“Shouldn’t we take her to the bridge?” another soldier asked.
“And be out here after nightfall?” The first man shook his head. “Be my guest.”
The other did not reply. They mounted their horses again and left Rose Red where she lay, still bound at the wrists, in the dirt of the road. She did not look up until long after the hoofbeats faded away. By then, night was falling.
Rose Red sat up and snapped the thick cords on her wrists without a thought. The pieces fell into her lap, and she looked at them idly. “What am I goin’ to do?” she whispered into the falling darkness. But there was no one to answer her. Not Beana, not her old dad, not even . . . not even Leo, who had promised to care for her. She was truly alone.
Her veil stank of dragon smoke. The stench of nightmares. “It’s my fault,” she whispered, as expressionless as stone. “I should never have left the mountain. I brought him down upon us.” Then she tore the veil away, flinging it to the ground. “What have I done?”
The wood thrush sang.
Silver and lovely in that gathering gloom, its voice reached out to her. And with it, she remembered.
“Let me give you something. . . . Because I might be unable to protect you once we’ve gone to the low country, let me give you something with which you may protect yourself.”
The Name.
The Name, which had nestled deep in near-forgotten places of her mind, slipped to her lips, resting there, ready to be spoken. Just the feel of it there gave her comfort, and her breathing eased. Then Rose Red swallowed, forcing the word back inside.
“I ain’t goin’ to be so foolish,” she muttered, rising to her feet. She did not replace the veil but clutched it in her left hand as she began the long march down the road. All was dark by now, but still she saw well enough to avoid every rut in her path, walking smoothly, like a gliding spirit. “I ain’t goin’ to depend on Faerie stories. I promised Leo I’d care for his family, and that’s just what I’m goin’ to do . . . just as soon as I can get back to the House.”
The House where the Dragon waited for her.
Well, that wasn’t going to stop her either. Had Rose Red not faced that Dragon in her dreams nearly every night throughout her childhood? Granted, he’d been incorporeal. But really, if one took the time to reason with oneself, why must it be so much more frightening for one’s monsters to be incarnate and huge rather than disembodied? The fear was all the same. True, disembodied frights rarely swallowed a person in one gulp . . . details like that did add up. Rose Red licked her lips but maintained her rapid pace.
And she did not speak the Name.
Rose Red walked for hours across the silent landscape, feeling as though she made no progress. Not a soul met her on that lonely road. How long would it take her to reach the Eldest’s House at this rate? What would she find when she got there? She’d promised Leo to care for his family, but how could she hope to fulfill that promise? The Baron of Middlecrescent had heard the prince’s orders and still disregarded them. Could she possibly convince anyone else to aid her if the baron himself would not?
The silence broke with the sound of hooves on the road behind her. Rose Red immediately slipped from the road into the still darker shadows on its edge, vanishing from any searching eyes. A horse and rider appeared, the rider sitting stiffly upright. Despite the shielding cloak and hood, Rose Red recognized her immediately.
She hesitated. For a moment, she considered letting the horse trot by without speaking a word. But she’d sworn an oath, even if under duress, and must she now add oath breaker to her crimes?
The horse passed by. Rose Red slipped her veil back over her head, stepped into the road, and called out, “M’lady!”
Daylily reined in her mount. If she was frightened by that strange voice in the night, she did not show it. She turned about, her face shadowed, and it was Rose Red who trembled.
The baron’s daughter said, “I hoped to find you somewhere in these parts. My father’s men are much too cowardly to have borne you any farther.” She urged her gelding closer and put out her hand. “Come up.”
Rose Red regarded the towering height of the horse. After her first ride today, she found herself unwilling to repeat the experience, particularly seated behind Lady Daylily. “What will your father say, you bein’ out here?”
Daylily shrugged, her hand still extended.
“He’ll throttle you!” Rose Red shook her head and stepped back. “You’ve got to go home, m’lady.”
Daylily’s eyes narrowed.
“It ain’t safe!” Rose Red insisted. “He ain’t safe, and I’m goin’ straight to him, just like I promised Leo. But it don’t matter if he burns me to a crisp. I’ve got to do as I promised the prince, and I will. It don’t matter if I never come back. But you—”
“Do you honestly believe I have so weak a will?”
Rose Red could not breathe under Daylily’s hard countenance. She curtsied deeply there in the dark before that great horse. “M’lady, what would my master do if you were taken too?” she whispered. “Think of Leo.”
“I am thinking of Leo,” Daylily said. “Take my hand and come up behind me. We are going to the Eldest’s House to fulfill your promise.”
Still Rose Red hesitated. Daylily’s voice became very dark. “Remember, you are my servant as well.”
Hating herself, hating the world, hating that Dragon and especially Daylily, Rose Red obeyed. With the lady’s assistance, she scrambled up onto the gelding’s back and clung to Daylily’s belt as they continued down the road. The baron would pursue them, she suspected, might catch them before they even reached the next bridge. Or perhaps they would find themselves at a dead end at the bridge, for had not the messengers said all the bridges were burning?
