The Girl with the Dragon Heart

by Stephanie Burgis

  Oh. I saw Aventurine’s gaze shutter even as I took a deep breath.

  None of the adult dragons could possibly fit inside a human residence. It would never work.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said cheerfully as I lifted my hot chocolate cup once again to my lips. ‘We don’t need dragons anyway. It’s only going to be a friendly visit.’ I tipped my head back to swallow the last few drops of warm, chocolatey reassurance.

  But my cup was empty. There was no hot chocolate left after all …

  Which meant I couldn’t put off facing my brother any longer.

  Dieter was waiting at the market stall when I got there. With twilight closing in around the riverbank, he was the only one of the traders who wasn’t busily packing up for the day. Instead, he sat unmoving on the rickety stool behind our family table, which was still covered with neatly folded clothes. He didn’t even seem to notice me when I stepped into view. His brooding gaze was fixed on some point in the distance as a damp, cold fog rose up from the muddy ground and wrapped itself around him.

  I braced myself as I came to a halt fifteen feet away. My feet didn’t want to move any closer.

  Obviously, someone had told him about what had happened this morning.

  It wasn’t the first time I had seen him since then, of course. I’d dashed back to the market the moment I’d finished with the crown princess, my heart in my throat, just waiting to find out how many of our clothes had been stolen in my absence …

  But, astonishingly, not a single one had disappeared. The pair of married traders at the neighbouring stall had protected our wares for us. Frieda and Hanno didn’t think much of me, but – like everyone else on the riverbank – they approved of Dieter.

  What a pity that such a nice, hard-working young man should have such a shiftless, unreliable younger sister! They might not have said those words out loud, but their looks, as they’d told me how they’d kept our stall safe, had made their feelings perfectly clear.

  That was all right. I hadn’t thought much of them either, ever since that night when they’d left my parents behind in Elfenwald. But none of the adults on the riverbank even seemed to remember that any more. They’d probably buried that story even deeper than I had, in a locked box labelled Survival, and then just happily forgotten it so that they could sleep at night.

  This morning, I’d turned away all of their suspicious questions and kept my place, almost dancing with impatience behind the table, until Dieter had returned at the very end of my shift. Then I’d fled before he could find out what had happened. I’d needed chocolate and company before I could face his reaction – and even now, with the last traces of chocolatey warmth lingering in my belly, I didn’t feel anywhere near ready.

  Never mind. I took a deep breath and stuck my hands in the pockets of my silver trousers. Time to get it over with and move on.

  Smiling broadly, I sauntered across the final patch of riverbank, between groups of traders busily dismantling their tables and tents. I ignored all of their disapproving glances and muttered comments as I called out to my brother.

  ‘Having trouble?’ I asked. ‘If you’ve forgotten where everything goes, I can …’ Ulp. My throat closed up and wiped the smile from my face as he swung around to face me.

  Dieter’s face was stretched skeletally thin. The whites of his eyes looked huge. ‘Marched away,’ he said hollowly. ‘By guards wearing the crown princess’s uniform. Arrested!’

  ‘Oh, that.’ I tried to pull my smile back up, but it came out crooked under the weight of his stare. ‘Yes, that probably did look bad, didn’t it? But –’

  ‘You talked your way out of it. Of course you did.’ He shook his head, his face despairing. ‘How many more times do you think that’ll work, Silke? You’re only thirteen years old, and you’ve already been arrested by the crown princess’s guards! What’s going to happen by the time you turn fourteen? Do you really think you can talk yourself out of trouble forever?’

  My shoulders sagged as I sighed. The fog was rising higher now, licking at my knees and sending damp chills through my trousers. I shivered and moved closer, wishing I had more hot chocolate nearby.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t really arrested. It was just –’

  ‘A misunderstanding?’ Dieter groaned. ‘Silke …’ Still perched on his stool like a ragged crow, he closed his eyes against me. ‘Are you even listening to yourself?’

  ‘I am,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘but you aren’t. They weren’t arresting me – they were hiring me. For a job!’

  ‘A job?’ He let out a half-laugh of disbelief. ‘As a palace guard? You?’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘That’s not it. But …’ I glanced round at all the traders nearby who were pretending not to listen. Frieda wasn’t even pretending; she was leaning forward to hear us better, her pale green eyes narrowed with speculation. ‘I can’t explain,’ I said, lowering my voice to a whisper, ‘but you have to trust me. This is a good thing. For me and for us. I –’

  ‘Never mind.’ He let out a whooshing sigh as he slid down off the stool on to the muddy, fog-blanketed ground. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Dieter …’ I frowned at him, thrown off balance. Shouldn’t he have been yelling by now? ‘I want to tell you everything,’ I said. ‘I really do. And I will, as soon as I can. But in the meantime –’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’ The bitterness in his voice cut through my skin like a knife. ‘But let me guess – you won’t be coming back for your regular shift next week, will you?’

  ‘Well …’ I swallowed, my throat dry. ‘Not next week, no. I’ll be busy next week. But what I’ll be doing –’

  ‘Won’t be here.’ His shoulders drew inwards as if he were protecting himself from some terrible menace I couldn’t see. ‘I understand.’

