“Your three oldest sons have come to see you,” Minau told him.

“Where is Arlais?” he asked her.

Minau shrugged. “She will not forgive you for striking her until you apologize,” was the reply he got.

“Apologize? She was disrespectful of her lord,” Ahura Mazda said irritably. He had not meant to strike Arlais. Surely she knew that. He had never before struck her.

“I can only tell you what I know,” Minau said. “Your sons await you in the Great Hall, my lord husband. Will you come or no?”

He debated a moment with himself, but then he said, “I will come.” Reaching the hall he greeted his three oldest sons, but they did not smile back at him. They offered him no warmth at all, and he was angry at himself for coming.

“As you know,” Behrooz said, “each province of Belmair has a duke who is its central local authority, and acts at a counselor to the king when he asks for advice.”

“I will not be one of the Belmairan king’s flunkeys,” Ahura Mazda said loftily.

“We know that, Father,” Sohrab said. “And so another candidate was put forth and offered to the people of Belbuoy, which is this province’s name. That candidate was accepted by both our people, and King Dillon.”

“I am the lord of the Yafir,” Ahura Mazda said to his sons.

“Indeed, Father, you are. No one will dispute that,” Nasim, his third son, said. “You are the lord of the Yafir, but Behrooz is Belbuoy’s ducal authority.”

Ahura Mazda could not believe what he was hearing. His oldest sons in rebellion! The Yafir in rebellion! The direction of his anger now narrowed. This, all of it, was the Great Dragon’s fault. If that wretched creature had simply chosen Duke Dreng’s grandson to be king none of this would have happened. He could have stolen Cinnia away, and no one would have cared. But the dragon had instead chosen a foreigner to rule Belmair. And she had chosen the son of a Shadow Prince and a faerie woman.

Dillon of Shunnar was powerful. Although he would not admit it aloud to anyone else Ahura Mazda recognized the plain truth before his face. The king’s magic was strong. Far greater than his own. And now that king had challenged Ahura Mazda’s authority by bringing the Yafir to this pleasant land he had created for them. It infuriated the Yafir lord that the king had been able to do this when he could not. What was worse, Ahura Mazda had been exposed as a fraud before his people by the king and his associates. But in the end it all went back to the dragon Nidhug. The Yafir lord held her responsible for bringing Dillon to Belmair.

“Father.” Behrooz was speaking to him.

Ahura Mazda focused his gaze about the young man.

“Do you understand what has happened, Father? Your authority among our people is not diminished for you are respected as our leader. I am simply the king’s liaison for Belbuoy,” Behrooz said quietly.

“You will remain in your own castle with our mothers and siblings,” Sohrab said.

“Everything has changed,” Ahura Mazda finally said. “My authority is weakened. I am publicly revealed as an imposter by these Belmairans. How can I be lord of the Yafir with no real power to wield?”

“But father,” Nasim said innocently, “you never had any real power like King Dillon’s or the Shadow Princes’.”

Ahura Mazda glowered at Arlais’s youngest son. “You have your mother’s evil tongue,” he snarled. “I have certain small powers, Nasim, and I do not believe I have lost them in spite of all of this. I am still competent to move from place to place by magic, and work a spell or two of my own.”

“Father, the king would make peace with you,” Behrooz said.

“He has been kind and fair with the Yafir. He says we must all be one people. We want that.”

“Then you are as big a fool as the king,” Ahura Mazda said. “If the Belmairans wanted peace then why was it necessary to create this province for us? We will not be accepted by them. They have merely put us in a place where they may watch us closely. And how did they find where we were hidden after all these aeons? Their clever king ferreted us out with his magic, of course.”

“Nay,” Behrooz said. “The Merfolk found us, and told him.”

The Yafir lord hissed. “Agenor! I thought that fishtailed devil was oblivious to our existence beneath the sea.”

“In answer to your question the Belmairans must make peace with our shared history even as we must, which is why King Dillon gave us our own province. Dreng of Beltran will never accept the Yafir, but Alban of Belia and his people will. Tullio of Beldane may welcome some of our folk. Perhaps if he knew the truth of your sixth wife our path would be easier, for our baby sister, Gemma, binds us to Beldane by blood,” Behrooz pointed out.

