The grass was warm and soft beneath her feet, so different from the hard mountain terrain to which she was used, full of many delectable smells. But the goat did not stop to investigate these. She slowed from a gallop to a trot, eyes focused forward on her destination.
The Eldest’s grounds ended where the gorge cut across the land, sweeping sharply down into those unknown Wilderlands below.
Beana trotted to the edge of the gorge and gazed into that dark forest. The trees watched her and some beckoned gently with leaf and needle-covered hands, but she ignored these. “Bah,” she muttered, searching and sniffing and becoming ever more agitated.
Suddenly she caught a new scent. It was not the one she sought.
Slowly, unwilling to believe her senses, the goat turned her eyes upward, to the sky. “Lights above, shield us,” she whispered.
There, above her, appearing in a flash of fire, was a form she knew all too well. And with it came the stench that still haunted her nightmares, no matter how many centuries since last she’d smelled it! In that moment of recognition, Beana knew that descending terror and the memories it stirred in her heart better than she knew herself.
Don’t be afraid, sang the wood thrush.
But Beana was running now, as fast as she could for the Eldest’s House, while watching the destruction falling like lightning.
The day was overcast and rather cold for summer, with a breeze that had a sting to it.
Then the world was filled with fire.
First came the heat, an instant later the flame, and immediately afterward the sound. It was a roar that ended in a sensation of heaviness, like an enormous hand smacking down. WHOMPH! A sound as hot as the flames themselves. One could almost believe that the sound alone consumed the marble Starflower Fountain, that massive edifice two stories tall; consumed and destroyed it in a matter of seconds.
After that, came the Dragon.
3
THE DRAGON LANDED in the heart of the flames, atop the pile of rubble that only moments before had been Starflower and her foe. As he landed, screams rose up about him, a macabre chorus. How many died in those first few moments would be impossible to guess, but the others fled without thought, with no emotion save the overwhelming, consuming fear that gripped them by their throats and squeezed.
The Dragon raised his wings above his head, lifted his face to the sky, and sent up a fountain of flame, a ghastly parody of the pure water that had so recently flowed in the same spot. It shot to the heavens, raining sparks upon the surrounding gardens. Fire caught and spread swiftly across the grass, across the hedges, across the winding white paths. Stable hands screamed to each other as the stables caught, some rushing inside to save the horses, others taking flight through the far gate.
The people inside the Eldest’s House, as the sounds outside besieged their ears, ran to various windows and looked out upon the fiery maelstrom. They saw the screaming men and women, saw the fires swiftly spreading. Most of all, filling their vision so that they could not look away no matter how dearly they might wish to, they saw the Dragon in place of the white monument that had symbolized their liberty.
Queen Starflower stood amid her attendants, many of whom were shrieking inarticulately. And as she looked out upon the destroyer standing on the ruins of her namesake’s statue, fire bursting from him in a stream to the heavens, she believed she looked upon her death. In a whisper, she spoke a protective blessing: “Silent Lady, shield us!” But she spoke without hope.
Foxbrush and other men of the court hastened to the palace windows as well and, seeing what terror waited beyond the glass, formed together and hurtled toward the great front door, armed or otherwise, united in rage. Foxbrush was squeezed to the back of the crowd, though his shouts were as loud and angry as those of his fellows.
But King Hawkeye, his old bones quickened by the sights and sounds around him, ran to the same hall and raised both his arms in a commanding gesture. “Stop!” he cried. “The fumes—”
His voice was drowned as the foremost young men flung wide the door.
Like a tidal wave, noxious fumes poured into the hall. The men struck first by the wall of venomous heat fell as though dead to the floor. Those farther back, as the poison filled their lungs, felt their outrage melt away in a surge first of absolute terror, then of utter despair. Noble and common man alike went down on their knees with the weight of it.
The Eldest saw this effect before the fumes reached him, and his face twisted in dismay. Then he too felt the poison take hold of him in a grip that promised, like a constrictor’s, to strengthen with time.
