His head was pounding like a drum, and felt just as hollow.

  Edmund groaned and sat up, the sheets slipping down his torso. The soft rustling of the fabric against his skin drew his attention to the fact that he hadn't bothered to change into his nightclothes when he had stumbled to bed. Just what had they used in that wine?

   If it wasn't already illegal, it should be.

   He rubbed his temples, hoping to alleviate some of the pressure in his skull, only to have a vision flash in front of his mind's eye. A pair of small, pale hands crisscrossed with scars. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He searched his memories of the night before and found them covered in a fog. Small snippits of clarity stood out, but overall it was a hazy blur that left him with a feeling of escalating unease.

   It was obvious he had been drugged. The purpose of which could be easily worked out.

   The Thornes were more desperate than he had thought. They wanted this alliance, and had made that more than clear before he had even set foot in this benighted castle. He still remembered the nauseatingly flattering letter he had received from the Marquis after the Council of Elders had gone behind his back to negotiate a possible betrothal.

  The North had been facing a disaster for the past few generations that had been slowly, but steadily, creeping across the territory. Edmund's family, the Drakes, had discreetly searched for a solution for the shadow spreading and poisoning the land, killing the plant life, and mutating the wildlife into demonic beasts. They had consulted with every expert they could lay their hands on.

    All to no avail.

   There seemed to be no way to cure the destructive force they named the Blight. Edmund had always felt that if they could just find out what had caused the evil rot to spread, they would know how to stop and, hopefully, reverse it. He had searched the family records and scoured the libraries left by his forefathers for any hint or clue.

   When the Rivenscar Kingdom had been established and its founders had been given their territories to protect, they had all vied for the territories that they felt would allow their families to flourish. The North was uniquely suited to the nature of the Drakes.

    Before the Cardinal Houses existed, the first head of the Drake family was born into a family of famous swordsmen as the second son.

   While most in the family had been focused on swordsmanship and fostering their skills as warriors, this son was more scholastic. It had been uncharacteristic for the family, but with his older brother being a strong swordsman, he had been left largely to his own devices. Thus, he had spent his days happily ensconced in his library and had even discovered a small talent for magic during his quests for knowledge.

   While not exceptionally powerful, he was stubborn. He practiced the magical skills that he was able to cobble together from books almost obsessively. He hoped to one day convince his family to allow him to travel and find a master who could teach him more to become a true mage.

   Unfortunately, this would never come to pass. His older brother fell in a particularly brutal battle, leaving him as the new heir and future head of the family. He had then been thrust into the spotlight glare of his family's expectations.

    No more days in the library researching as he pleased. Now he was expected to train day and night to become as skilled as his late brother. However, no matter how much effort he poured in at this late stage, it could not compare to a lifetime of training and dedication.

   He knew that his father dispaired for the future of the family. How could a clan of warriors be led by a scholar? He knew their enemies were already circling. The young man knew that while he was not stronger than his father and brother, he did have something they didn't. He would have to find a way to turn that to his advantage.

   This was where his stubborn nature and lack of formal training allowed him to do what was believed to be impossible.

   He had magic. While he was not a fully trained mage, he was a partially trained one, as well as being a nominal swordsman. It only made sense to him to make his weakness into a strength. He knew that many mages used wands or staves to channel their magic. What was a sword except for a metal stick when it came right down to it? Why couldn't he use a sword to channel his magic?

   He had spent months in the blacksmith's forge, layering spells into steel as he attempted to form it into a weapon that he could use not just as a swordsman, but as a mage. He built up lean muscles, shedding the softness of youth and his scholarly air as he faced failure after failure. Until one day he found the right combination, and felt the magic thrumming through the blade, coming to life in his hand. 

    A soft voice had spoken in his mind, and a new path for his magic had been forged with his blood and sweat. He became the first Spellblade that day.

    The technique he had created was passed down through the generations, allowing the Drakes to take their place as protectors of the North and securing their territory. Because his scholarly nature is what led to this breakthrough, the following generations of Drakes have kept up this dual nature. They were both scholars and warriors, and each kept a personal library filled with their own research and knowledge. These libraries were kept preserved in the Keep for later generations. 

    Unfortunately, the Blight had appeared one day and resisted any solution that successive generations had engineered to deal with it. 

   None of his ancestors' papers had contained any hint as to where it had come from, but it had kept up its steady crawl forward through the years until it had moved from the deep wilderness of the mountains to the very edge of the settled lands. 

   As one would expect, the North was a sparse land, though not barren by any means. Winters were longer and a bit harsher. This had led the people to grow hardy, adaptable, and resilient, making them excellent warriors. The North had become renowned for its military prowess, and under the command of the Drakes, their forces were believed to be nigh unstoppable. When they had first noticed the Blight creeping through the wilderness, they had believed that all they would need to do was defeat the monsters it unleashed and drive it back with their might. 

   They had underestimated the Blight.

   The monsters were one thing, but the drained and barren land it left in its wake was terrifying.

   They were now close to reaching a point of no return, with the Blight edging ever closer to one of the North's largest settlements. Then, suddenly, a Sage had appeared, as if divinely sent with a solution. It was all too convenient for Edmund's liking. 

   His father and grandfather had each even sought help from the Rothchildes in the West during their tenure. None could even discover the cause of the blight, let alone cure it. Then suddenly, after his father's death, when he, as the only heir to the Dukedom and the last living Spellblade, had newly taken up the title and was at his weakest in terms of political power, a Sage suddenly turned up. 

    A Sage who claimed to be a minor, overlooked member of the Rothchilde family, who just happened to have envisioned a solution to the North's problem. A solution that, even more conveniently, came in the form of a cryptic prophecy. 

