Warped

by Maurissa Guibord

  They stood facing each other as the silence grew. Will looked at her as if she were a stranger. As if there were worlds between them. Just as there always had been, Tessa thought.

  “You wanted to find me,” he repeated to himself. “And so of course, you have. I am a complete fool,” he went on, shaking his head. “It was as I thought. You are here only to trap me once more.”

  Will’s lips curled in a faint, mocking smile. His eyes swept over her and down to the rumpled furs where they had been lying only moments before. “You are still the virgin in the wood. Virtue dangled as bait.”

  Tessa stared at him. “What?”

  “No more lies, Tessa!” he shouted. He gave a suspicious glance around the darkened room. “Where is she? Where is Gray Lily?”

  Tessa shook her head. How could he believe that? When he kissed her, when he spoke to her, his lips grazing her ear, she could swear that he loved her. In fact, they had just been very close to making—

  The thought struck her like a freight train. She felt the world twist away.

  She put a hand to her throat. “You never trusted me,” she whispered, barely breathing the words. “You told me before that I was the one who trapped you. You even used the same words. The virgin in the wood.”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes unreadable.

  She stared at him, replaying in her head every word, every glance, every kiss. “You never trusted me,” she repeated. “Not even after …” Not even after I fell in love with you, she said to herself. She thought of all the times when he had distanced himself, kept himself apart. Cool, aloof. He had been protecting himself. From her?

  A virgin in his haunts, Tessa thought. Only a virgin could lure the unicorn into the snare. Only a virgin. And then the obvious finally sank in.

  “And what if I wasn’t?” she asked.

  “What?” Will asked.

  “What if I wasn’t a virgin?” She said each word distinctly, slowly. “You’d be safe from me if I wasn’t a virgin. Is that what you thought? Is that why you kissed me? Why you would have—” She stopped, daring him with her eyes to deny it, to lie to her.

  “Don’t be absurd.” Will’s face looked ashen, but Tessa wasn’t going to be fooled again.

  “How stupid am I,” she said to herself, turning away and covering her face with her hands. “Stupid. Stupid.”

  She heard Will mutter a curse under his breath, but she didn’t look back until he grabbed her and spun her toward him.

  “Stop it,” he said. He was breathing hard. “Tessa. It is not that way.”

  She shoved him away as hard as she could with both hands. “Leave me alone!” she cried, and ran across the dark hall.

  “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “Don’t you know already?” she said sarcastically. She swiped at the tears streaking her face. “I’m going to set a trap for you.”

  Tessa ran through the darkened hallways, her bare feet pounding hard stone. She didn’t care where she went or what happened. She just ran. The tears felt cold on her cheek as she made her way deeper and deeper through the dark. She climbed a passageway so narrow that the walls seemed barely wide enough for her to pass. She had to slow down finally when it became too dark to see. Her hands scrabbled against rough, unfamiliar forms as she came to the top. She spied a small room to her right, lit from a narrow window with a faint streak of moonlight. A low wooden bed stood in one corner.

  Tessa collapsed onto it, exhausted.

  Chapter 40

  The thin mattress was stuffed with feathers—mostly the pointy, quill part, it seemed. Tessa opened her eyes. Between the crying and the goose feathers poking her all night, she felt raw, inside and out. She rose and went to the window. Outside, the low hills rolled away in a soft, rich palette of greens and browns. The day had dawned crystalline blue, with no hint of the ravaging storm the night before.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said to herself. But beauty didn’t particularly impress her this morning, and she turned away, only to see Will standing in the doorway watching her.

  Silently he came and stood next to her.

  Tessa gazed out across the landscape, afraid to look at Will. He didn’t seem willing to speak about what had happened the night before. Or what hadn’t. Tessa knew she had overreacted.

  Overreacted? She’d gone crazy, she thought, remembering her outburst. Will de Chaucy wouldn’t sleep with her to save himself. That was crazy. But what wasn’t crazy was the fact that he didn’t trust her. The idea hurt so much she could hardly breathe.

  “Tessa,” Will said. “Look at me.”

  “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Tessa pointed to a small figure approaching. “She’s here. Gray Lily is coming.”

  “Then we had best prepare to meet her,” Will said shortly. He turned away.

  Will gathered weapons from the wall. He selected a long wooden bow and quiver of arrows, both of which he slung over one shoulder; then a short, bone-handled dagger went into a sheath on his belt. He grabbed a huge sword in a heavy leather scabbard and fastened it around his waist. He was perusing a variety of round, hammered-metal shields when Tessa’s impatient huff finally caught his attention.

  “Well?” she said pointedly. “Aren’t you going to give me something?”

