Veiled Rose

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  The Dragon was, and always had been, King.

  There was no time in this world. The shadows never shifted, never stirred. One might sit unmoving for hours, breathing in the searing scent of his poison, and it seemed like moments. His eyes, invisible, watched from every corner, for this was his house now, his kingdom, and there could be no hiding.

  Queen Starflower sat before her long mirror in her private chambers, gazing upon but not seeing her own face. She was alone. She had always been alone. The others were all dead, she knew with a certainty beyond doubt. Perhaps they had never lived. Perhaps they too were nothing but a dream bound to die in this world to which she had awakened. Her husband, her son, her nephew . . . nothing but phantoms in this world, this dark, smoke-shrouded reality where dreams must die.

  A voice called in some passage beyond her chambers.

  “I’m lost! I’m lost!”

  A young man’s voice. Her son’s? No, she had no son. Her nephew? No, she had dreamed him too. A ghost, then. A ghost of a wish for a life less lonely. But her life had always been lonely. This was the truth of it. Always she had shielded herself away and now she lived the life she had built with her own two hands. Alone in the darkness, in this place where the Dragon was King.

  A tall man stood behind her, meeting her gaze in the mirror’s reflection. His eyes were black, and red fire gleamed in their pupils.

  “Breathe deep,” he whispered. “Breathe in the death of dreams.”

  She obeyed. Poison filled her heart.

  “All must come to me in the end,” he said.

  A hand at the door latch. The Dragon turned and bared his teeth in what might have been a snarl, but just as easily could have been a smile. Then he vanished, and Queen Starflower saw nothing but empty space reflected above her. She was alone. She had always been—

  “Your Majesty!”

  A strange person filled her vision; strange but no more terrible than the rest of this nightmarish reality. Starflower was unafraid. She gazed with eyes made calm with despair at the wraithlike figure covered in veils that appeared behind her in the glass.

  “Your Majesty,” said the little person, “please get up. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “I know you, don’t I?” said the queen slowly, as though the words must travel across many leagues before they fell, exhausted, from her lips. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. In a dream, perhaps.”

  “I’m your son’s chambermaid.”

  “I have no son.”

  “Of course you do. Don’t talk such hogwash, beggin’ Your Majesty’s pardon.” Gloved hands plucked at the queen’s sleeve in the mirror, but Starflower felt nothing. She drew another long breath of dragon smoke.

  “I have no son. I only dreamed him, and now the dream is dead. I must have dreamed you too, which means you too must die. Dreams cannot live here.”

  “Fiddle. Your son ain’t no dream, and he ain’t dead neither,” the strange little person snapped, placing her hands on her hips. “He’s alive and well, gone off to find some way to rid us of this monster. He sent me to care for you, and by Iubdan’s beard, that’s what I’m goin’ to do! Get up, Your Majesty.”

  This time the phantom tugged so hard that the seam of her garment bit into Starflower’s arm. She rose then, obediently. Why not? What did it matter one way or another in this ageless reality? Might as well humor this veiled illusion. It wouldn’t make a difference.

  Rose Red led the queen out of her chambers and into the hall beyond, where the baron’s daughter waited. Daylily’s face was as carefully expressionless as ever, but her eyes darted this way and that, up and down the long hall. A darkness like dusk had settled on the household, a gloom that was too light for candles but too dim for comfort. The rich furnishings of the household wore their shadows like mourning clothes, as though the House itself had died.

  Which perhaps it had.

  “Is she the last one?” Daylily asked when Rose Red emerged from the queen’s chambers with Starflower in tow. They had now spent several hours combing the desolate rooms, searching for those held imprisoned. All were in a similar state to that of the queen, stunned with despair, barely living. One by one, Rose Red and Daylily had gathered them from the various rooms in which they wandered like lost spirits and led them to the kitchens, which, due to their very simplicity, seemed the least horrible of all the poison-haunted chambers. Most had come willingly enough. The Eldest, taken from his throne room, went like a lamb to the slaughter, silent tears coursing down his withered face. But some had fought, feebly, like frightened children. One man, a lesser noble, Rose Red thought, of no particular name, had fended her off with a poker and, when it became clear that she would not leave him, had tried to tear his own face with his hands. The effect of the Dragon’s poison was bitter indeed.