  I started forward, reaching towards him for the first time in ages. ‘Dieter –’

  ‘No.’ My brother gripped the table hard as he looked at me across the piles of second-hand clothes that had been his whole life for almost as long as I could remember. ‘I meant it,’ he said stiffly. ‘I don’t want to know. In fact, I don’t even want to hear your voice – because I can’t trust a single word you say to me any more.’

  Oh. Oh.

  There was a rock sitting in my stomach. It was so heavy, I could barely breathe.

  But I’d spent years learning how to put on a good face no matter how I felt inside. So I didn’t let my expression shift as I nodded my agreement.

  ‘Right,’ I said calmly. ‘Well, then.’

  Setting my chin high and whistling a jaunty tune, I turned and walked away, my heart hurting with every step … just like my older brother wanted.

  CHAPTER 7

  I’d left both my family and the Chocolate Heart behind me, and there was a terrifying feeling of emptiness in my chest every time I let myself think about it. But I shoved that feeling aside every time, because there was a whole new world and a new story waiting for me in the glorious royal palace – and I was determined to discover every bit of it.

  The palace sprawled all across the city centre, with its massive wings of golden stone stretching out in several different directions and opening on to squares and parks throughout the first district. There were even shops and restaurants built against some of its outer walls, like smaller creatures tucked together for warmth against the side of a colossal beast.

  You could actually forget, on some of those busy first-district streets, what lay behind the thick stone walls that rose above the cheerful shingled roofs of the shops. Then you’d turn a corner and be faced with sudden, overwhelming magnificence, as another wing of the palace opened up into a grand plaza, with ornamental fountains spurting high arcs of water, muscular statues reaching for the sky and the curving, window-studded lines of the palace itself rising at least three floors above the ground.

  And every one of those floors was filled with secrets.

  ‘What you have to remember,’ the crown princess told me as she gree
ted me that first day, ‘is that there are always more doors than you can see on first glance – and more people eavesdropping than you’d think.’

  Well, that was less of a surprise than it might have been, after the way I’d been led into the palace in the first place.

  I’d expected to be brought in through one of the busy, bustling servants’ entrances that I’d passed hundreds of times before. Instead, the plain-clothed guard who was my escort led me into a tiny, cramped bookshop tucked into one of the palace’s outer walls in one of the busiest streets in the first district. We walked past tables overflowing with books and pamphlets, we squeezed between towering bookcases that looked ready to topple at any moment, and then we slipped through a plain brown doorway at the back of the shop … which led us into a darkened passageway, past a pair of watchful soldiers, up a narrow flight of steps, and through a final door into a room shaped like a hexagon, where the crown princess was waiting for us.

  Five out of the six walls in the hexagon room were covered with giant paintings of bloody battles, each of them almost twice my height. There was just one small, wooden door set in the sixth wall, making the room look completely safe, closed-in and private … but we’d stepped inside through the middle of one of the paintings themselves, which had a door sliced neatly into it to form a secret entrance. When we closed it behind us, only the lurid painting remained, and no one would ever have guessed what it was hiding.

  I couldn’t trust anything I saw in this palace.

  Unfortunately, that included the guide that the crown princess had chosen for me.

  ‘Sofia,’ the crown princess said warmly when the younger princess stalked in through the wooden door to join us a moment later. ‘May I present Silke? She’s very kindly agreed to help us.’

  ‘I know.’ Princess Sofia pushed the door shut behind her with a thud. ‘You don’t have to introduce her to me as if she were a stranger, Katrin. She’s served us both about a hundred times at the Chocolate Heart already … which is why this isn’t going to work!’ Crossing her arms, she glowered up at her sister.

  The crown princess’s eyes hardened. ‘Sofia …’

  ‘Everyone in court has been to that chocolate house by now,’ Princess Sofia said flatly. ‘They’ll recognise her the moment they see her. It’s not as if she ever faded into the background there!’

  ‘And that past flamboyance is exactly why they won’t recognise her any more,’ the crown princess replied. ‘What exactly do you think they noticed about her? Her perfectly ordinary features? Or the fact that she was scandalously dressed as a boy?’

  ‘Ahem …’ I coughed politely into one hand.

  I didn’t think my features were that ordinary.

  But the two sisters obviously hadn’t heard me. They were too busy glaring at each other, inches apart, their faces set in identical expressions of frustration.

  ‘You’re telling me she can fit into the court?’ Sofia demanded. ‘Just look at her!’ She waved at my outfit.

  It was one of my nicest ones, actually – and one of my most discreet ensembles, too, in a deep, dark, forest green. I patted down the collar of my jacket reassuringly.

  ‘She’ll change her clothes.’ All the warmth had fled from the crown princess’s voice. Every word was a jagged white icicle, freezing the atmosphere as she did her best to stare down her younger sister. ‘That is not a problem.’

  ‘And the rest of it?’ Sofia snorted. ‘This is a visit of state, not a garden party. Everyone is going to be on their best behaviour. How good are all of her different curtseys, do you think?’

