“Did you fight the Dragon?”
He closed his hand around the brooch. “I did what I had to do,” he said. “I had no other choice. I did what I thought best.”
Of course you did.
This voice in his head might have been his own. But it was colder and deeper, and it was no memory.
Of course you did, my sweet darling. And now, with the Dragon gone, you will have your dream.
“My dream,” muttered Lionheart as he gazed into the mirror once more and fixed the fibula in its place.
He must make his way downstairs now to the half-constructed hall where a banquet was to be held that night. The scaffolds were pulled down for the week, and the signs of construction hidden behind streamers and paper lanterns. The Dragon had destroyed the Eldest’s Hall before he left Southlands, but rebuilding was well underway. And though the winter wind blew cold through the gaps in the wall and roof, the banquet must, for tradition’s sake, be held there, for this was the prince’s wedding week.
A shadow passed over the sun.
Lady Daylily sat in her chambers, gazing at her face in a glass that revealed a young woman who was no longer as beautiful as she had once been. Not that her beauty was far faded. But the poison that yet lingered in her lungs pinched her features, sallowed her complexion, and left her once vibrant eyes filmed over as with dull ash. She was still lovely, to be sure. But she would never again be what she had been.
Her attendants bustled about her, laying out her gown, smoothing the long headdress as they pinned it to her hair, selecting furs to drape over her shoulders and protect her in the drafty Eldest’s Hall. Daylily must be as elegant as human hands could make her this evening.
After all, the prince’s wedding week was hers as well.
“Out.”
The woman pinning the headdress into Daylily’s curls paused. “My lady?”
“Out. Now.” Daylily turned on her seat. Her face was a mask. “All of you. I would be alone for a moment.”
“My lady,” said Dame Fairlight, her chief attendant, “the banquet—”
“I believe I have made myself clear.”
The women exchanged glances, then, one by one, set aside their tasks and slipped from the room, closing the door behind them. Daylily sat like a stone some minutes before moving softly to her window. There she gazed out across the Eldest’s grounds.
Like a prisoner gazing on the boundaries of her imprisonment.
Daylily’s view extended over the southern part of the Eldest’s lands, off into the parks and gardens that sprawled for acres. These, like Daylily, were no longer what they had once been, ravaged by both the winter and the Dragon. Most of the shrubs and bushes had withered into dry sticks and would never bloom again, come either spring or frost. Only the rosebushes remained alive. But these had not flowered for twenty years and more.
From her vantage point, Daylily saw all the way to where the grounds broke suddenly and plunged into a deep gorge. She saw the white gleam of Swan Bridge, which spanned the gorge in a graceful sweep. But she could not see the darkness of the Wilderlands, the thick forest that grew in the depths of the gulf.
For the briefest possible moment, Daylily thought how she should like to throw on a cloak, slip from the House, make that long walk across the grounds to the gorge, and vanish forever into the Wilderlands.
It was a wild fancy, and she shook it away even as it flashed across her imagination. After all, she was Lady Daylily, daughter of the Baron of Middlecrescent, the most beautiful woman in the Eldest’s court (despite the Dragon’s work), beloved of all Southlands, and bride of Prince Lionheart. Prince Lionheart, who would one day be Eldest, making her queen. It was her father’s dearest wish, the purpose of her entire life.
But how bitter was its fulfillment! Daylily clutched her hands in her lap, refusing even a trace of emotion to cross her face, though there was no one to see. If only she had kept her heart in check. If only she had remained the icy and unreachable statue she must be in order to fulfill this role. If only she’d never permitted herself to love—
She shook her head sharply, refusing to admit that thought. No, better not to dwell on such things. Better to focus instead on the cold reality of her dream come true.
The Prince of Southlands would marry her. But he did not love her.
