In a gentle voice quite unlike a goat’s, she said, “But I’ll never tell you to stop loving. You see, I believe in hopeless love. Oh yes. I believe in it with all my heart, though you may discount the heart of an old nanny like me. For real love brings pain. Real love means sacrifices and hurts and all the thousand shocks of life. But it also means beauty, true beauty, such as the likes of that brilliant Lady of Middlecrescent couldn’t imagine.
“You say it’s impossible for anyone to love one like you? I tell you otherwise. I know deep down in the secret places of my soul that a person can learn to love someone like you. Someone uglier by far! With a deep, lasting love that would . . . that would dare to stare in the face of Death himself and shout threats and shake fists for the sake of the one beloved!” She laughed a little snorting laugh and smiled.
Then she was no longer a goat. Anyone looking in that dark shed would have seen at its far end a woman clad in brown and white—a mirage of the moonlight, perhaps—her hair wrapped in crowning braids atop her head, and her arms around the scrawny shoulders of a gangly, ill-formed creature in servant’s garb. An awful sight, yet one touched by a certain holiness. And somewhere, beyond the dankness of the stable, a wood thrush sang. Its song filled the night with vast spaces and clarity. In that song, Rose Red’s heart lifted as though releasing a heavy burden, and she breathed in clean air.
“This I know,” whispered the woman. “I know the depths of impossibility. They are dreadful depths when plunged. More dreadful than you yet know. Even so, do not forget him. Do not forget your love. Not for a moment.”
Rose Red raised her face from where it rested against a warm beating heart. But that vision of a tender face, that dream of warm, encircling arms vanished, and she sat nose to nose with a dusty goat.
3
The night was frigid, filled with songs that no one could hear. Or, if they did hear, no one understood the words, no matter how the songs might call to them. Only the moon seemed inclined to listen, and her great eye was dewy with tears.
The moonlight was more unbearable than the cold. Lionheart drew his curtains against it. Someone—Rose Red, most likely—had built a small fire on the grate in preparation for his evening, but its glow did little to ease the gloom around him. He stood awhile with his back to the blaze, drawing deep breaths. His old drapes had been burned and replaced months ago, and some chambermaid had put fresh cuttings in vases and urns about the room. But he still smelled dragon poison.
“Friend of demons.” Daylily’s voice rang in his head.
He wanted to break something with his own hands, to crush and destroy, anything to relieve the anger that, even now in the privacy of his chambers, he dared not release. No one would understand. No one could understand.
He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand down his face. Day after tomorrow, Lionheart would wed the friend of his youth, at last fulfilling the expectations of his dead mother and his half-dead father. With Daylily by his side, he would rebuild his once fertile kingdom, restoring green growth to the desolate fields, reviving life in the ghostly figures of his subjects. If only he could regain their trust!
“Did he fight the Dragon?”
No wonder they doubted now whether or not he was the right man to serve someday as Southlands’ Eldest. How could he have left them for so long! And for no purpose—
“No!” he growled. “No, it was for good purpose.”
Lionheart took a seat in his high-backed chair and drew it near the fire. He felt no warmth from the dull brands. Flames burned brightly in his mind instead.
Softly he whispered a name.
“Una.”
The night stretched before him, sleepless and frozen.
In the darkness before dawn, Beana knelt in the straw of her pen, her eyes wide and alert. Rose Red lay with her head pillowed on the goat’s back, her veil partially falling off her face. Gently, Beana reached out and pulled it back into place. Then she lifted her head again, nostrils quivering, ears twitching.
She listened for those silent songs. Although she could not hear them, she knew they must be near. But the air was chilled into otherworldly stillness. Even the moon had set.
The dawn chorus would not begin for another hour at least, a collision of sounds from all the birds flown to Southlands for the winter. There were fewer than in olden days. No birds had lived in Southlands during the years of the Dragon, and even now the usual migrants, displeased with the unnaturally cold winters in the kingdom, flew on across the mountains out to the sea and the warm islands beyond. The absence of their bright colors and brighter songs was keenly felt in Southlands. Everything had changed with the Dragon.
