with a prod.
The wyvern angrily whipped around its head and snapped at the prod. Wyverns are temperamental and stupid, but the driver was used to such behavior from his steed. He poked the wyvern again, and the beast sullenly flapped its wings and took off.
Stephano threw himself into a corner of the conveyance and sat there, brooding. As always, when he was forced to pay a visit to his mother, he was in a foul mood. His thoughts carried him back to the past. He blamed Benoit for having brought up his father, but it wasn’t the old man’s fault. Stephano would have thought about his father in any case. He could not help thinking about his father whenever he was forced to visit his mother.
Cecile de Marjolaine, daughter of the wealthy and powerful Count de Marjolaine, was introduced at court when she was sixteen, having the honor to become one of the ladies-in-waiting to the queen. Cecile was an extraordinarily beautiful young woman, as well as being the only heir to her father’s vast fortune. Both wealthy and lovely, she was the jewel of the court. Nobles and princes cast their hearts at her feet. Even King Alaric, newly ascended to the throne on the sudden death of his father, was said to be enamored of her.
Cecile was flattered by the attention, but her own heart remained untouched until she met the handsome and dashing young Dragon Knight, Sir Julian de Guichen. The two fell deeply, hopelessly in love-hopeless because the count had determined that his only child, his beautiful daughter, would marry well. De Guichen was merely the son of a knight and not a particularly wealthy knight at that. To make matters worse, the de Guichens were loyal friends with the king’s avowed enemy, the Duke de Bourlet.
The two young people knew only that they adored each other. None of the rest mattered. And then Cecile discovered she was pregnant. She was frightened, but was also ecstatic. She and Julian would run away to be married and live happily ever after. Before she could tell Julian the wonderful news, however, the Dragon Brigade was summoned to duty and he had to leave. The two had only a few fleeting moments together before he was gone.
Cecile had no mother in whom to confide; her mother having died when she was young, and she continued to dream her pretty dreams until the day she was confronted by Lady Adele, an older woman, who was also one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. The sharp-eyed Adele had noted Cecile’s swelling breasts, expanding waistline, and her unfortunate tendency to vomit on a daily basis. Lady Adele spoke to the girl in private and in a few stark words shattered the pretty dreams by making Cecile face cold, ugly reality.
Did Cecile honestly think the Count de Marjolaine would allow his only daughter, who stood to inherit one of the largest fortunes in the kingdom, to marry a penniless knight?
“Your noble father would have Julian killed first,” said Lady Adele pitilessly. “And don’t think he could not do it and get away with it. If you truly love Julian, you will cast him off and never speak to him again.”
Cecile was forced to admit the lady was right. Her father was known by everyone to be a cold-blooded, ruthless, calculating man. She cried herself to sleep every night, Julian’s letters in her hand.
Cecile was fast reaching the point where she could no longer hide her pregnancy. She had planned to travel to Lady Adele’s country estate to have the child in secret, when she received an abrupt summons to return home. The count did not ask her if the rumors he had heard about her were true. One look at her swollen belly provided the answer.
He demanded to know the name of the father. Cecile steadfastly refused to tell him. He called her a whore and struck her across the face, knocking her to the floor. His large emerald ring split her lip, leaving a small, white scar visible to this day. He sent his daughter to a nunnery, where she remained in seclusion until her baby, a son, was born.
Cecile had not written to tell Julian of her pregnancy, for she knew he would come to her and that would place his life in danger. She had determined to keep the name of the baby’s father a secret. But her labor was long and difficult and at one point Cecile was in such agony and was so exhausted that she feared she would die. In her despair, she confided the name of the baby’s father to the Mother Superior.
Cecile gave birth to a son. The nuns allowed her to spend a day-one glorious day-with her baby. Then, on the count’s orders, the child was taken away to be placed in the Church orphanage.
The Mother Superior was a woman of strong convictions. She came from a noble family herself and did not think it proper that the child of a knight should be raised in an orphanage, never knowing his father. The Mother Superior wrote to Sir Julian, telling him he had a son.
