“Yes,” said the king. “And so?”
“And so, I heard the woman’s voice and knew it was Lady Olivia. The voice told me one thing, the mirror another. Lady Olivia’s hair is blond, not dark. The mirror showed her true hair color. If she’d turned her head just then, I would have seen her true face as well, but I heard the guard accuse me of the crime, and I ran.”
Vazan suddenly flew down from her perch, catching Lady Olivia, who had just edged down off the back of the stage. Vazan lifted her up and set her back in her place. “You will not sssslip away.” Vazan’s silver eyes had the look of polished daggers.
“Let me go!” Lady Olivia screamed, still caged in the red’s long talons.
“Help her,” Bianca pleaded, tugging the king’s arm.
“I demand you let her go, red dragon,” King Arden said. “She was my wife’s closest companion. Onadon, Augusta, you and your dragons were not invited to this execution. If you care anything for the refuge we have provided for the fey folk and the dragons for more than six decades, you will leave my—”
“Wait,” King Onadon said. “There is a way to settle this.”
“A mirror,” I said. “Just bring a mirror out.”
“Would you listen to a murderess?” Lady Olivia called from her clawed cage. “Your nephew has put on a show so the fairy king and his dragons can carry his lover off to safety.”
“Have I?” Jackrun nodded to the knights at my side. “You still hold Uma Quarteney firmly, don’t you?”
“Aye, we do, and her wrists are tied.”
“More show!” said Lady Olivia. “King Onadon can make her vanish and whisk her away with the twitch of a finger.”
Jackrun raised a brow, then smiled. “If that were the plan, he would have done so already, my lady. If you are innocent, you won’t mind standing in front of a mirror, will you?”
“Now,” said the king, “we’ll clear this up. You and you,” he said, pointing at two armed men alongside the stage, “bring me the large mirror from my own privy chamber.”
The men made their way through the whispering crowd and returned shortly, hefting a large oval mirror up to the stage. Two more followed them with a long sturdy bench. Vazan moved her captive aside while the men climbed onto the bench set at the back of the stage, holding up the heavy glass between them by its wooden frame. They were up high enough to tilt the mirror slightly so all the onlookers could see whoever stood before it.
For a moment I was afraid. The sight of the queen’s dead body the other morning had thrown me into shock. Had I imagined the dark strand of hair I’d seen in her mirror? What if the mirror told us nothing?
The rest of us on the stage moved to the outer edges to give all a clear view. The guards dragged me to the side opposite from Jackrun.
“Let her go, red dragon,” said the king.
“I am called Vazan.”
“Let her go, Vazan,” he said impatiently. “My guards will take her for now.”
Vazan released her and flew back to the wall, lowering her head with the other two dragons, guarding us all from behind.
Lady Olivia moaned when they tugged her hands away and pinned her arms to her sides in front of the mirror. One man pinched her chin between his fingers, lifting it up toward the glass. And I saw. We all saw.
“Oh,” cried a courtier.
“Look,” said another.
The reflection showed two men holding a woman of middle years who did not look a thing like the fair-skinned Lady Olivia. You could still see the dark-haired woman’s regal beauty on one side of her face, but the other half was mottled with red-and-white burn scars that stretched in branching patterns up her neck and across her cheek to just below her ear.
I was shaken by the sight of this total stranger’s face. I thought I’d known her. Lady Olivia had been stern, sometimes severe when she’d schooled me in courtly manners. But she’d come to my defense more than once and pointed out my successes early on when I was too reticent to own them myself. We’d clung to each other while Master Ridolphi burned.
Why did she turn her back on me, steal the medicines, use my utzo to poison the queen? I didn’t understand. The king’s face was carved with shock. Bianca held his arm, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“This is a trick mirror,” Lady Olivia said. “It is a lie!”
“Mirrors do not lie.” Princess Augusta stepped beside Lady Olivia and her guards and gazed up at the glass so all could see her face with its dragon scales and golden eyes.
“Guards,” King Arden said, “turn Lady Olivia about.” She faced the crowd again, every bit the beautiful pale-skinned Lady Olivia we had all known.
“This is all sorcery and trickery,” she said with icy calm. “King Onadon and the Princess Augusta flew here to free Jackrun’s lover. We all know Princess Augusta would do anything for her nephew, and the fey king would do anything for his grandson, the Son of the Prophecy. You’ve heard the song about him taken from an old fairy prophecy.
“King Onadon and his fey court have wanted Jackrun to inherit the Pendragon throne all along. They have manipulated this court, used magic and murder to get what they want. Of course they schemed to destroy Her Majesty the queen so she would not birth an heir and displace Jackrun. Don’t you see what they are doing? Are you all blind?”
King Arden tilted his head, caught a moment in her lie, then shook himself as if waking from a dream. “Turn about!” her ordered. “Turn her!”
The men forced Lady Olivia to look in the glass again.
“Who are you?” demanded King Arden.
King Onadon, who had held his powers in since freeing Jackrun’s wrists, spoke out. “I know this woman.”
