He struck. Lionheart’s head exploded with pain, driving even the Lady from his mind. The duke’s voice was low and biting, like slow-working poison. “You stole my slave from me. You made a laughingstock of me before my guests and took from me a gift from my ally. A gift not easily reclaimed.” He struck again, and his blow was like a hammer, jarring Lionheart’s senses. A third blow, a fourth; then the duke dropped him. Lionheart lay where he fell, his mouth open in soundless agony.
“Take him,” said the duke. “Bind him. We’ve got ourselves a journey tonight.”
They followed one of the Paths.
Lionheart was blindfolded and trussed up like a hunting trophy slung between two broad men. But he felt the moment they stepped onto the Path. It brought back with painful clarity, even through the pounding of his head, that night on the mountain when he had lost himself in the darkness and wandered in a world not his own.
But there was no Rose Red to call to his aid now. Besides, his mouth was gagged.
He still clutched Una’s ring in his hand, however, and he drew comfort from knowing it was there. Whatever else happened, he had what he’d come for. He’d just have to figure out the rest as he went.
Then the presence of the Dragon drove everything else from his mind.
Fire surrounded Lionheart everywhere, even deep inside himself. Fire and rage.
“Years I have wasted!” the Dragon’s voice boomed like thunder. “Five years and more bound in this incarnate body, pursuing that little beast! She is not the one I seek. But I won the game!”
Then, to Lionheart’s surprise—and somewhat to his horror—he heard the Duke of Shippening respond:
“Whatever, Dragon. I could not care less about your little games. Just tell me if I can gut this joker man here and now, or if I must wait a little longer?”
The blindfold was ripped from Lionheart’s face, and he was tossed, still bound, to his knees. When he struggled upright, he found himself staring up at a being at least seven feet tall, with a face like a skull, skin stretched over the bone in a thin sheet. Black hair fell down his shoulders.
His was the face from the portrait in Oriana’s hall. He was the Dragon.
Lionheart screamed inarticulately and hid his face in his bound hands. Poison filled the air; he breathed in lungsful. It boiled his blood.
“Come, Dragon,” said the duke. “You told me to bring the wretch to you, and bring him I have, alive even, though I had ideas enough in another direction. Tell me, can I kill him now?”
The Dragon snarled and hissed, white lips drawing back across his long black teeth. “Prince Lionheart,” he said. “We meet again.”
“A prince, eh?” said the duke and kicked Lionheart in the side. “Thought he had too much snobbery about him by half. That don’t make me like him any better, though. Is he the little brown prince of Southlands what’s been missing all these years? Fancy that.”
Lionheart could not hear the duke. His head pounded with poison.
But he still clutched Una’s ring.
“You were to be the key,” said the Dragon to Lionheart while ignoring Shippening as one might an irritating housefly.
But the duke persisted. “He freed the slave you gave me. Bold as brass, took off the creature’s collar and liberated it! By rights, he should have been put in a gibbet and left to starve years ago. I’m only asking to make up for lost time.”
“Enough,” said the Dragon, gnashing his teeth at the duke. “You’ve done your work, bringing him to me. Now cease your babble before I forget our alliance and have you for a late supper.”
The duke opened his mouth, thought twice, and closed it. His face went red with impotent wrath.
The Dragon turned to Lionheart again. “You were to be the key to the princess’s undoing. But she wasn’t the one I sought!” He lunged. His hands went about Lionheart’s neck, and his eyes burned the skin on Lionheart’s face. “Where is she? Where is the Beloved of my Enemy? All the signs told me that you were the key, but the little goblin withstood me. So where is my rightful prey?”
Lionheart couldn’t speak. He felt the life flowing from him, and for the moment, he did not care. Death would be better than this current existence, this fire in his veins that melted him from the inside out.
“Where is she?” the Dragon roared.
Suddenly the Lady was there. The ice of her coming was more painful than the fire, but she broke the Dragon’s hold and stepped between him and the fainting prince. Even the duke screamed at the sight of her, and his men fell to their knees and hid their faces.
“What is going on here?” she demanded.
“You should have let me have him,” the Dragon snarled. “He was supposed to be the key. If I’d had him, I could have convinced her to take my kiss.”
“You were never going to convince her,” his sister said. “You never won her in our game.”
“If not her, then whom?”
The Lady smiled. “Ask the prince what he has in his hand.”
The Dragon’s eyes narrowed to fiery slits. “Why?”
“Ask him and see.”
The Dragon turned on Lionheart, who had slumped to his side and lay with his knees curled up to his face. He could hardly breathe, the poison was so great. He closed his eyes, desperate not to see those looming specters.
“What do you have in your hand?”
Lionheart’s fist tightened. No! They could take everything else. They could take his kingdom, his family, his identity. They could take his life. But Lumé help him, they would not take Una’s ring! He’d worked too long and too hard. It was the key to the Dragon’s undoing. It must be! The oracle had said . . .
“Lionheart, my darling,” said the Lady, kneeling down beside him. “Show my brother what you hold.”
He looked up into her terrible, empty eyes. “You . . . you said—”
“I said I would show you how to deliver Southlands from the Dragon. This is the only way. Show him what you have.”