Before the night was through, they approached Starling Bridge, which separated Middlecrescent from Idlewild. Like all the great bridges of Southlands, it did not span a river but a gorge. Some said that ancient rivers had once flowed throughout Southlands, cutting the ground deeply; if so, those were long since gone, replaced by younger rivers in shallower beds. But the gorges remained, and grown up inside them were the dark Wilderlands where nobody dared walk, though nobody could say why. It was an unspoken rule far stronger than mere superstition.
Be that as it may, Rose Red did not like to think what she and Daylily would do if the bridge did burn. The nearest crossing was many days’ ride east, and they would not make it were the baron to give pursuit.
But they saw Starling Bridge from a distance, white and shining and free of flame. Rose Red breathed in relief at the sight. Daylily urged her horse across, though it shivered and protested. Its hooves clattered like drums on the boards and braces. Rose Red heard the whispering of the trees below them, like the sound of the sea.
Then they were across and on their way into Idlewild. Rose Red breathed deeply, perhaps in relief, and turned to look back the way they had come.
Starling Bridge burst into flames behind them.
Lionheart rode hard for many days, and when he came to the mountains in the north, he left his horse behind and crossed over on foot. He could only hope the Dragon did not spot him.
Lionheart grew ever more thankful for the time he’d spent tramping about the countryside of Hill House. It had toughened him up for this long journey through the Circle of Faces. He did wish he had brought more food and less gold. It weighed him down, and what good did it do? He met no one. The highland shepherds and miners who lived amid these mountains had all fled when the Dragon came. Lionheart wondered if any of them had escaped Southlands.
He came at last to the crest of a hill from which, when he looked south, he could see his kingdom spread before him, covered in a haze of smoke. He turned quickly from that sight to look north.
The sun was dazzling in a clear sky beyond the Dragon’s canopy. It glittered upon the Bay of Chiara, the wide blue expanse that separated Southlands from the mainland save for a narrow isthmus. Only twice before had Lionhea
rt seen the Chiara, when his father brought him along on visits to Shippening and Beauclair. Its beauty never failed to make him catch his breath, even now in his fugitive state. His heart thrilled at the prospect before him, not only the greatness of the sea, but also the greatness of freedom.
Freedom.
He cursed himself when he realized what word he’d dared think. This was exile, not an escape! He was duty bound to find what he sought and then to return. Yet somehow he could not suppress the excitement that rose inside him, and he started on the downward path with an eager step.
A shadow passed over him.
Lionheart yelped and ducked behind a rock, crouching down with one arm flung over his head. There was precious little light beneath those thick clouds, but the Dragon’s wings, swooping over him, nevertheless cast a shadow. Lionheart’s throat clogged as he breathed in a gasp of poison. So this was the end of his brave venture! Here, crouched like a rat hiding from a terrier.
The Dragon landed among the crags of Bald Mountain, high above him. The Dragon held so still that, as the evening descended, he seemed to melt into the rocks, a strange formation of stone. But his eyes were red.
For an age Lionheart crouched, and he and the Dragon watched each other. At last, though his knees shook so that they scarcely supported him, Lionheart pushed himself upright. If he was to die, he decided, he would make certain his last step was forward on his quest, not retreating in defeat. He started down the track.
The Dragon did not move.
All night, without pause, Lionheart made his way down the mountain. Though exhaustion threatened to fell him, he kept going, goaded on by the brands of the Dragon’s eyes. He did not dare look back to where the Dragon sat, but he felt those eyes watching him.
When morning came, Lionheart found himself stepping out onto the isthmus. The mountains were behind him, and Southlands. Only then did he turn back for a final look.
The Dragon was gone.
6
NO LIGHTS WINKED in the windows of the Eldest’s House, no life teemed behind its doors. It crouched like a rabbit in an open field, frozen in forlorn hope that the hawk would not strike, knowing that even then the talons were spread.
Its contours were the same: the familiar minarets rising like sentinels, the great iron gates, and the gardens spreading as far as the eye could see beyond. But all the colored stones were filmed over in black ash, and a great column of smoke rose from the courtyard as if a bonfire burned there.
A goat bleated at the back gate.
“Baaaah!” She rammed the gate with her hard little head until the iron rang like a bell. But it would not give. “I know you’re in there! Open to me at once. I command you!”
No answer.
The netherworld boasts many furies and frights, but in that moment, none could be considered half so fearsome as that one highly irate nanny. Her yellow eyes gleamed like a devil’s, her bearded chin quivered, and her cloven hooves pawed at the turf as if she were a bull preparing to charge. But the gate remained solid before her. The Dragon’s spells were strong indeed.
Beana backed up a few paces to better see through the bars into the yard beyond. This gate separated her from the inner gardens, where the queen and her ladies used to stroll. Flowerless rosebushes and a hundred other plants grew here. Only now they withered into themselves, like the House itself, under the Dragon’s poison.
The goat muttered, her jaw working. Then she spoke a word, or perhaps a series of words, in some language that only a goat’s tongue could pronounce. She waited expectantly.
Nothing happened.
“BAH!” The gate rang again with her ramming. “Don’t try these silly games with me!” she bellowed. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“I know you’re not,” said the Dragon.