A movement near to hand caught her eye. Daylily dragged her gaze from the bridge and the gorge to a closer plot of ground. A small figure, stooped and thin, walked among the struggling remnants of the garden. A nanny goat followed behind her like a tame dog, nosing the shrubs for any sign of something edible, while the girl gathered what greenery she found into a bundle on her arm.
She wore a white linen veil that covered the whole of her face.
Daylily gnashed her teeth. In that instant, she looked like a dragon herself. “Rose Red,” she muttered. “Witch’s child. Demon.”
She trembled with sudden cold when the shadow passed over the sun and fled swiftly across her face.
The day was cold, especially for Southlands, which was used to balmy weather even in winter. The goat snorted, and streams of white billowed from her nose. But Rose Red, bundled from head to toe in her veils, scarcely noticed the chill. She searched the bushes of the one-time garden for any sign of life. Some shrubs had miraculously escaped the Dragon’s fire and, though withered, still managed to produce some green. Rose Red ran her hands through them, not noticing if the thorns caught at her gloves or pierced her sleeves. She put her nose up to the leaves, and they still smelled sweet.
It was difficult these days to find anything that could bring freshness to the poisoned chambers of the Eldest’s House. But Rose Red cut stems as she could, gathering an armload. She would spread these through her master’s chambers while he was busy at the banquet tonight. Perhaps it would cheer him to return and find greenery among those gloomy shadows. Or perhaps he would not notice.
“Beana!” She turned suddenly on her goat, who had a large sprig of leaves sticking out of the corner of her mouth. “Don’t eat that. You’ll be sick.”
“Bah!” said the goat, spattering leaves about her hooves. When Rose Red reached out to snatch the mouthful from her, she shook her horns and turned her tail on the girl.
“Beana, I need every bit I can find. There’s precious little as it is without you snackin’ on it! You don’t behave yourself, and I’m puttin’ you back in the pen where you belong.”
The goat muttered and trotted several paces back up the path, still chewing. Rose Red turned back to her bush, parting the thin stems to better reach a patch of lingering growth.
She paused, taking a startled breath.
Deep within that tangle of brown and dying leaves, almost hidden by thorns, was a blossom. Pure white, as though made of light itself, and fragrant, extravagant even. It was like nothing the girl had ever seen before.
But when she blinked, it was gone.
The goat, standing some distance now from Rose Red, turned suddenly and shivered. “Bah,” she said and trotted quickly to the girl’s side. “What do you have there?”
Rose Red backed away hastily. “Nothin’ you need to see. You’d probably eat it anyway.”
She moved on down the row of bushes as her goat stayed put, poking her nose into the tangled branches. Beana’s yellow eyes narrowed, and she stamped a hoof. “Rosie!” she bleated. “What did you see?”
“Nothin’, Beana,” Rose Red repeated without turning to the goat. Her arms were full by now, and she would need to put the stems in water soon if she hoped to keep them alive long enough for her master to see. “You’re goin’ to have to go back to your pen now.”
“I don’t want to go back to the pen.”
“I’m sorry, but I cain’t take you inside with me. Not so long as you insist on bein’ . . . you know . . . a goat.”
Beana blinked slowly. “And what else would I be, dear girl?”
Rose Red did not answer. Many things had changed for her during those five years wi
th the Dragon, even more in the months following his departure. Everything she had known was gone. The man she called father was dead. Her home was destroyed beyond recall. Hen’s teeth, her goat wasn’t even a goat!
And dreams came to life and walked in the real world as living, fire-breathing nightmares.
Sometimes Rose Red did not think any of the events in her recent life could possibly have happened. The rest of the time, she simply pretended they had not. Best to focus on the tasks at hand. She must serve her master. And she must stay out of everyone else’s sight as much as possible. Because they all believed it was she who brought the Dragon upon Southlands.
In a way, perhaps she had.
Rose Red sighed as she led the goat back to her pen, where other goats raised lazy eyes and bleated disinterested greetings.
“What was that heavy sound for?” Beana demanded.