Chapter Forty-six
Pendragon Castle Green, Wilde Island
Dragon Moon
October 1210
KING ONADON GESTURED with his hand. “Sire, may I introduce Lady Tanya, known to you as Lady Olivia.”
I blinked at her. Tanya? The girl the dragon saved from Queen Adela’s witch pyre? King Onadon went on, “What you did not know because she kept it from you is that she is half fey. Eighteen years ago, we brought half-fey maidens to Pendragon Castle, hoping you would marry one. You welcomed my daughter, Lady Tess, and another to your court. Do you remember?”
“Yes, of course,” King Arden said.
“Two came courting that year, but not Lady Tanya. She’d been burned for witchcraft a month before, and only just saved by one of our dragons.”
“She’s a witch?” asked the king. The crowd murmured, moving about as if an invisible hand stirred them.
“All lies,” shouted Tanya.
“Guards, cover her mouth,” said the king.
“Not a witch,” King Onadon corrected. “Some of the women accused of witchcraft in those days were simply half-fey girls with powers others feared or could not explain.”
I thought of Lady Tess, who’d endured the agony of thumbscrews. “We managed to rescue Tanya and tried to help her, but she was badly damaged. Even using all our powers, we could not fully heal her burns.” Lady Tanya was struggling, trying to shout into the guard’s broad hand.
“She was adept at glamouring herself to hide her scars, as you can see,” said King Onadon. “Still, we knew a mirror, any mirror, would reflect her as she was and show the truth. So we kept her away from Pendragon Castle court then. She was bitter, disappointed. I think Tanya wanted to be the next Wilde Island queen more than the other half-fey girls we escorted here that year, but she could never wear the crown after she’d been burned.
“She lived with us a year longer and left DunGarrow when she was with child.” I sucked in a breath, turning to Bianca. She’d once told me her father was an English lord. The girl was shaking, biting her lip. What fairy powers did she have? How had she hidden her fairy blood so well? Suppressing power: Had that caused he
r severe headaches? She looked weak, powerless now, her pale skin seemed almost translucent; I could see the tiny blue veins in her neck.
King Onadon said, “We did not know how deep Tanya’s scars were, or guess that she was capable of murder when she left our care.”
“Stop,” cried Bianca. “It’s not like that. She didn’t come here to hurt anyone. It wasn’t like that!”
“Quiet, girl!” barked King Arden, stepping away from her.
“Your Majesty, this is difficult news for you,” King Onadon said. “We did not come to put on a show before your entire court, only to see justice done. If you are willing to hear the rest of my testimony along with Jackrun’s, I might suggest you dismiss the people who came out to see a burning this morning, and keep only those trusted courtiers you want to remain here while we speak further.”
“Yes,” King Arden hissed. Angry as he was, he saw the sense of King Onadon’s suggestion. He called on his armed men, the sheriff, the bishop, and his privy council to remain and dismissed the rest of the villagers and courtiers from the castle green. Bianca did not leave. I think she did not have the strength to move.
His Majesty faced the prisoner. “How could you poison my wife? What evil—?”
“Evil?” Tanya dropped her glamour spell, raising herself up to her full height. “Your wife was the evil one. She tortured me and burned me. Not because I was a witch, but for my fey blood. She knew the first lines of the prophecy: The Prince shall wed a Fairy child. She didn’t want you to marry any half-fey girl. She didn’t care whom she maimed or killed to get what she wanted,” she shouted, spittle flying from her mouth. “She got the death she deserved!”
“Mother,” cried Bianca. “You didn’t. You didn’t—”
“I’ve heard enough.” King Arden yanked the sword from the nearest soldier’s belt. Jackrun broke free and leaped between Tanya and the king. We’d both seen him stab Sir Geoffrey. King Onadon put one hand on His Majesty’s shoulder and raised the other toward Lady Tanya. “Don’t move,” he said to her.
If she thought to use magic to vanish and escape, he would hold her down; his power was far greater than hers.
Bianca knelt on the stage, weeping with her face in her hands. King Arden, who’d kept her constantly at his side in these past days, seemed to want nothing to do with her now. “Remove your hand,” King Arden said to Onadon.
“Not until you sheath your sword. She will be punished soon. It’s not time yet and you know it.”
King Arden lowered his weapon, turned and stared at his enemy. “You came to us guised to take revenge? Who gave you the right to harm my wife?”
“I had every right after what your wife did to me!”
“And Prince Desmond?” Jackrun said behind the king’s back. “What did he do to you?”
“Desmond?” said the king, taking a slow step closer to her as if approaching a wild animal. “M-my son?”
“Your son was in the way,” she said.
“In the . . . way?” His face broke. His mouth opened, no words came.
Tanya smiled. “How does it feel to lose everything, Your Majesty? To see all your dreams go up in smoke?”
King Arden swayed on his feet. Two men ran out to hold him up between them.
King Onadon took charge. “Take Tanya to the dungeon.” Armed men surrounded her and led her off.
King Arden glared at Bianca as if she were no more than a cowering dog, before walking unsteadily across the stage. Stepping down on the green, he paused and turned, looking back at us. “King Onadon and Augusta, stay with us a little longer while we get this sorted out. Stay as our guests,” he added hoarsely.