Closing his eyes, Lionheart uncurled his fingers.
The Dragon roared. “He holds the heart of a princess!”
“Not just any princess, my brother,” said the Lady, turning to the Dragon once more. “That is the heart of Princess Una, Beloved of the Prince of Farthestshore. Your Enemy.”
The Dragon’s cloak billowed back in a sudden blast of heat. Lionheart screamed and closed his hand around Una’s ring once more. He saw black wings and a great black body rising above him, towering as great as a mountain, and he thought he would melt in the heat. Red eyes filled his vision, and he looked once more into the face of Death.
“Give me her heart, Prince Lionheart,” said the Dragon. The duke and his men fled, leaving Lionheart alone before the monster. “Give me her heart, and I will let you live.”
“No!” Lionheart cried, raising his hands to shield his face from the heat, Una’s ring still clutched in one of them.
The Dragon laughed, a terrible sound as hot as the flames flickering between his teeth. “Your life for her heart. That’s the best I can offer you.” The two red eyes lowered, and the awful mouth hovered just above the prince so that he thought he would be devoured then and there. He huddled down, helpless and quivering in the shadow of the beast.
The Lady was at his ear, speaking eagerly. “You must choose! Choose your dream!”
“It is an easy enough exchange,” said the Dragon. “Then you may return to Southlands, reclaim your crown, rule your people. Only give me the heart of this princess, your love.”
“No!” He could not hear his own voice.
“I will eat you now, little prince. And I will return to Southlands and burn it to ash. I will swallow your homeland in one mouthful and still be hungry for more! Only you can prevent it, Lionheart. Not by killing me. You cannot kill me. No sword you can wield will ever pierce my skin, little man! So save yourself and save your people, and give me the heart of this Una, for I have greater need of it than you do.”
Lionheart th
ought the flesh would melt from his bones. Poison filled his soul.
“Choose your dream,” urged the Lady. “Give my brother the girl’s heart, for he played the game with me and won, and he must have it now. Give it to him!”
“Give it to me!”
Lionheart, lying on his face, his arms flung out before him, slowly opened his fist.
The ring rolled from his grasp and lay upon the stone ground.
“It’s yours,” he whispered. “Take it!”
The fire went.
The terror vanished.
Lionheart lay at the foot of Goldstone Hill, on the edge of the dark forest. He was alone.
Utterly alone.
1
THE SOUND OF CONSTRUCTION followed Daylily everywhere she went in the Eldest’s House. Without needing to be summoned, workers from all across Southlands had flocked to the home of their king following the Dragon’s departure, desperate for work, equally desperate to see the glory and stability of their sovereign restored. It was a hopeless venture, but it gave them purpose and something on which to focus their minds other than that ever-pressing question:
Will the Dragon return? And when?
Daylily revealed nothing of her thoughts, but deep inside she despised those busy worker folk. As if their industry could ever wipe away the scars the Dragon had left upon the land during those five years of enslavement.
Five years! That thought hurt to contemplate. She’d not sensed the passing of time, at least not in years. She remembered the smoke; she remembered the poison. All too clearly Daylily remembered watching her dreams burn before her eyes time after time. She felt as though she had lived a thousand lifetimes and died a thousand deaths. But five years had escaped, unnoticed.
She remained at the Eldest’s House at first because she was too weak to travel; later because she dared not return to her father’s welcoming arms. When the baron sent messages requiring her presence in Middlecrescent, she used the king’s seal to respond that Lady Daylily is indispensable to the Eldest at this time, etc. And so far, her father had enough problems of his own, resettling Middlecrescent, to come chasing after his wayward child.
Daylily could hide awhile longer.
She spent much of her time alone. She could not bear the fresh faces of those come to work on the House, so hopeful and so skittish all at once. They all bore some marks of the Dragon’s work but were comparatively unscathed. What did they know of poison? What did they know of darkness? Little to nothing, otherwise they wouldn’t bother to rebuild.
But none of these thoughts showed upon Lady Daylily’s face. She sat at her bedroom window, watching the north road, and said nothing. They’d learn the futility of their actions in the end.
It was by thus quietly watching that Daylily became the first person at the House to spot Lionheart returning up the road.
She knew him instantly, though he was much too far away for her to discern his features. Something in the way he walked reminded her of the gawky boy she had once known. She was on her feet and out the door in a moment. Her movements were deliberate. She did not hasten down the hall or the stairway. Hastening gave one a sense of flight, or pursuit, so she always moved with a precise grace. By the time she reached the outer court, half the household knew of the prince’s return, and a great shout had gone up among the staff, the construction crews, and those who had returned to dwell within their Eldest’s walls.
Only a handful remained silent. These included the Eldest, Sir Foxbrush, and the nobles who had been imprisoned during those five years.
Daylily came to stand on the front steps beside the Eldest and near Sir Foxbrush (who rarely raised his somber gaze from his feet these days, though his hair was always perfectly oiled). The rubble of the Starflower Fountain had been mostly cleared out by now, so the view from the front steps across the courtyard to the gate was unobstructed. She saw the gates swing open, heard the shouts from the wall as guardsmen hailed their shabby prince.
