1 Chapter 1: A Pearl in the Rough

The woods stretched on for what seemed like forever, laid out before Marion as a verdant sea. The road had been long untraveled, worn with grooves and jagged stones that pointed skywards. With each step, the knight was the furthest from home they had ever been. It frightened them, just a touch. The gravity of the task weighed on them throughout the journey, a pressure on the heart that often seemed too much. Nevertheless, Marion persisted. The task was a matter of honor and the safety of the crownlands.

Marion was in the castle the day that the dragon appeared. They bore witness to the great damage wrought upon the Prince’s Tower, even having to avoid the rubble as it fell. Since then, they had been haunted by the angry, pearl-hued gaze as it dove past them on the bridge. Marion was filled with dread, then with anger once the dust settled.

Things were different after that. King Agis was somewhere between distress and mania, pacing the halls of the castle. A whispering fear besieged the Court of Pearls. The king matched the demeanor of a predator put into a cage, the wild gleam of a tiger’s hatred turned outwards towards others. The tragedy had been a rare occurrence, dragons seldom traveled so far into the Crownlands, let alone into the country. A rare occurrence for an even rarer tragedy, the death of the prince.

Jacket shook beneath Marion, the steed chuffing and pawing at the ground. The road widened before them, no longer viable for both horse and rider to traverse together unseen. The elf gave a gentle pat to the side of their mount, swinging a leg out of their stirrups to dismount. As their feet touched the ground, they turned to the horse, only to find that the being had shifted from horse to hound.

“At least I don’t have to ask you to be smaller,” Marion comments in quiet passing, trying not to think too long about the implications of Jacket’s forward facing eyes.

The elf inhaled sharply, gaze drifting the crumbling ruins of what had once been the Queen’s Palace. They felt disgust in their chest at the knowledge of what lay within, finding it an insult to the memory of the late Queen Adalina for the Lowlands beast to have taken it as a lair. Each step forward brought the knight to the steps of the ruins, head tilted back so that they might observe the faded architecture.

For a dragon’s lair, there was a notable lack of a dragon here. The landscape was unburned, not a tree out of place. The aged spires still stood tall, unmarked by anything more than time and the weather. The doors too, were not blown off their hinges. Where was the raging creature that had laid waste to the Prince’s Tower and sent rubble careening into the courtyard? Where was the thrumming song of the Beast of the Lowlands? Where was Ganymede?

Questions plagued Marion thoughts like crows plagued the field, pecking and pulling at their mind. The Queen’s Palace was the smaller of the two, meant as something of a summer retreat, but it had long since fallen into disuse. The main gate was gone and likely for some time. The palace had become a den of crows and squirrels and perhaps the stray raccoon. At least, until Ganymede arrived, Marion considered as they pressed onwards.

The courtyard was overgrown, with once lovingly tended rose-heavy topiaries grown awry. It must’ve been two centuries by now since the Queen had passed, though Marion could not remember. She had been dead long before they came to adulthood and it was certainly not a topic discussed in anything more than reverent, distressed whispers. It was also never a discussion planned for any of Marion’s many history lessons.

The elf stared onwards as they crossed through the courtyard and into the palace proper. The doors were pushed open with a dull, aching echo of a place that had once been the heart of a family. The tiles were cracked, moss crawling to fill the chasms made by the years. The early summer air brought a mild warmth to the interior through the numerous broken windows. Not a soul had been here in years, Marion was sure of this.

The silence was peaceful for a dragon’s lair, rather than unsettling. As the elf trekked through the hallways, the grip on the hilt of their sheathed blade began to loosen. There was no direct danger, and the longer Marion walked, the more it seemed that perhaps Ganymede had moved on from the Queen’s Palace. There was nobody here, they were sure, as they made it to the third un-scorched staircase. The stones were dusty and cracked by time, but the signs of draconic intentions were simply not there.

Had Marion come too late to find Ganymede before the beast flew away in search of his newest prey? Had they come too soon, perhaps? The worries pulled at the threads of their mind. There was much to consider, much to worry over. The knight’s grip returned to the hilt of the blade, a tool bestowed by their liege in order to most efficiently send the beast to his grave. The nation was in mourning for the late Prince, seemingly killed when the silver-scaled monster appeared.

At the apex of the third staircase, Marion came to a halt. The haunting melody of a lyre came whispering on the breeze. The summer breeze gained a biting chill as they stood at the threshold of the fourth floor. The fourth floor seemed, at least from first glance down either end of the hall, to be where the royal family would have stayed. The knight’s grip tightened on the sword’s hilt, careful steps taken down the hallway. If not a dragon, what else could be lingering here?

The lyre’s haunting melody wrapped around Marion as they moved through the hallway, oppressive and suffocating. Most of all, it unnerved them. Nevertheless, the knight moved onwards, steadying themself at the door. With blade drawn, the elf came crashing into the room, the door slamming into the wall as it was unceremoniously thrown open.

The lyre fell from the hands of its musician, clattering into the tile floors. Marion’s eyes were drawn to meet the frightened gaze that bore into their soul from across the room. Eyes like pearls, framed by strands of the finest raven hair the knight had ever known . . .And then a thought registered in their racing thoughts. The words came to their lips, falling from their tongue before they could even stop themself. . .

“Prince Eris!”