Suddenly, a lone birdsong filled the predawn air. The silver bell-like voice shattered the silence, startling Beana so that her skin shivered under Rose Red’s cheek. But the sweet melody flowed like running water, warming the winter.
Rose Red’s head came up. She rubbed her eyes wearily. But sleep swiftly fled before that fluid voice. “My wood thrush,” she whispered. “Do you hear him, Beana?”
Beana shook her head. “Rosie . . .”
“Shhh!” Rose Red got to her feet, her head tilted to the music. “Don’t you hear that?”
The goat listened again to the birdsong, and she heard what Rose Red must have already discerned. There were words in the thrush’s voice.
Won’t you follow me?
Beana rose ponderously to her feet, the bell around her neck jangling. “I hear it,” she said. “My Lord is calling us.”
Rose Red hastened to the pen and unlatched the gate. The other goats bleated, grouchy at being disturbed, but Beana ignored them as she usually did (earning her a reputation for snobbery among her kind) and followed Rose Red out to the stable yard.
Dawn was just beginning to break, but its light brought no warmth. Rather, it illuminated the gloom of those stark grounds and barren rosebushes. Southlands, the evergreen, had never known so harsh a winter. Mist curled up between their feet and frost crunched as goat and girl made their way through the near gardens and on to the park grounds beyond.
The thrush called again. They quickened their steps. They found themselves much farther out on the grounds than either would have expected. Rose Red shivered in her thin servant’s garb, and her breath caught and froze in her veil. But they did not hesitate. Not until Beana saw the deep gorge cutting the landscape ahead of them did she pause.
“We can’t go that way,” she said, planting her hooves.
Rose Red, a few steps ahead, looked back. “But he’s callin’ us.”
Beana shook her head, bleating inarticulately. “We’re too close to the Wilderlands as it is.”
Rose Red stood still. The sun, just cresting the far mountains, shone blindingly on the frost and the wisps of her breath. And the wood thrush sang once more.
Won’t you follow me?
As though coming to a decision, Rose Red turned from the goat and continued pursuing that voice, drawing ever nearer to the gorge. Beana tossed her head. “Why, my Lord?” she demanded, then trotted after her charge, catching up to her just as she approached the drop-off.
Together, they gazed into the dark forest far below. The sunlight, which was filling the plateaus of Southlands, seemed to skirt away from those dark leaves. Mists clung to the Wilderlands like stroking fingers. It was a dizzying drop, and Rose Red put a hand on Beana’s back for support. She had never been so near one of the gorges without a bridge.
The thrush sang again.
“Must we go down there?” Rose Red whispered.
“Someone is there,” said Beana, shaking her horns. “Someone who needs help.”
“Very well.”
Rose Red took a step toward the edge of the cliff, but Beana bleated in sudden terror. “No! No, child! You cannot go that way!”
Rose Red paused, her heart hammering in her chest, though she could not say why. Perhaps it was simply that terrible fall. But she had grown up in the mountains, and heights had never affected
her nerves before.
The thrush sang. Follow!
“Beana,” Rose Red said, “if someone needs help, ain’t that what we’re called to give?”
“I’ll help,” said the goat.
Rose Red snorted. “And who’s goin’ to take the help of an old goat?”
Beana bleated again, stamping a hoof until it tore the turf. “Very well,” she said at last. “But let me go first. I’ll find us a Path. And, Rosie! You must not enter the Wilderlands, you hear me? No matter what happens, you must not approach the forest.”
“Whatever you say, Beana.”