  Will looked taken aback but then surveyed the choices and passed a critical eye over her. “I don’t suppose you have ever used a crossbow.”

  Tessa set her jaw. “Just show me.”

  “Here,” he said as he handed the hefty and archaic-looking weapon to her. The weight of the crossbow surprised Tessa, and she threw Will an uncertain look.

  “Don’t worry. You only need to aim and fire.” He strode to a chest, from which he took a handful of short arrows. He gave her one.

  “Pretty heavy for an arrow, isn’t it?” Tessa said.

  “It’s called a bolt,” said Will. “And it’s iron. Now watch.”

  He took the crossbow from her. He bent over, put a foot into a leather stirruplike piece and, holding the bow steady, straightened himself and pulled the bow upward until the string caught in the notch and the bow seemed taut to the point of snapping.

  “Lock it here,” Will said while Tessa watched intently. “The bolt lies here in the groove.” He slid in the sharply pointed, ugly-looking missile. “Keep your fingers clear of this.” He pointed to a firing mechanism. “This is a short-range weapon—it’s best to wait until your target is close, but it fires true and can pierce armor at fifty yards.

  “Unlock this only when you’re ready to fire.” He indicated a small wooden catch. He put the crossbow in Tessa’s hands and guided the padded end to her shoulder. “Aim along the body and release this trigger to unloose the bolt.”

  “Okay,” said Tessa, feeling her hands quiver. She frowned, straightened up, tightened her hold and sighted along the path of the bolt. “Like this?”

  “Good.” Will nodded.

  She took the extra bolts from him. She didn’t have a belt, so with a shrug she tucked them into the embroidered sash at her waist.

  “Okay,” she said with a satisfied nod. Then, sensing Will watching her, she looked up at him. “Do I scare you?” Tessa asked coolly. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe to provoke him, to make him feel as unsettled as she did. Though he didn’t look afraid, Tessa decided.

  “You always have,” he murmured.

  They climbed the stairs to the battlements of the guard tower. They could see Gray Lily standing on the grassy slope, about a hundred yards distant. She began to walk toward the castle. Tessa squinted against the bright sunlight.

  The old woman advanced to the grass near the edge of the moat and peered up at the battlements. She was dressed in a long gray dress and cloak.

  “You! Girl! Send down the young master,” she called imperiously, “and you can go back to your world unharmed. I only want my unicorn.”

  Will snarled a curse.

  “You thought this would be a quaint
, pretty place, eh, girl?” Gray Lily went on. “Welcome to reality. Actually, reality would be much worse. Now send down the young master,” she growled. “Or I will come fetch him.”

  Tessa and Will looked at each other. Something strong and sure passed between them in that moment. Something that didn’t require words or promises. Tessa grinned. She was suddenly stupidly happy.

  Will gave her an answering smile, then nodded and turned to Gray Lily. “Be on your way, old woman,” he shouted. “Perhaps you can peddle your wares farther down the road.”

  Gray Lily let out a slew of profanity in reply. But she didn’t leave. She pointed a finger toward the distant horizon and began to speak. The sound was horrible. Tessa stepped back from the castle wall.

  “I think we should get inside,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.

  “No,” said Will, watching Gray Lily’s motions. “Best to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Tessa peered into the distance. A tiny dark thing fluttered against the blue sky. “I’ve seen that before,” she said, frowning. “In the tapestry. It’s only a bird.”

  The bird flew closer. It was odd, Tessa thought. Usually you couldn’t hear birds flapping like that. Whoomp. Whoomp. She stared with horrified fascination as it got bigger. “It’s not a bird,” she whispered nervously. “Is it?”

  “It’s the dragon,” Will said.

  It flew closer, its long body writhing in a serpentine trail across the sky. It looked like a giant snake on which someone had sewn gargantuan, floppy-jointed bat wings. As it swooped closer, the wings unfolded like huge, veined fans and blotted out the sky overhead. The wings could have touched both goalposts of the Prescott High School football field, Tessa thought. A gust of foul wind knocked her and Will backward as the creature hurtled past. It screamed. It was a deafening, almost human-sounding scream except for the sibilant ending—a hiss, like whistling steam.

  “Dragon! Why didn’t you tell me there was a dragon?” shouted Tessa, against the roar of the wind.

  “I didn’t think it necessary,” Will shouted back, helping her to her feet. “It has never troubled me before.”

  The dragon flapped closer. Tessa saw a cerulean eye and the shutterlike flick of a membranous lid—the dragon was watching them as it lifted past, flying nearly straight up in the air.

  “I think it wants to make up for lost time,” Tessa muttered.