All this happened in a matter of moments, and as the following moments ticked away their small eternities, the Dragon’s poison worked its way into every room, every passage, every cellar and attic chamber in all the Eldest’s House, filling the lungs, then the hearts of each household member.
Save one.
Deeming his work complete, the massive beast swallowed his flame, and the world was suddenly dark as night in the cloud of his smoke. He looked out from where he sat in the ruin of the fountain and spoke a single word.
“Out.”
This command worked twofold. First, every fire that blazed in the hedgerows and across the stable roofs instantly snuffed out like a candle under glass, leaving behind only noxious smoke. Second, people of the household poured from every door and filled the yard around the Dragon. Even those who could barely stand for the poison tottered forth, servant supporting nobleman, nobleman supporting servant. They arranged themselves in groups, and the Dragon smiled.
As he smiled, his eyes scanned the crowd like a scythe cutting through a field. Those on whom his gaze fell even for an instant felt themselves collapsing inside as though the marrow of their spirits had suddenly corroded. But those awful eyes did not linger on any one person; instead they continued searching the crowd until at last the Dragon spoke again.
“Where is the princess?”
The people fell to the ground, unable to answer.
“Where is the princess?” the Dragon repeated.
Still no one could answer. If anyone thought of Lady Daylily, somewhere on the grounds riding, no one could have spoken her name even had that one wished to. The Dragon hissed, flames licking from his tongue. Then he crawled down from his perch on the rubble, like a monarch descending from his throne. The ground shook beneath him, and all the people of the Eldest’s House trembled.
“Where is the princess?” he demanded yet again, fire dripping from his jaws like saliva from a mastiff’s jowls. Then his attention was drawn by the sight of King Hawkeye in the middle of the throng, where his steward and several barons had tried to shield him, struggling to his feet and pushing the men aside.
“Ah, the little kingling,” the Dragon said. As he drew nearer, the people scattered in screamless terror, creating an open path to the Eldest. But the aging king, despite the bitter smoke, drew himself up tall and faced the Dragon.
“Tell me, wretched man,” the Dragon said, speaking the word like an insult, “where is the princess?”
“Terrible one,” the Eldest spoke, his voice small and cold after the mountainous reverberations of the one before him, “I do not know of whom you speak.”
The Dragon flared the crest on his head and turned his face so that he fixed the Eldest with a single orb. The eye was black as stone, yet fire burned deep inside, blazing so bright and hot that the stone’s surface melted and roiled in the heat.
“Don’t think me a fool, mortal creature,” the Dragon said. “I’ve not made myself incarnate for nothing. I know she must be here. Don’t try to shield her!”
Even before that one awful eye, Hawkeye declared, “There is no princess. Not in all of Southlands. This land has not seen a princess in many years.”
The Dragon hissed again. The heat of his face so near was almost too much to bear. “I have played the game for the Beloved of my Enemy,” he said. “The time is now near. I gave her a year and a day, and she did not return. But al
l the signs have led me to this place, all the protections surrounding your house—paltry protections though they may be. I know she is here. So I ask you again, little kingling, and I’ll not waste the breath to ask further: Where is the princess?”
King Hawkeye opened his mouth to speak, knowing he invited his own doom. But the Dragon suddenly raised his head high, looking back over his black wings, back across the expanse of the Eldest’s grounds. His nostrils widened and issued a great stream of black smoke as his lips drew back in a snarl that was almost a smile.
A lone rider approached, galloping hard on a bloodred mare.
In a whirl of wings and with a great slash of his long tail that sent many in the crowd tumbling, the Dragon turned to face the incomer. His crest flattened against his skull, and he snaked his long neck out, low to the ground so that he was eye level with the rider. And though both horse and rider were still some distance away, the Dragon could see his assailant’s face, full of such rage that fear had not yet found a grip.
The Dragon opened wide his mouth until his lower jaw scraped along the ground. Seeing what was about to happen, Hawkeye cried, “No!” and flung himself forward, only to be snatched back by his loyal barons.
