Once there was a boy born to a noble family; born second. Born forfeit.

The nurse said, “He’s a healthy one. Just hear that voice—clear and strong. Men will listen to him.”

“They would,” his mother said.

The boy grew up. He could lose hours in his mother’s library as easily as he could break up a fight between the guard’s boy and a stable hand in such a way that both were better friends.

“He’s a strong lad,” the guardsman said, “a strong heart. Men will follow him.”

“They would,” his father said.

His fifteenth birthday was in winter. All was ready by spring: he wore new clothes, and stood with the other forfeits beyond the seawall, in front of the waves. The dragons came from across the strait; came for their end of the pact.

“You are not afraid,” a dragon said to him, its breath blowing warm in his hair.

“I am,” the boy said. “But I understand.”

It killed him on the sands, and flew back over the sea.

It found that its voice was clear and strong: others listened to it. Its heart was strong: they followed.

When the pact was broken, they listened and they followed, and there was war. The dragon led many attacks, until it came upon the castle in which the boy had lived. A young woman waited for it on the ramparts.

The dragon slipped into its stolen skin and joined her. “Surrender,” it said, in the voice the young man would have had. It was clear, and it was strong. “We will set the pact back to rights; there will be peace between us. There’s no need for you to die.”

“Don’t you understand?” she said. “There’s no need for you to live.”

There she killed it. She was the first born of her family, the heir; born responsible.

A story told in Three Havens