  But Rose Red, with Daylily’s help, had prevailed in the end and led him to join the small cluster of prisoners sitting in the kitchen together, staring at the walls in silence.

  “I think,” said Rose Red, keeping her voice soft and low so as not to startle the queen, “that Sir Foxbrush is here too.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Daylily. Her voice was vague, without interest, and she continued to look up and down the passage. Though her expression never varied, Rose Red noticed that her eyes were slowly growing rounder and rounder. Daylily’s eyes had been large to begin with, but they were almost grotesque now, and ringed with black circles.

  The poison was getting to her too, Rose Red thought. She’d have to get Daylily out of the house as soon as possible. She’d have to get all of them out if she could. So far there had been no sign of the Dragon himself, only of his work. Some of the windows had been torn from their frames, some of the outer walls knocked in, and the fallen stones had the appearance of having been chewed. But the Dragon was not to be found.

  Maybe he was busy in some other part of the kingdom? He had given orders that no one was to leave Southlands. Did this mean he would have to patrol the borders himself?

  Somehow, Rose Red suspected this wasn’t the case.

  “I’m lost!”

  The voice called faintly from somewhere in a different passage. Rose Red turned toward the sound, still holding on to Queen Starflower’s hand. It was a ghostly voice, painfully sad and alone in that gloom. A shudder ran through Rose Red’s body when it came again. “I’m lost!”

  “That’s Foxbrush,” said Daylily, her eyes wider than ever.

  “He sounds close,” Rose Red agreed. She glanced at the queen, standing woodenly beside her. If she tried to drag her along on a chase after that forlorn voice, they would never catch him. But she couldn’t leave the queen behind.

  A third time the voice cried, “I’m lost!”

  “He ain’t far,” Rose Red said. “I think he’s only one passage over. Near old Dame Fairlight’s chambers. Do you know where they are, m’lady?”

  Daylily nodded. Even in that half-light, with her eyes as large as a ghoul’s and the poison so swiftly settling into her veins, she was beautiful. Her face was set as she struggled to keep her fear disguised.

  “Can you get him?” Rose Red said.

  Daylily nodded again. Without a word, she gathered her skirts and hastened ahead down the passage, disappearing around a corner. Rose Red followed more slowly, still leading the queen. Their footsteps made no sound on the thick rug. Elegant moldings decorating these walls had the strange appearance of imp faces and monsters; although if Rose Red forced herself to look closely, she saw that they were merely clusters of flowers and birds.

  When they reached the end of the hall where Daylily had turned off, Rose Red pulled the queen to a gentle stop, and they waited. Rose Red counted each breath. Long, deep breaths echoing in that silent house like a banshee’s sighs.

  One, two, three.

  Perhaps Foxbrush was farther off than she’d guessed? Beyond Dame Fairlight’s passages, closer to those kept by the Baroness of Fernrise.

  Seven, eight, nine.

  T
hat shadowy movement, that flicker behind them, down the passage . . . Only a curtain. Nothing more.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

  Once Daylily returned with Foxbrush, they would gather everyone in the kitchen. Then, out the back door and away from this place. It didn’t matter that they had no supplies. They’d scavenge in the Eldest’s City.

  Nineteen, twenty.

  It was his city, after all. If anyone had a right to scavenge, the Eldest did. Maybe they could make it to the next barony before the Dragon returned.

  Twenty-four, twenty-five.

  No use considering what he would do when he found them missing, or what he would do when he located them once more. Rose Red shook her head. She’d promised Leo that she would care for his family, and she’d think of something.

  Twenty-nine, thirty—

  “Where are they?” Rose Red growled. The queen startled at the sound of her voice, made some weak attempt to pull away, then sagged into still greater despair, so heavy was the poison in her lungs. Rose Red patted her hand compassionately. It wasn’t right that the strong queen of Southlands was reduced to this state. Hateful, hateful monster!