The Dragon breathed.
Rather than flames, a cloud of steam, searing hot, issued from his throat. That poison carried all fear, all terror, all the death of dreams to flood the heart and overwhelm the soul.
As the cloud engulfed her and her master, the bloodred mare screamed as though ridden to her destruction. She balked, falling hard to the dirt in her terror. When she had struggled to her feet, her eyes white in frenzied rolling, she left her master helpless on the ground.
Lionheart’s mouth was wide in soundless pain, not physical, but a pain that tore down into his very spirit, ripping and shredding as the scorching steam entered his lungs. Smoke blinded him, but he clenched his teeth and felt around for a hunting knife that he knew he must have dropped nearby. His hands felt nothing, but his sight cleared as the smoke parted.
The Dragon, his neck arched like a cobra’s, stood over him. The monster opened his mouth again as though to devour his victim in one bite. But instead, he laughed.
The sound was the cacophony of nightmares. Flames danced about his teeth and fell in sparks on and around his victim, who in the face of that laughter lay as one paralyzed. When at last the laughter finished and smoke roiled in coils all about them, the Dragon spoke.
“Prince Lionheart! Welcome. You wish to try your mettle on me? It’s been some time since a princeling such as you took it into his head to charge into suicide! You make me feel young again.”
Lionheart looked up at him, unable to turn away, gasping and with each gasp taking in more poison. He could not move for the pain that flowed through his veins, as though his blood boiled and burned him from the inside out. And the Dragon’s eyes burned him from above as it studied him.
“You are a tempting morsel, little prince.” He snarled another smile. Lionheart’s face was red, and sweat dripped from his hair. It felt as though his clothing must shrivel away like paper held to a candle. “But alas,” the Dragon continued, “I lost that game! You are my sister’s prey, not mine. No, I fear I must give you up. Perhaps I should eat you instead?”
The prince tried to speak but found no voice. The poison had burned away all sound but the Dragon’s hot breathing.
Then suddenly silver birdsong drowned out all else, though small as a whisper. The next moment someone was kneeling beside him, bent over him protectively. A tiny person, hardly much of a shield, and yet the furnace above Lionheart abated somewhat.
The Dragon stared down at the small veiled girl that ran under his very nose and flung herself over the prince, holding up one hand as though to push the vast monster away. He stared and then he smelled, and his eyes widened at the scent he breathed in.
“Princess!”
The growl of his voice rumbled through Rose Red’s body. She thought her bones must break. The face above her was different from that of her Dream, yet she recognized it. And the sight did not so much frighten as enrage her. How dare he? How dare he be real?
She shook her fist at the monster, even as he blew at her veil. “Don’t you hurt him!” she cried. “Don’t you even try!”
The Dragon lowered his head, and Rose Red cringed away from his eyes but remained in her protective crouch over the prince. “Sweet princess,” said the Dragon, “I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you to return to me in a year and a day or suffer my wrath. You see now that I always keep my word.” Then his voice became purring sweet behind the fire, compelling obedience. “Why do you wear that veil before me? I know your true face. You should not hide from me.”
Yet Rose Red remained unaffected by his poison. She gnashed her teeth behind the veil, spitting her words as she cried, “Go away! Go back to the mountain, go back to your cave! I don’t want you, you nightmare. You don’t belong in this world. Get you gone, and leave us alone!”
He smiled. “I think not. Not until you let me kiss you.”
“No chance of that!”
“I could kill him. What would you say then?”
Rose Red stared into those eyes, twin infernos boiling brimstone ready to burst upon her. But though the Dragon was more horrible than words, she was not afraid, not quite. “I won’t let you hurt him,” she said.
“And how will you stop me?” the Dragon demanded with a laugh.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I will.”