Rose Red sighed again. “Sometimes I wish . . .”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes I wish we could go back to the way things were. To the mountain. We were lonely, sure. But we were happier then, weren’t we? With old Dad to care for, and our cottage to keep, and no one to . . . to . . .”
She could not finish her thought. How could she bear to say it? No one to look at her like she was a monster slavering to eat their children. No one to startle in fright whenever she entered the room. No one to whisper about her when she’d gone.
She tugged at her veil, adjusting it so that it would not slip off, pulling out stray rose thorns and dropping them to the dirt. Beana’s gaze was fixed upon her, and she did not like to meet it. She knew exactly what her goat was about to say.
“We can go back, Rosie.”
Rose Red shook her head.
“We can,” said the goat. “Your master will provide for our journey. He’s said so before. He won’t keep you here against your will. We can go back to the mountain. It was foolish to have let him talk us into returning in the first place. Have we really done him any good?”
Rose Red did not answer. She plucked thorns from the long stems, rubbing her hand over the smooth bumps left behind.
“He’s more distant than ever, hardly the boy you once knew,” the goat persisted. “You rarely see him, and when you do, you rarely speak. He’s not your responsibility, sweet child. He never was. And it was wrong of him to place such a burden on you, asking you to come back to the lowlands. It’s dangerous here.”
Beana stopped herself. To continue would be to say too much. There were some dangers it was best to keep the girl unaware of.
To the goat’s disappointment, Rose Red said nothing but opened the pen gate and ushered her pet inside. “Rosie?” said Beana as Rose Red closed and fixed the latch.
“I cain’t leave him, Beana,” said Rose Red. “He needs me. He came back and found me because he needs me. I know it’s foolish to say it, even to think it, but . . . but, Beana, I’m the only friend my master has. Though he rules the whole kingdom, he needs me still.” She bowed her head, gazing at the bundle of green under her arm. “Even if there’s little enough I can do for him.”
The goat watched as the girl made her way back through the gardens and on to the Eldest’s House. She felt helpless, and for a moment she cursed the shaggy coat and hooves she wore. “It’s tearing her up,” she muttered as she lost sight of the girl. “This marriage of the prince’s. It’s tearing her to pieces inside. Light of Lumé above, I wish we’d never met him!”
A shadow passed over the sun.
Beana shivered and looked up, squinting. That was no cloud. Perhaps a bird. But it must have been a large one, an eagle even, to make that shadow.
A moment later, she thought she caught a familiar scent on the wind. A scent of poison and of anger. But it vanished, and she told herself it was nothing more than the remnants of the Dragon’s work.
After all, Beana had bigger things to worry about.
Festive music began to play as the guests of the Eldest arrived and filled the new hall to celebrate their prince and his bride to be. Women in gaudy colors danced with men in silken garments, and their smiles flashed as bright as their jewels, so determined were they to rejoice and forget the nightmare in which they had so recently lived.
Prince Lionheart met Lady Daylily at the door and gave her his arm as support when they entered. Each wore a smile that outshone all the paper lanterns, but they did not look at each other. Cheers rose up from the assembly, drowning the music.
A burst of fire lit the Wilderlands for an instant. A few moments later, a solitary figure began to climb the gorge.
2
Everyone at the banquet watched the prince from behind their smiles.
He was not the boy they remembered. A far cry from it. In the five years of his exile, he had grown into a man. His frame had filled out, though he would never be large, and his face was well shaped behind a black beard. As he sat at the right hand of King Hawkeye, it was impossible not to see the resemblance between father and son. Save for the set of his eyes. Those had the deep-set sharpness of his mother, Queen Starflower’s, may she rest peacefully with the Mothers of Old. But the expression in his was nothing like that of the dead queen. No, hers was always an expression of strength. Her gaze could pierce the soul of any man in the Eldest’s court and wrest his secrets from him in a moment.
Lionheart’s, by contrast, was that of a haunted man.
