay, and I needed the dragon.

The maids had always made starting the fire look easy, but I could see no way to light it. Was there a secret to such things? Men had been lighting fires for as long as history was recorded, and yet, I was flummoxed by it.

“Poor princess,” the golden-haired man observed from the doorway. He had put on a pair of dark trousers and a loose-fitting shirt that was untied at the neck, dispelling my theory of Fae curses. If anything, I noted, he was more beautiful, dressed. At least I could look at him closely now, without being inappropriate, and there was a lot to look at. It was like studying an artwork, a marble stature, or a painting by a master, he was perfection personified. “Kneeling in the ashes wondering how to make fire, something most of mankind conquer as children.”

I rose to my feet. “I am a quick learner.”

He arched a golden eyebrow. “You would be better to leave here and find a ring of standing stones. There is one on the Graceplains.”

“I have been there,” I told him. “Three nights over the full moon, I slept amongst the stones.”

He regarded me with his unusual eyes inscrutable, that unnatural stillness settling upon him again. After a long moment, during which I squirmed beneath the burn of those purple eyes, he released me from their gaze, and stepped into the kitchen.

“You need to clean out the ashes of the last fire. Use the bucket and scoop to the side. Empty the ashes off the ledge. When that is done, stack the wood in the fireplace. Use small pieces that burn easily.”

As I scooped ashes from the hearth, I watched him. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his strong forearms and flicked his hair over one shoulder as he laid various ingredients out upon the tabletop. When I returned from emptying the ash and stacked the wood ready for the fire, he regarded me again, his expression unreadable.

“Wash yourself,” he indicated to the rear of the cavern.

A fire burned brightly in the hearth by the time I had washed the ash from me, and the torches in the main cavern were lit, making the caves as bright as day. I wondered what he used to make them, as they burnt smokeless compared to those in Vienthrey, and lasted by far longer.

He swung a pot over the cheerful flames. “Take down two bowls from the shelf, and two spoons,” he told me, moving back to the table in order to tear the leaves from berries. “And place them on the table. Then stir the contents of the pot. Be careful not to set yourself on fire, nor upset the pot.”

Both cautions were wisely delivered, I discovered, as stirring the pot meant leaning perilously close to the fire, my hair and gown seemingly drawn towards the heat, and the pot hung suspended from a hook which swung over the flames and rocked as I stirred. Oatmeal simmered within the bowl of it, looking both familiar and foreign to me in its current state.

“How do I know when it is done?” I asked him with worry.

“Does it look done? Has it absorbed the liquid?”

“Yes, I guess.”

He sighed and came to my side, the scent of incense drifting over me, and his golden hair swinging near the flames as he leaned over. I gasped and scooped it back for him. It was heavy, a thick silken skein, warmed by proximity to the fire, or contact with his body.

He looked down at me, and for a moment, I imagined what it would be like if he closed the distance between us and kissed me. I inclined towards him instinctually.

“I am not mankind,” he said mildly. “The flames will not harm me. The oatmeal is done.” He lifted the pot from the fire and carried it to the table.

I knew enough about metal and flames to know that the handle of the pot should have burnt him, and yet it did not. He scooped the contents of the pot into two bowls and filled the pot with water, returning it to the hook over the fire to bubble away.

I sat at the table as he added berries to the bowls and then sat across from me.

“Thank you for the meal, and for letting me stay,” I said to him, trying to remember my manners and forget my wanton inclinations.

The violet eyes met mine across the tabletop. I wondered what manner of brethren he was. He was not a man, in the common meaning of the word. He had told me that much himself. Male. Oh, very definitely male, but not mankind. He ate quickly and neatly, with indifference to the heat of the food.

“When you are done,” he stood, leaving the bowl on the table. “Clean the pot and the dishes and return them to their places.”

I ate much slower than he, as the food was too hot for my tongue. When I was done, I regarded the dirty dishes and the kitchen feeling overwhelmed. Clean the pot and the dishes, he had said. It sounded so simple, and I understood the concept, but not how such things were done.

“In the chest near the wall, you will find a bowl for washing up in, along with rags,” he was seated upon one of the thrones, reading, and spoke without looking at me. “Use the rags to remove the pot from the fire and empty it over the edge of the cliff. Refill the pot and put it back onto the fire to warm water. Put the warm water into the bowl and use a rag to wash the dishes.”

I did as he had instructed, using one of the rags to dry the dishes after, and put them away on the shelves he had removed them from. I emptied the bowl of the soiled water off the cliff, and swung the hook away from the flames, hanging the rags to dry across the metal frame. It hissed as the hot metal and wet cloths came into contact.

“Do you read?” he asked. He gave no impression of looking at me but must be doing so to know precisely when I became idle.

“Yes,” I drew near to him, fascinated by his beauty. His hair draped over the arm of the chair and puddled on the floor amongst the gold and gems in luxurious waves. It reminded me of a hearth story of a princess locked in a tower. I wondered if he had ever cut it. I had never seen a man with hair so long. On another man, it might have been effeminate, but on him, it was a glorious frame for his perfection.

“Just the common tongue?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Your education is lacking.”

“Amongst my people, that I read and write at all, is unusual,” I protested. “I have studied all the classic works, the history of this world, and have a good understanding of mathematics and geology.”

He made a noise of disdain in the back of his throat. “Mankind’s concept of the world.”

I did not want to argue with him, my presence in the caves was dependent on his good will, so I swallowed any further protestations. “Was there another task you wished me to perform?” I asked him.

“The treasure has become scattered. Retrieve it.”