The goat paced along the top of the gorge. The cliff was sheer and the stones sharp, and at first Beana did not think she would find them a way down. But she knew the secret Paths that mortal eyes did not see, and if there was one to be found, it would not long be hidden from her. In due course, she saw one, a thin, glimmering trail, invisible in this world but nonetheless real, leading down the cliff face. “This way,” the goat told the girl. Rose Red, who had been trained as a child to find these fey Paths herself, saw where Beana walked and followed close behind.
The way was difficult but not impossible to navigate. Rose Red’s hand shook as she clutched rocks for balance, but she did not miss a step. Beana, sure-footed as a mountain goat, progressed much faster in this terrain, and was soon many paces ahead. Suddenly she stopped and shook her head until her bell made a terrible dissonance in the morning air. “Bah!”
A strange voice spoke, soft but hot as fire in the winter air. “Good morning to you too.”
Rose Red startled at the sound. “Oh! There is someone!”
She hastened a few steps farther down the path and came face-to-face with a dragon.
Sunrise found Lionheart hollow eyed before his shaving glass. He had slept hardly a wink. Throughout the night, his mind had been full of two different voices. One was as familiar to him as his own: a woman’s voice, venomous as darkness itself.
You did what you had to do. There was no other way. Now you will have your dream.
Lionheart had lain on his bed, gazing up at the shadows of his canopy, listening to the cold words going round and round in his head.
Suddenly, as though carrying over great distance and time, he’d heard another voice, very soft and sorrowful:
“He won’t even recognize me. Leonard . . . how could you love a monster?”
He knew that voice all too well. And he whispered for a second time that night the name he had vowed to forget: “Una.”
Thus, when morning dawned, it was a sorry excuse for a prince that dragged himself from his pillow and faced his own reflection in the glass. His fingers trembled as he trimmed his beard and splashed icy water into his eyes. Then he dressed himself, slowly, in princely apparel of blue and scarlet.
Today he must ride out with Daylily and her father and other members of his father’s court, through the main street of the Eldest’s City, ending at the mayor’s house, where they would stop and present themselves to the people of Southlands, all smiles and love. And masks.
Daylily’s cheerless face presented itself in his mind. When she smiled, her eyes did not show it. Not so with Una.
Lionheart closed his eyes, grimacing as he finished buttoning his doublet and placed a silver crown upon his brow.
When Una smiled, it filled her whole face, and when she laughed, there was no trace of artificiality.
“Iubdan’s beard!” The Prince of Southlands swore through grinding teeth. “You gave her up, you fool.”
You did what you had to do.
“I had my reasons. And I would do it again if need be!” His unfeeling mirror stared back at him, reflecting only his self-loathing. Lionheart turned away, unable to meet his own gaze.
He was Prince of Southlands. His kingdom must always come first. He made his way down from his chambers to where the Eldest’s court waited to feast him and his bride.
The dragon was clothed in the form of a young woman, hardly more than a girl, her back pressed against the cliff. Her dress, which might once have been very fine, was in tatters, darkened by dirt so that its color was indeterminable. Honey-brown hair hung long and straggly about her, partially covering her face. But she pulled some of it back to look up at Rose Red.
Fire gleamed in her unblinking eyes.
Rose Red stood like a statue for what seemed a small forever. All the memories of the last few years rushed back into her mind. Memories of a dark Path and a black lake; memories of a ballroom lit with ghostly chandeliers suspended in shadows; memories of dancing to discordant music and of jewels gleaming on rich gowns.
Memories of dragons.
The wood thrush sang across the morning. Take heart, dear one.
Rose Red swallowed and stepped up behind her goat. “Beana told me someone needed help down here,” she said, hoping her voice did not tremble much. “Shoo, Beana,” she added, nudging the goat aside so that she could sidle past her.
“Bah!”
The dragon drew back, pressing herself more firmly against the rock. Despite the fire burning so hot inside her that the air steamed from her skin, she did not seem to possess the energy to rise. “Who are you?” she demanded in a harsh voice. But her face was afraid.
Rose Red put out a hand, speaking as gently as she could, though every instinct warned her to flee. “I am nobody,” she said. “Who are you?”
