Free There Be Dragons by Heather Graham

what it might be.
    A shoe.
    A delicate shoe, small, in gold satin.
    As he studied the shoe, he heard a sound. Battle with the wartrolls had made him quick and alert. In fact, he wondered how he hadn’t awakened when she had left him, and rued the fact that the one time he should really need to awaken at the slightest whisper of sound, he had not.
    There was no danger. It was the old man, Radifini, coming down to join him.
    “She’s gone, sir. I have discovered the love of my life, and she is gone. All of these years, I have fought for these lands, never really understanding why honor was so dear, and now … I know that it is people, not land, that makes the fight, and love, not glory, that makes the warrior.”
    “Ah, young Michelo, you are a romantic, as well as a warrior,” Radifini said.
    “You know who I am?”
    “Of course,” Radifini said.
    “You didn’t betray me,” Michelo said ruefully.
    “Ah, well, there is who you are, and then, there is
who
you are. And you both needed to know the real
who
of one another, so …”
    “Then who is she?” Michelo asked.
    “The stepdaughter of Pietro d’Artois, Count of Lendo. Stepsister to the one you are to wed.”
    Michelo stared at him with horror and misery dawning.
    “She is the betrothed of Carlo, Count Baristo,” Radifini continued.
    Michelo rose, bearing the shoe. “There is a way to change this. I’ll go to my father. He is a great believer in magic and omens—after all, he was alive in the time when the Dragon in the Den supposedly appeared, and kidnapped the Princess Elisia!” Michelo plotted quickly. “I’ll tell him that … my heart belongs to the owner of the shoe. I will slip it on her foot … and declare that it is an omen, that we must be together!”
    “Good young sir! I fear that you are underestimating Carlo Baristo!” Radifini told him.
    “He cannot love her. He cannot love her as I do!” Michelo swore.
    “Well, I bid you good fortune then. I also caution you to take great care. And if, perchance, you should discover you need the aid of an old wizard, well, you know where I can be found,” Radifini said gravely, and turned and walked away.
    With his shoe, and his destiny set in his own mind, Michelo knew it was time to head for home.

    Carlo was in a rage, which was not a pretty thing.
    He had his father’s bluster and the streak of evil that only his mother held in greater supply.
    At his own castle in Baristo, he paced before the great fire. “They have told me—my spies have told me—that she didn’t come in at all last night! She’ll concoct a lie, of course, but she stayed out—in the hills. She loathes me—mocks me! Me—Carlo, Count of Baristo! The wretched girl. How can I marry such a young woman? She defies me; she thinks that she will say and do as she pleases!”
    Geovana liked Marina even less than her son did—after all, she was the child of the falcon master-who-never-should-have-been-count
and
the wretched Princess Elisia, for whom men had gone to war, and all adored.
    “It has never been the plan that you should stay married, Carlo. You need but walk with her to the altar, make her your bride, and then …”
    “And then?” Carlo demanded of his mother.
    And Geovana smiled her lovely, serene smile and said sweetly, “My son! Terrible things have been known to happen here! Great rocks—flying into bedrooms. And then, of course, there is the dragon.”
    “The dragon! Bah. If there was a dragon, it hasn’t appeared in years!”
    “Oh, but there is a dragon. And it will appear—if summoned,” Geovana said, still calm, amused. “You will marry—for Lendo. And when it is yours, joined with Baristo … well, those lands will be greater than those owned by the great Duke Fiorelli!”
    Smiling, Geovana left him, heading for her balcony (where, it was still whispered, she had the power to raise the elements, wind and fire, earth and water. And, perhaps, the dragon.)

    The great Duke Orisini Fiorelli was