I went into the tunnel and began collecting up the gold. What appeared to be a small scatter was misleading. There was a king’s ransom of coins and gemstones dislodged from the main pile. I gathered the pieces into my skirt. It seemed irreverent to simply pour the coins and stones onto the pile and I kept an eye on the golden-haired man as I did so. He did not look up from his book. The noise of them falling was impressive.

The gold was heavy in my skirt and there was a limit to how much I could collect in one go. I quickly became sweaty, dusty, and sore from stooping. I rested on my knees, stretching my back and shoulders out.

“There is enough gold here,” I commented, “to make every person in the village below wealthy.”

“I’m sure the dragon would be flattered to hear you say so.”

“Why do dragons collect so much wealth?”

“Why do kings?”

“A king has a kingdom to support, roads to pave, buildings to maintain, armies to feed…”

“A dragon has a long life, and many children to support,” the man replied.

“Many children?”

He lifted his eyes from the book. “When you live as long as dragons do, it is natural that you have lots of offspring.”

“You would think dragons would out populate men,” I observed.

“There are very few dragons left in this world because of men,” the man’s voice became cold, and the hair along my arms stood on end in reaction. “And what few there are left are subject to the sport mankind has made of stalking a dragon in his cave.” There was a tone in his voice which told me he spoke from personal experience and regarded the dragons as lost kin.

“I’m sorry,” I apologised, regarding him with puzzlement. What manner of brethren was he? I wondered again. Some connection to the dragons, to be sharing a cave with one and to be so personally affected by their losses. In the stories, however, the dragons were always solitary. It was hard enough to imagine one with a wife and the many children that he spoke of, let alone with a mysteriously beautiful, golden-haired, book obsessed companion.

“When you have finished, sweep the cave floor. There is a broom in the kitchen,” he returned to his book, ending our conversation.  

I had never used a broom, but it did not take long to gain an understanding of the mechanics. I began at the back of the cavern, pushing dust and rocks forward out of the various small caves, around the piled treasure, and down the tunnel. Sweeping uncovered more treasures, and two other caves, the entrances hidden in the uneven walls. I swept them out as well, not entirely sure if sweeping achieved much. Dust and dirt surely were a normal part of caves, part of the nature of them.

“Return the broom to the kitchen and begin sorting the treasure. Gold into one cave, gemstones into the other,” he instructed calmly the moment I ended my task, without raising his unusual violet eyes from the book.

I regarded the impossible pile of treasure with dismay. It had taken a lot of labour to retrieve the items that had been scattered down the tunnel. To move this pile seemed an impossible task. It reminded me of the hearth stories of tasks princesses were set in order to retrieve from the Fae their stolen lovers. If it were a hearth story, I told myself, there would be three impossible tasks for the princess to surmount.

I began to sort the treasure and soon amassed two piles. Handling such wealth overwhelmed the mind, I thought. I stopped seeing the items beneath my fingers as precious, and instead viewed them much as I would if he had placed a pile of stone, seed or feathers, like from story, before me, and told me to sort them.

In story, however, the princess had magical aid with her impossible tasks. Birds to sort the feathers and seed, a wand to move the rock. I had no such assistance. The beautiful golden-haired man offered none, sitting in his throne and progressing slowly but steadily through his book.

What I needed was something to carry the treasure in, I decided, and retrieved the bucket I had used to clean the ashes, and the bowl I had washed the dishes in.

I sat near to where the golden-haired man lounged on the throne, thinking that it best to work within his eyesight so as not to be accused of stealing, and began to sort the treasure into the different containers. When the containers were full, I carried them laboriously into the caves hidden in the walls and emptied them within. They were very heavy, the gold one more so than the other, but both were considerably heavier than the dimensions of the buckets would imply.

Towards midday, the golden-haired man rose and went into the kitchen area. “Wash your hands and come eat,” he called out eventually. I went, with gratitude to be released from my task, and washed my hands before joining him in the kitchen. We ate boiled grains and vegetables.

“I did not expect a dragon’s cave would be like this,” I said to him as I waited for the food to cool to edible temperature and watched him eat, neatly and efficiently, without any indication of enjoyment or attention.

“What did you expect a dragon’s cave to be like?” He considered me with narrowed violet eyes.

“Well, a little like this,” I gestured to the main cavern. “The caves, the hoard. But, not these side caves, the library, the bed, this kitchen…”

“The dragon is preparing his cave for a wife,” the golden-haired man replied as if that explained it all. I tried to imagine what that meant, seeing as he said it so expectantly, but I could not imagine a wife and children that would result.

“You said the dragon wanted a brethren wife. Why not another dragon?”

“There are very few dragons left. There is no choice but to take mates from outside the species.”

“They can do that?” That sent another baffling array of imaged through my mind. How was that possible? A dragon was a dragon… Most of the brethren were more similar to mankind than to dragons. Maybe an ogre… but still, my mind recoiled from the thought.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Have you never heard of halflings?”

“Well, yes, I guess,” I admitted. “But I can’t imagine what a half-dragon would be like.”

“A half dragon is just like a full dragon.”

“But…” There were many questions that arose from that statement. I had met halflings, and they were not as their parents. A half-Fae was almost indistinguishable from mankind. A half-ogre was not as big, nor as strong. A half-mermaid spent more time on land, than her mer-parent.

The golden-haired man, however, was obviously far better acquainted with dragons than I, so it would not do to argue with him, and he had an air of impatience with the subject, therefore I didn’t want to test his tolerances. “What sort of brethren would a dragon consider as a mate?” I asked instead.

“There are a number of compatible species,” he replied. He had finished his meal but remained seated. “It is most likely that a wife will be found amongst the Fae or Elves, however. They are closest to dragons in form and manner, and there are many more of them than most other brethren.” He stood suddenly upon concluding the sentence, and returned to the main cavern, ending the conversation.