  Rose Red gently took the queen’s arm and backed her up to the wall until she leaned against it, her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. “Wait here,” Rose Red whispered. “I’ve got to find them. Wait here, and I’ll be right back, see?”

  The queen stared into the shadows over Rose Red’s shoulder, but her face was not as blank as it had been. She looked as if she studied someone’s face . . . only there was no one there. Rose Red shivered and patted Starflower’s arm as though comforting a child. “Wait here,” she repeated, slipping away.

  She wanted to call for Daylily but feared the sound of her own voice echoing through those long passages. The hall down which Dame Fairlight lived was empty. Also the passage leading to the Baroness of Fernrise’s chambers. The door to a lesser parlor was open, but when she looked inside, Rose Red saw no one. A spark caught her eye, and she turned. Could there be the remains of a fire glowing in the grate? No, it was empty. She must have imagined it.

  Rose Red hastened on. She couldn’t leave the poor queen in the darkness alone, but she must find Daylily and Foxbrush too. Why did she feel as though the House itself watched her progress? Why did she feel like a mouse fleeing the unseen owl? Her hands clutched the veil about her face as though it could protect her, and she hurried. Never before had she, a servant, made use of the main stairway, but she used it now in her haste, one hand pressing into the golden banister. Perhaps Foxbrush had wandered down to the main level before Daylily caught up with him? They certainly weren’t in the east wing. She stood a moment at the bottom of the stairs, uncertain which way to turn. The whole House was an enormous maze; any turn she made was more likely to be wrong than right. And she couldn’t leave the queen up there alone!

  The creak of an opening door.

  Under ordinary circumstances she would never have heard that soft sound. But in the silence of the Dragon’s rule, it rang out like alarm bells. Rose Red darted down the hallway toward that sound. At the end of a narrow passage was a door she recognized. It opened on a spiral staircase, a servants’ stair that led up to the private rooms of the household members. Rose Red had used it a hundred times and more, coming to and from the prince’s chambers in her daily tasks, often passing other servants as they went about their work. But she had never seen a member of the household near it.

  Thus it struck Rose Red as odd to see Daylily and Foxbrush standing in the half-light gloom before that little door.

  Neither moved as she approached, nor did they turn when she called to them. She slipped up behind them, speaking gently so as not to frighten them, and plucked at their sleeves. Still they did not respond but stood as statues. Daylily’s hand was on the doorknob, and she had cracked it open. A terrible stench rolled through.

  Rose Red looked around Foxbrush’s arm and saw what it was they saw.

  “Silent Lady!” she breathed.

  Pushing past Foxbrush so roughly that he fell into the wall, she slammed the door, and the whole house echoed with it. “How dare he?”

  She grabbed Daylily’s elbow and Foxbrush’s wrist, dragging them back. “Come, come with me!” she said, too shaken to be gentle. “Back away now.”

  They moved as though drunk, staggering. Even Daylily. Rose Red could see how the poison had sunk into the deep places of her eyes; her face sagged with it. “Hen’s teeth, hen’s teeth!” Rose Red swore. How could she have let Daylily come here? Leo’s betrothed, his lovely lady, and she had led her right into the Dragon’s den! “I’ll get you out,” she said as she led them up the narrow passage. “I’ll get you both out; Black Dogs take me if I don’t!”

  They were quite near the kitchens now, Rose Red realized. For a moment, she debated, hating to leave the queen upstairs and alone. But she dared not let these two alone again, not after . . . not after that. Taking a tight grip on their hands, she led them like two small children down the passage to the kitchens.

  This passage should have been dark without candles. But the eerie half-light filtered through even here, so that the passage was no lighter and no darker than anywhere else in the house. The kitchen looked strange to Rose Red, full of silent people sitting exactly where she had left them. The Eldest sat nearest the door, his head buried in his hands. There were eighteen people, twenty altogether, now she had brought Daylily and Foxbrush. All were of noble birth, proudly dressed, from Southlands’ finest families. All were reduced to quivering phantoms as they drew in more dragon poison with each breath.