Julian was astounded and confused. He could not help but wonder why Cecile had not told him. He traveled with the family retainer, Benoit, to the nunnery and demanded to see Cecile, but was told she had returned home. She had left no message for him. All he could think was that she no longer loved him. The Mother Superior brought the baby to him. Heartbroken and bewildered, Julian took his son home.
Several months later, after she had recovered from her ordeal, Cecile returned to court. She was more beautiful than before, if that were possible, but her beauty, which had been warm and vibrant, seemed now cold and glittering. She became the open and avowed lover of King Alaric, a calculated move, meant to ward off the men her father would have forced her to marry. Whenever she received an offer, she was able to manipulate the jealous and grasping Alaric into refusing to give his consent.
Julian had secretly dreamed his own pretty dream. He nursed the fond belief that Cecile still loved him and that someday they would be together. Then he heard about the affair. Not only was she openly involved with another man, that man was the enemy of Julian’s liege lord, the Duke de Bourlet. If Cecile had stabbed Julian in the heart with a dagger, she could have caused no greater pain.
Sir Julian was a chivalrous and honorable knight. He would not say a word against Cecile to anyone. Her name never crossed his lips. There were those in his household who knew the truth-or thought they did-and they were free in venting their rage against the woman who had hurt their beloved friend and master.
Only one man, Julian’s friend, Sir Ander Martel, the baby’s godfather, knew Cecile, knew her father, and knew or was able to guess both sides of the tragic tale. He tried at one point to tell Julian that Cecile had done this for his sake, because she feared for his life. The moment Sir Ander mentioned her name, Julian told him coldly that if he wanted to continue to be friends, he would never speak of her again. Julian de Guichen would eventually learn the truth, but, sadly, only on the night before his execution. Too late to tell his son.
Stephano, growing up, knew he was different from other children in that he did not have a mother. He was not particularly bothered by this lack. He and his father were extremely close. Sir Julian always refused to speak ill of Cecile, but Stephano’s grandfather felt no such compunction. When Stephano was twelve, his embittered grandfather summoned the boy to his study and told Stephano the truth-his side of it, which had been further tainted over the years by a hatred of King Alaric and his mistress, who, on the death of her father, was now the wealthy and powerful Countess Cecile de Marjolaine.
Sir Ander, as Stephano’s godfather, could have told the boy what he knew, but that was the time Julian’s friend and patron, the Duke de Bourlet, had openly split from the king. The seeds of rebellion were being sown. Sir Ander did not like King Alaric, but he believed a man should be loyal to the Crown and, although he knew the duke was in the right, in that he had been goaded past endurance into fighting, Sir Ander did not join in the rebellion. He and Julian remained friends, though they were on opposing sides of the terrible conflict.
As Stephano sat in the carriage, his hat on his knee, he heard again his grandfather’s bitter, hate-filled tirade against his mother, words forever seared in the boy’s memory. He was jolted from his dark reverie when Rodrigo got into a heated argument with the carriage driver, claiming that the man was deliberately taking them out of their way in order to charge them more money.
“Look, Stephano!” Rodrigo cried, pointing out the carriage’s glass window, “Look where this son of a goat has taken us! Out past the Rim!”
The continent of Rosia was surrounded by an ocean of air, as were all the continents-the Seven Sisters-of the world of Aeronne. The air, the Breath of God, with its magical properties, was the “sea” on which floated the continents and islands that made up the world of Aeronne.
Similar to the water in the greater inland seas and lakes, the Breath had currents and moods. The wispy, peach-colored mist of a calm day could quickly darken to the deep reddish orange of a coming water storm with winds that would whip the surface of the Breath to a froth, lifting the heavier clouds from below to wreak havoc with the controls on an airship.
The mists that were wispy and thin as silken scarves grew thicker as one sank deeper into the Breath, becoming almost liquid at the bottom, or so learned men theorized. No one knew for certain what lay at the bottom because no one had ever been able to penetrate that deep and survive.