“You do not think making public that the king managed to snatch his wife back and set Sapphira in her place will make me more of a laughingstock?” Ahura Mazda growled, annoyed. “That the big-bellied woman I paraded before the king and his guests at his wedding was not his wife, but another? All of Belmair will laugh themselves to tears, and the king’s reputation will be even more enhanced. And none of this would have happened had it not been for that ridiculous dragon! In the end it all boils down to her. Without her none of this would be, and Yafirdom would yet exist beneath the sea.”

“Whatever has been responsible for bringing us all to this place, Father, is of no matter. It is what it is, and will not be altered,” Behrooz said. “Your folk are content with this great change. They are happy. My brothers and I saw our younger siblings playing in the gardens as we came. Never had we heard such shouts of happiness. Belbuoy is a good place, and it is ours. I beg you to make your peace with King Dillon.”

“Never!” Ahura Mazda shouted at the trio. “Now, my traitorous sons, get you gone from my sight. Do not return. I never want to see any of you again!”

The three said not another word. They bowed respectfully to their father, and departed the Great Hall of his castle. Ahura Mazda sat brooding by the big hearth, drinking wine for what remained of the day. The evening meal was served, and he saw that Arlais was not in her place. He said nothing. Tonight was his night in her bed. The thought of her anger toward him fueled his lustful nature. He would probably have to force her to pleasures, and he would enjoy every minute of it, he thought grimly. Arlais was a passionate woman, and after he had taken his fill of her he would punish her words to him this day by torturing her sexually. His member hardened beneath his robes with the thought, and looking to Sapphira he ordered her beneath the high board to ease his desires. Of all his wives she had the most skillful mouth and a divinely wicked tongue. He leaned back with a sigh, sipping his wine as, kneeling between his thighs, she took him between her lips and began to suck upon his member.

But when the time came and he entered Arlais’s bedchamber he found it empty. He called to Minau, who he knew to be her best friend. “Where is Arlais?”

“She has gone, my lord,” Minau said quietly.

“Gone?” He looked surprised. “Where has she gone?”

“With her sons, my lord,” Minau replied.

“Get out!” he said to Minau in a hard voice, and when she had gone he shut the door to Arlais’s bedchamber, and sat down. Gone. Arlais was gone. She had left him without so much as a word. He could not believe it. Standing up, he opened her wardrobe and looked inside. It was empty, and her trunk was nowhere in sight. He sat back down again. He was stunned. Gone. She was gone.

Arlais was the first of his wives. He remembered with delight the day he had stolen her. It had been her wedding day to a duke of Belia. How she had fought him! But he had persisted, and eventually he had won her over. She loved him. He was never certain about the others. But he knew that Arlais loved him. And he loved her. So much so that he had waited to take another wife until she had given him three sons. And now she had left him without so much as a word. He did not know if he could ever forgive her. He would not ask her to return. It was beneath his dignity. Let her live out her life, grow old, without him. He had the others, and perhaps he would take another woman, but then no. The Belmairan women were now protected from the Yafir.

Another mark against the dragon, Ahura Mazda thought grimly. Everything always came back to that creature they called Nidhug. He wished he had the power to kill her, but he did not. Did she have an heir? He knew Great Dragons never revealed their successors until they were within a few hundred years of death. Then they brought them forth to teach. But she had not revealed her heir yet. But surely there would be an egg hidden away somewhere that contained her heir. A dragon who had been around for as long as he knew Nidhug had been would have an egg. And he would find it, he vowed. It became a burning necessity for him. Each day he left Belbuoy, and searched high and low, far and wide for the place the dragon had secreted her egg.

The Yafir settled happily into the new province of Belbuoy. Their farms and their flocks flourished. Within the year a few trading ships began calling at the small harborside town they had built. It was called Yafiri. Cautious at first the captains and crew of these vessels discovered not an odd folk, but people much like themselves. They were quick to speak of it in the other provinces, returning again to Yafiri to trade for their fine leatherwork.

Duke Alban paid a visit, and invited any Yafir, particularly those with Belian roots to come and settle in his province. He was warmly greeted by Duke Behrooz and his mother, the lady Arlais. Both were surprised to see they had similar features. And those who investigated the possibility of emigrating to Belia were delighted when they were warmly welcomed by families to whom they were related by blood.