He snarled, spitting flames, and she threw her body across the prince’s to protect him. Sparks rolled off her back and sizzled on the ground. The Dragon swung his head about. The people of the Eldest’s House quailed beneath his scrutiny. He turned back to the maid, but it was to the prince sheltered beneath her that he spoke.
“Perhaps, oh you brave, lionhearted man, you are not for the snacking after all? I think you may prove more useful alive. You will help me, won’t you?”
“Don’t talk to him,” Rose Red said.
The Dragon backed away from the two, and the swirling smoke surrounded him so that his awful size was hidden. “Get up, little prince,” he spoke as he retreated. “Get up and journey into the world. I send you to your exile. But we will meet again, Prince Lionheart, and perhaps you’ll find your throne after all?”
Then he vanished from sight, and all Rose Red could discern were screams beyond the wall of smoke and flashes of fire through the gloom. Lionheart, though apparently conscious, was aware of nothing, and his skin was hot to the touch. With extraordinary strength for her size, she heaved him upright, pulling his arm over her bent shoulders, and dragged him back across the poison-filled lawns of the Eldest’s grounds.
4
HE DREAMED OF FIRE.
When the dreams faded, Lionheart hovered in the half-light between waking and sleeping. In that place, he thought he smelled the musk of horse, thought he heard the creak of leather and felt the touch of a supporting hand, sometimes soft and sometimes covered in ragged gloves. Then the fire would claim him again and he’d succumb to the furnace of fever and the poison that roiled in his lungs.
No, a voice repeated over and over in his mind. No, you are mine. He may not have you.
In desperation, he reached out to the voice, like a child lunging from a stranger’s arms toward its mother, heedless of the drop beneath it, caring nothing for danger in its desire for the familiar. “Help me!” he called to the voice.
Tell me what you want, it said.
“I want to escape this fire!”
And so you shall, for you are not his lawful prey!
In an instant there flashed before his mind’s eye a face, black amid the fire, white eyes full of fury.
“Thank heaven, you’re safe!”
The ebony face vanished when a man’s deep voice, hard-edged in relief, spoke from beyond the veil of dreams. More voices spoke, and the gloved hand took hold of him again, and he felt the shifting of the horse beneath him.
>
Then the fire claimed him once more.
This time the dream continued uninterrupted until Lionheart began to believe with what was left of his conscious mind that he had in fact died and, bypassing the Realm Unseen, his soul had flown straight to this hell. Despair, potent and cold amid the raging flames, slashed across his heart.
“No, no!” A new voice spoke. “No, please! Don’t let him go!”
He felt, as though from a great distance, a kiss upon his forehead, and it was cool, though not cold. Then the voice, low and mellifluous, began to sing.
Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
Won’t you return to me?
When the voice became a bird’s strange, inhuman song he could not guess. Or perhaps it had always been so? But as the sound washed over him like rain, the flames in his head died, the poison in his breast ebbed away. Lionheart blinked open weary eyes and for a moment saw a face he had never before seen, a beautiful one, young yet ageless, with golden skin and great silver eyes. The face of a princess.
He fell at last into a natural sleep.
Daylily sat beside the prince’s bed in a darkened chamber. Her face was paler than usual, yet no other signs betrayed the harrowing journey she had just experienced.
Six days she had traveled without food, walking beside the fevered Lionheart slung over the back of her black gelding. They’d found little water along the way, and most of what they’d found was spoiled by the horrible smoke that filled the countryside. No one met them on the road. Everyone had fled at the Dragon’s approach, and the land was as barren as an old battlefield. And always that iron-gray sky oppressed them.
Daylily may have been the darling of the royal court, but she was also the daughter of a baron. She could bear hunger and thirst and an endless trek down an empty road.
What she could not endure was the fear.
The fear of being watched. That compulsive need to look over one’s shoulder or to search the heavy sky. The way one’s eyes couldn’t help but dart to any shadow that moved across the ground, expecting to see the spread of wings. Nearly a week of this life would drive anyone mad, and Daylily’s careful mask threatened to break with tears on more than one occasion.