She saw Lionheart walk through.
Not on horseback as he should have been, a triumphant hero returning to his homeland. Like a vagabond he came, shabby in dress and bearing. A beard covered half his face, like a mask.
But he was Lionheart, Prince of Southlands. And he was home.
The crowd grew but stayed back to give him a clear path across the courtyard to the steps where his father waited. Lionheart squared his shoulders as he neared, and Daylily watched his eyes darting about, resting first on the Eldest, then seeking familiar faces among the others gathered there. His gaze rested briefly on her before passing to Foxbrush and on.
Daylily set her mouth. He would not find the one he sought. She wondered if anyone had yet informed the prince of his mother’s death.
The Eldest reached out to his son. Lionheart mounted the stairs, took his father’s hands, and bowed over them.
“Welcome home,” said the Eldest.
“Father,” said Lionheart. His voice was changed, no longer boyish but deep. “I . . . I have ensured that the Dragon will not return to Southlands.”
The Eldest said nothing for a long moment. His face was aged almost beyond recognition after years spent breathing in those poisons. His eyes were faded as well and not too quick at disguising his thoughts. But he smiled a sad smile and took his son in his arms, repeating only, “Welcome home.”
A few hours later, Daylily’s dream came true.
She had retired to the privacy of her chambers when the commotion became too tiresome. The means for celebration were pathetically reduced, and Daylily disliked watching the household desperately trying to behave as though there were some real reason for all this joy. So the prince had returned. Very well. Where was he during those five years when he’d been needed? But they wouldn’t think about that now, would they. No, they’d save that for later, Daylily knew. And later would bring its price.
So she retired to her rooms and told her servant not to light a fire. She avoided fires, no matter how chilly her room might become at night, nor how dark. The smell made her sick. She wrapped a shawl about her shoulders and sat at the window instead.
Lionheart knocked at her door. She knew it must be he, though how she knew she could not say. Out of habit, she checked to make certain her hair was arranged and let the shawl drop from her shoulders down to her elbows. Then she said, “Come.”
He was still shaggy with that wretched beard, though he’d changed into finer clothing. Ill-fitting clothing, to be sure. He’d outgrown all his own and there had been no time yet to fit him for others. But at least he was no longer dressed in the colorless sacking in which he’d arrived.
“Hullo, Daylily,” he said. He carried a candle, for dusk was settling in. The light cast strange shadows on his face.
“Good evening, Lionheart,” she said. She wondered briefly how she looked to him. The dragon poison had taken its toll upon her, leaving her thin and hollow cheeked. Her former beauty might never be reclaimed. She hoped the candlelight was gracious to her.
Not that it mattered. She knew that her dream was about to come true, and she dreaded the moment. After watching it burn and die so many times, the prospect of fulfillment was almost unbearable.
“Daylily, I was wondering,” Lionheart said, shuffling his feet. For just that instant, her heart went out to him again. He looked so like the awkward Leo she once had known. Leo, who couldn’t play a game of chess to save his life.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“I was wondering if . . . well, after all this . . . and I understand if you’d rather not.” It was strange to hear that boyish stammering when his voice had grown so deep.
“What is it, Leo?” she asked.
The use of his childhood name brought his head up, and he smiled. The smile vanished quickly, but it had been there, a ghost of his former self. Daylily wondered at the amount of dragon poison she saw in his face. After all, Lionheart had been away; he had not suffered enslavement during those five years. Why should he bear the marks?
“Tell me what you want,” she said.
He closed his eyes and drew a breath as though stung. When he looked at her again, there was a sharpness like thorns in his expression. But he said, “Daylily, will you marry me?”
So she would be the Eldest’s wife after all. She would fulfill her father’s expectations and Plan. She would prove herself in the eyes of Middlecrescent, in the eyes of the entire nation. Daylily had succeeded, as she set out to, in winning the heart and devotion of the crown prince.
“Yes,” she said.
Lionheart stepped forward, leaned over, and kissed her, just once, before he backed away. She looked up at him, her eyes like a ghost's in the candlelight.
“Thank you,” he said, turning to go. But he paused in her doorway and looked back.
“Daylily?”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering . . . do you know what became of Rose Red? The goat girl, remember?”
Daylily did not break his gaze. The candlelight reflected like opal fire in the depths of her eyes.
At last she said, “She disappeared.”
“She promised that she’d come back and watch over my parents and those imprisoned here,” Lionheart said. “Do you know if she did?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Do you know . . . did she survive?”
Daylily got to her feet and paced across the room. Fury suddenly thickened her voice to a menacing whisper. “She’s not dead, Lionheart. She fled after the Dragon left. She lost that veil of hers, and we all saw her true face, and she fled. I don’t know where she went. Followed the Dragon, perhaps? They were quite friendly, I’m given to understand. Last I saw her, she was very much alive and very much running for her life because she is no longer welcome in this land.”
Lionheart’s face hardened into stone. Daylily stood there, hissing up at him like an angry cat, her loveliness twisted so that he almost could not recognize her. His betrothed. Of all the damages he’d yet seen wreaked upon his homeland, somehow this was the worst.
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