He appeared with the suddenness of a shadow across the sun, standing on the far side of the gate. He bore the appearance of a man, standing upright on two legs. Hair hung about his face like a hood, black against his leprous-white skin.
The goat stared up at him as though she would like nothing more than to ram all her fury right into his knees. But the iron bars separating them would not give.
“What you have failed to consider,” said the Dragon with a hint of a smile, “is whether or not I am afraid of you.”
“You should be,” said the goat. “If you realized who I—”
“Oh, but I do know exactly who you are,” said he, stepping closer to the gate. His thin lips curled back, revealing long fangs. “I do not forget an offense such as yours so quickly, Lady of Aiven. Thief. Trespasser.”
The goat said nothing for a long moment. Then she spoke in a very different voice. “Let me in.”
“Never again.”
“You know your own doom. I spoke it myself all those centuries ago.”
“Like yesterday.”
“I’ll not touch you. It is not my destiny to accomplish the words given me on the shores of the Final Water.”
“Comforting as this may be,” said the Dragon, “it hardly convinces me that I want you back within the borders of my realm.”
Beana tensed, and her eyes flashed again. “This is not your realm.”
“Yet I am king.”
“Usurper! You dare not claim this land as your own. My Prince will not allow—”
The Dragon snarled, and flames dropped from his mouth, scattering about his feet. “What of your Prince, lady knight? This land is mine, and he has done nothing to stop me. Southlands and all this household are firmly in my grasp, and so shall be the heart of his Beloved. Do your worst, Lady of Aiven, you who abandoned your people, who stole from your own father! Pitiless woman, I will never allow you back within my boundaries.”
A knock rang across the courtyards, across the gardens, carrying to their ears all the way from the opposite side of the Eldest’s House. Incongruous and strange, like timid guests stopping in for tea.
The Dragon smiled then. “My company has arrived.”
Beana lunged again at the gate, pressing her body against the bars. “Don’t you dare admit her! Leave her alone!”
“But she’s come calling, my lady,” said the Dragon. “How rude would I be to leave her waiting?”
He was gone. Smoke swirled where he had stood.
Beana bleated, and her hooves tore up charred turf as she raced around the wall, desperate to reach the far side in time. “Rosie!” she called as she ran, though she knew her voice would not carry far enough. “Rosie, don’t go in!”
She rounded that side of the wall in time to see the little chambermaid and the baron’s tall daughter before the gate. She saw, as they could not, the Dragon standing just beyond, opening the door to admit them. They entered with hesitant steps, feeling his eyes upon them but otherwise unable to sense his immediate presence. Beana gave a last despairing bleat. “Rosie!”
The gate slammed shut, ringing and final.
Rose Red stood just inside the courtyard of the Eldest’s House, Daylily close behind her. She gazed through her veil at the strange landscape this yard had become. The beautiful Starflower Fountain lay in a smoldering pile. Some of the marble stones still glowed red, and the faces of that lady and her wolf nemesis were melted beyond recognition. Only the stone wood thrush, which had sat upon Starflower’s stone shoulder, remained recognizable.
Smoke surrounded everything in a haze, and the air was thick in their lungs. All was deathly quiet, a stark contrast to the screaming, blazing terror that yard had been when last Rose Red had seen it.
“The gate is shut,” Daylily said. Neither of them had heard it slam. Other than their own voices and breathing, not a sound could be heard in that place. Daylily licked her lips. “Perhaps a breeze caught it.”
“No,” Rose Red whispered. “No, I think not.” She took a step forward.
And froze.
Something was wrong. Not just the smoke, not just the ruin. She had known it would be thus, had prepared herself for it over the course of the long jo
urney from Middlecrescent. She had even prepared herself for the sight of the stables, decimated beyond recall and smoldering like the remains of a great bonfire. Of course the Dragon would destroy them and probably feed upon the creatures inside, poor luckless things. Not on Beana, though. No, Beana must be fine. She must be; Rose Red wouldn’t consider any other possibility. But while dragons could, according to folklore, live entirely on their own self-sustaining fire, they notoriously craved flesh and blood to supplement that diet.
Rose Red swallowed, refusing to let her mind pursue that track. She took another step, then stopped once more.
Something was terribly, terribly off.
“We’ll get nowhere dithering here,” Daylily said. “Now we’ve come, we’ve come. Might as well go through with it.” Gathering her heavy skirts, she began making great strides across the courtyard into the swirling smoke. Rose Red stifled a cry and instead hissed through her teeth, “M’lady, wait!”
“Wait for what?” Daylily’s voice was like ice, though it trembled faintly. Rose Red wanted to draw her back from the house, from the rubble of the fountain, from that great front door which, though shut, seemed to beckon to them. A heavy presence lurked within the smoke. The presence of the Dragon, the presence of his poison, and . . . something more.
“It’s not safe,” Rose Red said.
“Really? I would hardly have guessed.” Daylily set her shoulders and continued across the courtyard, around the remains of the fountain, and up the front steps. And though she hated every step she took, Rose Red had no choice but to follow.
They entered the Eldest’s House. They did not see the Dragon holding the door for them to pass inside. They did not hear Beana crying out to them from the gate. They entered the Eldest’s House, and the door shut behind them.
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