to be families with young children.
Walking beside him, Cameron bumped him with his elbow and smirked. “Uh-huh. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that you think my sister and I are mages.”
Alric tried to give his best innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just a nice, neighborly offer as your friend.”
Cameron cackled, the sound bouncing off the buildings around them. “First you offer to be bossy, and now you’re neighborly.”
Alric grinned at him, purposefully bumping him with his arm. “I’m trying to be charming, so you’ll forgive me for yesterday’s debacle. Is it working?”
Groaning, Cameron held up both of his hands as if in supplication. “No, not a charming Alric. I can’t handle it,” he pleaded between giggles. “You’re forgiven. Just turn off the charm.”
A bit of smugness swelled in Alric’s chest. He liked making Cameron smile. It was satisfying, for some reason. He wanted to keep Cameron laughing all day. However, he suspected it wouldn’t get him any closer to the young mage staying with them. To accomplish that, he needed Cameron to become invested in his lost heritage. And that meant talking about the very things that had upset him so much the previous day.
“It’s good to know that I have a secret weapon should I need it,” Alric murmured. He directed Cameron down another street, leading them to the main square for the festival with rows of vendor stalls. A stage was set up at the far end for local bands and performers, but it was still empty at the early hour. Colorful pennants flapped in the breeze that carried wonderful scents of coffee and cinnamon.
“I don’t think the world could handle a charming Alric,” Cameron said with a sly smile. He breathed deeply and sighed. “But if you want a secret weapon, all you need to do is feed me. I smell sugar, yeast, cinnamon, and coffee, and I want all of that.”
“Then you shall have all of that.” He placed a hand carefully against Cameron’s lower back, guiding him forward toward the food vendors.
“Maybe you’re wrong about the mage thing. Maybe I’m a dragon,” Cameron said.
“Really? Why do you think that?”
“Because I am endlessly hungry, and I figure I’m trying to fill a dragon-sized stomach.”
Alric huffed a laugh. “I’ll have you know that our appetites are generally human-sized. Except for Baldewin. I’ve seen him inhale enough food for three men while seated at a banquet. And Gunter. He gets caught up with his research and forgets to eat unless someone reminds him. Even then, he picks at food like a bird.”
“Gunter?”
“The royal historian. He makes chronicles of our history, but also conducts research into our past and tries to uncover knowledge that will help us find our lost mage clans.”
Cameron stopped walking, a small frown on his lips. “Royal historian. And Ravi is?”
“Ravi is a member of the royal guard.”
“And you’re king,” Cameron said, his voice dropping closer to a whisper.
“Yes.”
Cameron glanced around them. There were more people streaming around them, but they stood undisturbed like a large rock in the middle of a forest brook. “But no one is staring or whispering or even taking pictures when they see you. No one knows. Why? Why doesn’t anyone know dragons still exist?”
An old pain throbbed to life in Alric’s chest as his eyes strayed away from the man in front of him to the people passing them by, blissfully ignorant that the very thing they celebrated stood among them. But they weren’t really celebrating dragons. Just the end of them.
It had been a relatively easy decision at the end of the war. One of the few things he and Rodrigo, king of the Ice Clan, agreed on.
“We decided it was better for our kind to be forgotten,” Alric started. “We tried to keep the fighting away from human settlements and cities, but it wasn’t easy. Magic can wreak horrible devastation, and dragons…well, we’re not particularly small by any means. Countless humans lost their lives in a war that had nothing to do with them. When it was over, we thought it safer for humans if we stayed away from them as much as we could and let them think we were gone. This festival is a celebration of the end of our war. A celebration of our disappearance.”
Cameron reached out and laid his hand on Alric’s right arm. He tilted his head to the side, lowering it just enough that he could look directly into Alric’s eyes.