“Did he fight the Dragon?”
Lionheart could almost hear the whispers passing from table to table. Every time a lady of the court leaned close to her neighbor to whisper something behind her fan, he could have sworn he heard the words. He found it nearly impossible to concentrate on the flow of talk going on around him. His bride to be sat on his left, carrying on a lively conversation with her father, the Baron of Middlecrescent, and with Lionheart’s cousin, Foxbrush.
At least Daylily’s part of the conversation was lively. Her father spoke hardly a word but kept glancing from Lionheart to King Hawkeye and back again, sometimes turning to look at Foxbrush. And Foxbrush answered only in mutters and refused to meet anyone’s gaze.
Poor Foxbrush. Lionheart took a moment from his own concerns to spare his cousin a pitying thought. He was so far gone in love with Daylily, Lionheart could feel the jealousy seeping from him.
Not that Foxbrush would ever have had the courage to speak up to her himself. He was much more comfortable buried in his academic pursuits. No, Foxbrush would never have what it took to marry a woman like Daylily. Daylily was a consort fit for a king.
You will be king, sweet prince, spoke the cold voice in Lionheart’s head. For an instant, he saw white eyes before his own. I have promised you your dream, and your dream you will have.
The vision vanished, and Lionheart found himself eye to eye with Baron Middlecrescent. He quickly dropped his gaze. The baron always reminded him of a cross between a fish and a bulldog, all staring eyes and jaw. Thank the Lights Above, Daylily didn’t take after him!
“Did he fight the Dragon?”
Lionheart ground his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose. The talk in the banquet hall whirled in his head, a hurricane of babble, but all he could discern was that one phrase, again and again. He thought he would suffocate.
“My son.” King Hawkeye’s voice was as tremulous as a man of eighty’s, though he had not yet reached his sixtieth year. The Dragon’s poison had aged him far before his time. But he placed a thin-skinned hand on Lionheart’s shoulder. “My son, are you unwell?”
Lionheart turned to his father. So many words rushed to his mouth, words he longed to speak. “I did what I could, Father!” he wanted to cry out. “I ensured Southlands’ safety! Perhaps I did not fight the Dragon. Perhaps I did not slay him. But who can face such a monster? Is it cowardly of me that I could not do what no man has done before me? I did all that was within my power, and I made certain he would never return. Don’t think it cost me nothing! I gave up that which was most dear to me; I gave him the heart of my love in excha
nge for safety. Was that an easy price?”
But the words died upon his tongue. Instead he said, “The excitement. It’s been a long day.”
Hawkeye smiled the ghost of a smile. “You need a dance with your lady to cheer you, lad. What say you, Daylily?”
For the first time during the banquet, Daylily turned her brilliant smile Lionheart’s way. Yet it was to the Eldest she addressed herself. “What would you have of me, dear Majesty?”
“A dance.”
“With pleasure.”
“No, no, not for me! My dancing days have passed. But for this son of mine whom you seem inclined to wed at the week’s end. Dance with him for me, will you?”
At last Daylily looked at Lionheart. Her smile never altered, but he saw the veil that fell across her eyes as clearly as Rose Red’s linen covering. “I will gladly dance with my prince,” she said through that smile.
He rose and bowed over her hand, then led her to the floor. The Eldest gave the signal; the court musicians hastily took up their instruments and struck a tune. Lionheart took Daylily in his arms. She was as soft and supple as granite, but she moved with expert grace, refusing to meet his eyes.
They danced a few measures, Daylily’s long skirts shushing softly across the floor, the train of her headdress floating lightly behind her. One of the musicians began to sing:
“Oh, Gleamdren Fair, I love thee true,
Be the moon waxed full or new!
In all my world-enscoping view
There shineth none so bright as you.”
Lionheart groaned.
“Something amiss?” asked his lady.
“This song.” He stopped dancing, not caring that all the court looked down on them in surprise. “I hate this song.”