  She would free them. But she must find the queen first.

  Rose Red sat first Daylily, then Foxbrush in chairs around one of the cutting tables. After a moment’s hesitation, she carefully checked to be certain all the big carving knives and butcher’s cleavers were stored where the poisoned ones would not see them. Affected as they were by the Dragon, Rose Red hesitated to trust them with any weaponry. At last, though she hated to let them out of her sight, Rose Red left them and hastened back to find the queen.

  She did not have far to go. Queen Starflower had made her way down the great staircase. She was across the entrance hall when Rose Red found her, just putting her hand to the heavy front doors.

  “Your Majesty!” Rose Red called and picked up her pace. “Your Majesty, wait!”

  The queen did not hear her. She strained a moment, then the door gave way, swinging back and allowing the smoke in the courtyard to billow inside.

  “Your Majesty!” Rose Red called again. She felt as though she were moving in a dream. Her feet refused to move as she told them. She reached out, but her arms were not long enough. “Don’t go out there, not yet!”

  Starflower turned and looked back over her shoulder. Her black eyes locked with Rose Red’s; it was as if she could see right through the veils. Her lips moved, and her voice carried as though from far away.

  “My dreams are dead.”

  By the time those words reached Rose Red’s ears, the queen had already stepped over the threshold. “NO!” Rose Red cried.

  A flash.

  Like lightning but bigger; more like a meteor striking the earth. The Eldest’s House shook to its foundations, and Rose Red was flung to the floor. She lay there with her arms over her head as the silence of a scream never uttered rang in her ears and heat consumed the world just beyond the doorway.

  Then it was over. Rose Red uncurled and pushed herself to her feet. She staggered to the doorway, coughing in the smoke, waving it from her face. For an age, it seemed, she stood blinded on the threshold. Then at last the smoke cleared enough for her to see the melted stones that had once been the front steps.

  Her nightmare incarnate stood in the courtyard, clothed in a man’s shape.

  “Welcome back, little princess,” he said.

  7

  I’VE MISSED YOU.”

  Rose Red stood frozen on the threshold as her Dream drifted toward her li
ke another cloud of smoke, across the destruction he had wreaked. “The last time we spoke hardly counted. No chance for intimate conversation with everyone screaming and running about the place. Hardly the reunion I had envisioned.”

  He reached out and slipped the veil from her face. She remained unmoving while his gaze crawled over her features.

  “Princess,” he said at last, “how sadly wasted you are here. So different from the child I knew in the mountains. You should have returned to me, and then I—”

  “I’ll never come back!” Rose Red snapped. She regained enough of herself to back away from him. But he followed her into the house, and his eyes gleamed red in its half-light. “You cain’t make me come back,” she said. Her voice was lost in the echoes of the great hall.

  “Of course not,” said he with a snarl. “After all, you have forgotten me and how once I was your only true friend. Cruel, cruel child, abandoning me for a mortal playmate! But see how my love for you continues despite your faithlessness?”

  “You’re despicable.” She spoke with an effort, for his words besieged her senses, trying every possible weakness for an opportunity to break in and overwhelm her. “We were never friends.”

  “You have merely forgotten. Forgotten even the promise you made to return—”

  “I made no promise!” Rose Red continued backing into the house, and he continued to follow.

  “No promise?” His voice was unendingly sorrowful. The awful features, the black teeth, the sickly white skin, even the flames behind his eyes, melted away beneath that sorrow. “What about your promise to the mortal boy?”

  Then his voice altered and became a horrible but perfect mimic of Prince Lionheart’s: “ ‘Dearest girl, I will take comfort in knowing my parents have you yet.’ ”

  Rose Red swore and turned away from the Dragon, hiding her face in her hands. But he drifted closer, like evening closing in around her. “What a fine job you’ve done with that promise of yours.”

  She pulled herself upright and glared in his face. Though all his features were still wrung with sorrow and regret, deep down in the depths of his eyes, she saw a smile.