  "When the heart of the dragon is pierced by the thorn and the spirit rose blooms under the blade's spell, 

Spring's sunlight will warm the mountain's winter wind, driving away the spreading shadow,

And prosperity will grow and spread across the land like branches of the mighty oak." 

   Cryptic and vague. Open to so many interpretations, while not really giving any concrete information. As soon as the elders had heard this sage's prophecy, they had immediately latched onto the phrases 'dragon', 'thorn', and 'spirit rose'. With two of the Cardinal families named Drake and Thorne, with one being a family of spell blades and the other Spirit Masters, they had felt that the answer was obvious. They needed a Spirit Master and a Spellblade. They already had one half of the solution; they only needed the other. 

    In previous generations, this would have been a relatively simple situation to resolve. A simple request for assistance from another Cardinal House. However, currently, it was complicated. 

    There were no longer any known Spirit Masters left in the South. The southerners had hoped that the powers would manifest in the Thorne heir, but when her fifteenth birthday passed, and no powers appeared, they had to accept that they would have to pin their hopes on any offspring she might have. The reality was that there was a high probability that the line of Spirit Masters had ended.

   This had caused those old fools to despair of freeing the North from the creeping blight. Then one of them had the brilliant insight that the prophecy had not specified a Spirit Master and a Spellblade, but a dragon with a thorn piercing its heart. They had then argued that they needed a Drake to have their heart pierced by a Thorne, and luckily, the last Drake was a man and the last Thorne a young woman. Perhaps adding the magic talent of the Drakes to the Thorne bloodline would reignite their power. Maybe the spirit rose blooming meant their child? A child who would solve the problems of the North and the South.

     Desperate to cling to any solution, they had clamored for him to marry the Thorne heiress. He had immediately refused. 

   By their logic, a thorn piercing the dragon's heart could just as easily mean that the Thorne girl needed to kill him and feed his blood to a plant. Prophecies were useless in solving real problems. Disregarding his protests and refusals, they had sent the request behind his back. 

   While he knew that an arranged marriage was most likely in his future, he was wary of the ambition that he saw in the Marquis of Thorne. If it had been the previous Marchioness, he would have felt comfortable dealing with the family. He remembered visiting the castle with his father when he was young, and she had seemed kind and wise, though physically weak. 

    If she were still alive and in charge of the South, he would have just requested help and felt assured he would have gotten it with no need to tie himself to her daughter for life. The new Marquis, though, was a different animal altogether. 

    He had met the man a few times while his father had still been alive. The old Duke had always warned him to be wary of the Hallowfelds. Wily old merchants, they never made a deal that they didn't make a profit from. And though Sebastian Hallowfeld had become Sebastian Thorne, he still was a Hallowfeld to his bones. Edmund would not be foolish enough to underestimate him. He had taken the Thorne family title from his own daughter after all. 

    From all reports, on the surface, he doted on the girl. However, if one looked deeper, beyond the gold spent on fancy dresses, etiquette tutors, and social connections, it told a slightly different tale. She was being raised like any other young lady, with expectations to be presented to noble society and secure a good marriage for her family. Not as a successor to her house. As the last blood Thorne, if she were sold off in marriage, who would inherit the South?  

    He was the only heir to the northern Duchy, just as the daughter of the late Marchioness was the sole heir to the southern March. Any child they had could claim dominion over both territories. This would concentrate half the Kingdom under the control of one family, threatening even the Royal Family's authority. 

    That is why he felt that the Elders were being irresponsibly naive. The response had come too quickly. It was obvious that the Marquess was salivating at the thought of merging the families. This would not be met with favor by anyone.  

    Even if they were able to remove the threat of the Blight with this move, it would only turn countless blades against them. Why save themselves from disease only to turn around and find the rest of the Kingdom allied against them? Too much power flaunted in the face of others was dangerous. 

   Then there was the ultimate question- which family would end up wielding this power?  

   The old coots on the Council had been eager to secure what they saw as a lifeline for the North. Edmund had fought viciously against the idea, claiming that he would find another solution, but they had been adamant, demanding that he at least travel to the South to discuss it. He had been livid at first, but eventually agreed to the trip to shut the old fools up and to see what the Marquis was planning. And who knew if maybe he could find something there to help his people. 

  He had, however, underestimated how badly the Thornes wanted a marriage, drugging him on the night he had arrived.

  He groaned as the thumping in his head started up again.

  He felt that something fundamental had shifted last night, but he couldn't remember any details of what had happened.

   He tried to focus, but all he could recall were hazy, disconnected impressions. Those slender, pale hands. A waterfall of red. A soft voice mumbling unintelligible words. 

   And a pair of sharp green eyes that glowed in the darkness. 

  "Arthur?" He called out. His friend and personal guard should have been in the small adjoining room, hopefully with some magic remedy for this hangover. There was no response.

  He opened his eyes again and finally looked around the room. A room that, while similar, was subtly different from the one he remembered from his arrival yesterday. The furniture was similar in style, but the rooms had been decorated in completely different color schemes. The room he had been shown to yesterday was draped in shades of red and green, while this room was done in shades of blue. This room gave off a subtly feminine air, while his guest room was neutral if not masculine. Also, where there had been a side table in his room, there stood a wardrobe with an intricate knotwork rose design inlaid across its front. This was not his room.

   He groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, eyeing his clothes scattered across the floor. With a sigh, he stood and dressed quickly, ignoring the continued pounding of his head. Tucking his shirt in, he strode towards the door, ready to find Arthur and figure out just how much trouble they were going to find themselves in from last night's escapades. 

   He paused as his hand was about to grasp the door handle, then turned and crossed back to the bed and searched for a moment. Tucking something in his pocket, he headed for the door again, this time not looking back.

  Time to figure out the tune of the music he was going to have to face.