  ‘They’ll be excellent by the time you’ve finished teaching her,’ the crown princess snapped. ‘Or you can forget about that order of books you just placed with the university in Villenne!’

  Sofia didn’t gasp or groan. But her eyes flared wide for a moment in unmistakeable outrage. Then she gave a sharp nod. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll teach her how to make her curtseys. But don’t blame me when this all goes wrong!’

  It wasn’t the most promising beginning, to say the least.

  But I was determined to make it work, so I kept a smile on my face as I followed Princess Sofia out of the room, ignoring the angry swish of her floor-length skirts as she stalked down the long blue-and-gold corridor.

  Everyone in Drachenburg knew quite a lot about the two princesses. The crown princess was especially famous, of course, but almost anyone on the streets could have told you something about Sofia. Her age, for instance: twelve, which made her more than ten years younger than her older sister. Her height: a full foot shorter than Katrin’s height at the same age, and about five inches shorter than me. Which parent she took after: her father – unfortunately for her, as everyone in the city agreed. And it wasn’t only her father’s infamous lack of patience that she had inherited.

  Princess Sofia didn’t have her father’s reddish hair or pale complexion; like her sister, she had light brown skin, shaded in between their father’s pinkish white and their late mother’s deep, warm brown, and they both shared their mother’s beautiful black, curling hair. But Sofia had the king’s short, stocky build, square face and uptilted nose … and I recognised the scowl on her face as she strode down the corridor ahead of me, skirts swishing.

  I’d seen that exact expression on the king’s face whenever someone tried to interrupt him at his table in the Chocolate Heart to discuss politics when he was trying to focus on his chocolate.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any hot chocolate on hand to sweeten the princess’s temper. So instead, I said, ‘I hear you’re a wonderful philosopher, Your Highness.’

  ‘Here.’ Without so much as a glance – she still hadn’t looked directly at me – she turned and flung open a door on the right. ‘You’ll need to get changed before anyone else sees you.’

  My eyes widened as I looked over her shoulder at the room beyond.

  It was full of more maps than I had ever seen in my life. From the massive, colourful maps of the world that hung on the walls, each of them marked with clusters of silver pins, to the large globes placed all round the room – oh, and the dozens of rolled-up maps that stuck out from a nest of round holes in the big desk at the far end …

  Even more maps were unrolled and spread across that desk, and a colourful, tiled mosaic covered the floor, showing Drachenburg at its centre and all the other cities and kingdoms of the world spiralling out from it.

  I’d never even heard of some of those places. But I could tell one thing immediately and for sure: this was the room of someone who wanted to control all of them.

  ‘Well?’ Sofia pointed at a small chair near the door, covered with a waterfall of bright colour. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  I hadn’t even spotted the pile of clothing until then. But I started forward just as confidently as if I’d intended to do that all along … and only realised my dilemma once I’d lifted the frothy, rose-coloured silk gown off the top of the pile.

  Uh-oh.

  Obviously, I knew how to put on a dress. Everyone knew how to put on a dress, even Aventurine.

  But there were more things piled underneath this dress: strangely shaped white cotton things that billowed over the chair cushion, other cotton garments lined with hooks and even more things with long white laces trailing out of them …

  I’d never seen anything like them on the market stall. The women who shopped at the riverbank market didn’t wear any frilly nonsense like this beneath their dresses, I was certain of that. But I wasn’t certain of anything else. I didn’t even know which fluttery garment I was supposed to put on first … or how.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Sofia heaved a noisy sigh from the open doorway behind me. ‘Are they not up to your high standards?’ she demanded. ‘You’re only supposed to be a lady-in-waiting, you know. So if you were expecting something finer –’

  ‘No,’ I said. The word came out half strangled, as if the irony were physically choking me.

  I’d never tou
ched such fine clothing in my life. But I couldn’t force myself to say any more about it, even though I knew I ought to be thinking up something flowery and complimentary to ingratiate myself. What could I possibly say when I didn’t even know how to name any of the garments on the chair before me?

  Suddenly, my nicest green outfit, so carefully chosen, felt as grubby as ‘river trash’ – the words I’d heard called out at me and my neighbours too many times to count over the years.

  How had I ever thought I could carry off this charade?

  I should never have left the riverbank.

  No. Stop! I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath, fighting to still the panic rioting beneath my skin.

  I was the heroine of my own story, and I would not be defeated even before it properly began. I was clever – I knew I was – and I’d been practising all my life at transformation. Anything I needed to know, I would simply find a way to learn, no matter how humiliating the price.

  So I opened my eyes and turned around. When I met Princess Sofia’s hostile gaze, I held it, even as my fingers clenched with the effort of forcing out the words I needed to say.

  ‘I don’t know how to put these on,’ I told her. ‘Will you please show me, Your Highness?’

  Her eyebrows soared upwards. Her mouth opened. I braced myself for whatever scathing remark was about to come out of it.

  She let the door fall shut behind her and started forward. ‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll be your maid. But only this once!’

  ‘Of course.’ My spine felt brittle enough to snap, but I kept my face still as I unbuttoned my jacket. ‘I’m a fast learner,’ I told her quietly. ‘I won’t need to be told twice how to do this.’