The dragon shook her head and suddenly buried her face in her knees. Her body trembled. Could she possibly be cold?
Don’t be such a coward, Rose Red scolded herself. She ain’t even as old as you! And she’s more frightened than you are. She took another step and spoke in a soothing voice. “Have you come from the Wilderlands? Are you trying to climb to the Eldest’s City?”
The dragon did not look up but shrugged her shoulders.
If she was trying to make her way to the city, Rose Red would have to stop her. The last thing the people of Southlands needed was another dragon in their midst. Though this one was a far cry from her dark Father, she was a dragon nonetheless. Poor, pitiable thing. Rose Red stepped still closer. “You are weak and worn,” she said. Then her voice caught in her throat.
The dragon sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. One of them was gray with ash and soot and had traces of burns.
The other was covered in scales.
Rose Red drew in a sharp breath. Her heart raced as the memories returned again, more powerfully than ever, memories of fire and poison and whirling music. Memories of a throne made of twisted dragon skeletons set high on a black pedestal. She felt overwhelmed with the urge to throw herself upon the strange girl, to drag her up and push her from the Path, crashing down to the rocks below.
A cruel impulse, but it raced through her veins in a flooding rush.
Then the wood thrush sang a single word: Beloved.
Rose Red breathed out slowly and felt her hands, which had been clenched into fists, relax. Licking her lips, she whispered, “And I see that you suffer.” She touched the scale-covered arm.
The dragon sat upright and yanked herself away from Rose Red. “Leave me alone!” There was no violence in her voice, only terror. And Rose Red thought that her transformation must have been recent. This trembling creature could not long have been a dragon.
“Please, m’lady,” Rose Red said as softly as she could. “I am not one to judge you.” She swallowed, then slowly began to peel the glove off her right hand. “Will you look?”
She held out her bare hand for the stranger to see: hard as stone, each stubby finger ending in a cruel claw. It was her shame and her birthright.
The dragon stared at it, her mouth dropping open. Then she looked up, squinting as though to see Rose Red’s eyes through the slit of her veil. “Are you . . . are you like me?” she asked.
Rose Red shook her head. “No, m’lady. But let me help you even so.”
Slowly, the dragon lifted her own horrible hand and placed it in Rose Red’s. The scales were hot, hot ri
ght through Rose Red’s stony hide. But Rose Red had expected this and did not flinch. She helped the girl to her feet and said, “You go to the city?”
The dragon nodded, confirming Rose Red’s suspicions. Well, she would get her off of the cliff and out of the cold first, then figure out how to dissuade her. What could a young dragon possibly want in the Eldest’s City anyway? It was unlikely that Southlands was her home. Her pale skin and fair hair suggested she came from one of the north countries, as far as Parumvir, even. How she came to be so far south was beyond Rose Red’s guess. But she wouldn’t worry about that now.
Beana turned and led the way up the Path, muttering to herself and sometimes voicing a vehement “Bah!” Otherwise, she said nothing, though she kept casting wary glances back at both the dragon and the Wilderlands below. No one could have guessed which she feared most.
Their going was slow, and the morning was well progressed by the time they reached the tablelands above. As soon as they were upon level ground, the stranger pulled herself from Rose Red’s grasp. She was unsteady on her feet, but her face was determined. “Which way to the city gates?” she demanded.
Rose Red frowned. She did not like to think of a dragon, no matter how small and weak, wandering alone through the Eldest’s grounds, trying to find the city. “I can take you there myself,” she said hesitantly, her mind furiously working to come up with some way to dissuade the creature. “I serve in the Eldest’s House. I know the way.”
“Serve in the Eldest’s House?” Flames darted in the corners of the dragon’s eyes, and Rose Red took a step back at the sight. “Have you seen . . .” The dragon paused and ducked her head, blinking as though to drive back the fire. “That is . . . have you heard tell of . . .”