The stage was less crowded now. Jackrun opened his mouth a little, pursed his lips to shape a word—Uma. He said it soundlessly, yet I felt as if his lips brushed mine, naming me.
A moment later I heard small celebratory voices as my wrists were freed. I thought the sounds came from my own heart until I saw the songbirds flying in from the orchard, calling see-dear, see-dear in liquid song. See-dear, I am free.
PART FOUR
Free
Chapter Forty-seven
Pendragon Castle Cliffs, Wilde Island
Dragon Moon
October 1210
THE KING HELD a royal funeral for his queen in St. John’s Cathedral. Through my veil, I watched in awe as Jackrun supported his uncle, staying at his side throughout the service and the long funeral procession to the Pendragon tomb.
Then King Arden retired to his rooms, leaving orders for tents to be erected on the castle green for Tanya’s trial the next day.
• • •
“WHERE DOES IT hurt?” Jackrun asked. We’d met near the amphitheater to steal a little time together and walk south along the high cliffs before Tanya’s trial, Babak and Vazan winging over us.
“It doesn’t hurt so much now.”
Jackrun stopped. “Liar. You were stretched on the rack. Tell me.”
“My wrists are—” He was already pulling up my sleeves, putting his large warm hands over the ringed bruises the manacles had left behind.
We’d searched Tanya’s room for any remains of Father’s medicines; she’d kept and used the utzo, but we’d found nothing else. Worse, we’d found no trace of Father’s Herbal. A few men helped us look other places in Pendragon Castle. Nothing. It was clear she’d destroyed my father’s life’s work. Alone in my room, I wept.
“Things keep haunting me,” I said.
“What sort of things?”
“Memories of Lady Olivia before I knew who she was.”
He cradled my wrists, listening.
“She always wore a veil that fell to her shoulders. I’d thought it had to do with her strict sense of fashion, but its real use was to hide her face and hair whenever she was near a mirror.”
“Clever,” Jackrun said.
“Very. And she was careful, so proper most of the time, but I saw her break down twice. The first time was the night Queen Adela had a kind of waking dream, reliving Tanya’s burning. Her Majesty shouted at the dragon who rescued Tanya from her witch pyre, screamed for him to bring her back. Lady Olivia—Tanya,” I corrected, “collapsed, hid her face in the covers and sobbed.”
“Because it was her story,” Jackrun said.
“Yes, but I didn’t know it then.”
“And the other time?”
“The day Queen Adela burned Master Ridolphi and made Tanya watch. We clung to each other. She was crying, saying, No one should have to die this way. The man’s suffering must have been a torture to her, reminding her of her own.”
“Yet she was willing to let you burn for her crime,” Jackrun said.
“I know. I’m only trying to piece it all together so I can understand.”
“Why she hated Queen Adela? That’s clear enough.”
“More than that—why she killed Desmond. Why she framed me.”
“Uma, I think she killed Desmond after she discovered he’d attacked you on Dragon’s Keep. She wouldn’t want her daughter to marry a man like that. She saw another way for her daughter to be queen by marrying me.”
I looked down at his large hands cupping my wrists.
“But I failed her too,” he added. “I wasn’t interested in Bianca.”
He raised my chin and gave me a soft kiss that felt like a question. I answered his question with a silent yes. He was warm again. Full of fire.
Swirls of heat swept down from above. “Jackrun,” Babak called.
Jackrun pulled away and looked up. “Not now, Babak. I’m busy.” He tugged me closer again, both of us laughing as we kissed.
Babak flew in lower, his pumping wings blowing back our hair. “It’s your father’s ship!”
This time we broke apart in earnest. Down in the bay, a vessel had pulled into the harbor, a large green dragon fl
ying above. Squinting from the cliff top, I could just make out Duke Bion’s colorful flag whipping in the breeze.
We flew to the harbor on Babak and Vazan. Our dragons landed on the shore near Lord Kahlil. As soon as we dismounted, Tabitha raced up the beach ahead of her parents and threw her arms around her brother.
“Jackrun, you’re safe! We thought something terrible must have happened to you when Babak left so suddenly. And, Babak, you should have said something before you flew off,” she said, scolding the great beast as if he were no larger than a housecat.
Babak flattened his ears against his head. “There was no time. Jackrun was locked in the tower. He needed my help to rescue Uma Quarteney before she was burned.”
“Burned?” Lady Tess stepped toward me, taking my arm.
Vazan nudged Babak’s shoulder. “You did not work alone, Babak.”
“I did not say I did, my lady.”
She flicked her tail, sending up a spray of sand. “Call me rivule, not my lady!”
“Yes, rival.”
“Rivule, which means ‘warrior,’ not rival,” she said with a snarl.
“Please, warriors,” said Lord Kahlil, “let Jackrun speak.”
The wind whipped the words from Jackrun’s mouth as he told his family all that had happened to us in the past month and a half since leaving Dragon’s Keep. When Jackrun spoke of Princess Augusta, Lady Tess stopped him. “You’ve seen her?”