  The creature soared upward, its long body undulating, its spiked tail whipping the clouds. Its searing breath quivered the air into heat waves and left in its wake a blackened double contrail that looked like train tracks against the blue sky.

  “Right.” Will swallowed. “I believe we’ve seen enough. Come on.” They scrambled back, running into the central tower just as a wall of fire blistered the space behind them. Tessa turned to see a ball of orange flame fill the doorway and blast toward them like a cannon shot.

  She dove to the side just as the fireball roared past. The whole tower shook, and the walls were blackened where the fire had licked stone.

  “Up!” Will’s hand reached for Tessa’s as she clutched the crossbow in the other and raced on, up the spiraling steps.

  They came to the top of the castle’s tower, emerging onto a walkway that was girded by a chest-high wall with narrow chinks in it. Below them Gray Lily looked tiny, but Tessa sensed the repulsive dark eyes locked on them with hatred.

  The dragon wheeled in the sky and approached again. It plummeted toward Tessa and Will, seeming to watch them like a raptor would its prey. At the last second it veered away, firing another blast of flames from a fanged, gaping mouth. Will and Tessa ducked and flattened their backs to the outer wall as fire shot over their heads and blasted the tower wall facing them. Will held the bronze shield over them. Tessa closed her eyes against the heat, but when she opened them she saw Will drop the red-hot shield with a curse. He shook his blistered left hand as the molten center of the metal sagged.

  “Jesu,” Will breathed.

  A burst of twittering erupted overhead as a flock of doves flapped out of one of the tower windows, driven from their perches. A few unlucky ones fluttered across the dragon’s path. A moment later, roasted carcasses, looking like black frizzled lumps, dropped to the ground at Will’s and Tessa’s feet.

  The poor things, Tessa thought, but there was no time for more because she saw Will stand up, draw his bow and fire a shot at the dragon, all in one fluid, lethal motion.

  The air split with the dragon’s scream as the arrow struck the underside of one spread wing. The dragon hurtled toward them, its wounded wing folded.

  “Get down!” Tessa hissed.

  The dragon slammed against the tower and one of the huge, heat-cracked stones snapped free from the top of the wall and tumbled downward, planting itself deep in the ground below with a reverberating thud.

  Meanwhile, Will and Tessa watched as the dragon coiled its long body and tail around the tower, clinging to the walls like a lizard with its clawed feet.

  “Maybe it’s too hurt to fly,” said Tessa.

  “Maybe it just wants to eat us,” retorted Will.

  He pulled Tessa inside the turret and ducked down beneath one of the windows in the circular room. Outside, the dragon’s head hovered like a giant parade balloon as it passed the window opposite them. They straightened up and circled to get out of its line of fire as puffs of black breath from slitted nostrils blew ash and charred feathers into the room.

  “How do you kill a dragon?” gasped Tessa. “Don’t they teach that stuff in medieval school?”

  “Truth be told, mistress,” panted Will, “this would be my first.” He readied another arrow in the bow and aimed it at the far window, holding himself as taut as the bowstring itself while he waited for his target.

  Slam! The room shook as the dragon heaved itself against the tower. Tessa and Will were both thrown to the floor. Another slab of stone plummeted past the window. “He’s going to knock the tower down,” Tessa said in disbelief.

  Then an idea occurred to her, and before she could talk herself out of it she hefted up the crossbow and dashed down the stairs, yelling instructions to Will as she ran.

  At the bottom of the tower Tessa braced herself in the open doorway. Above her hung the dragon’s pale green belly. She aimed the crossbow and released the latch, then held her breath. She fired. Ffft! The recoil of the crossbow bit into her shoulder as twelve inches of sharpened iron flew into the beast’s scaly armor and was buried to the hilt.

  The dragon shuddered and let out another scream. It twisted down, its huge reptilian head dropping to Tessa’s level. It didn’t let go of the tower. It wasn’t mortally wounded. Only really pissed off.

  Tessa froze in the archway of the tower, facing the dragon, and for a moment she thought she could not carry out her plan. It was something she saw in the dragon’s leering eyes. Something almost human.

  But then the dragon drew in a slithering breath, and Tessa knew she would be incinerated on the exhale.

  “Now!” she screamed.

  A handful of tiny stones and dust pattered onto the dragon’s head. The creature blinked and almost seemed to sneer at her with a triumphant flare of its nostrils. It opened its jaws just as a massive wedge of granite fell and crushed its head.

  Chapter 41

  The dragon lay sprawled on the ground, its huge green skull hollowed in by its own tombstone. It let out a last hot, hissing sigh and died. Just as with the lymerer, the dragon’s body was soon enveloped in a shroud of vapor.

  Will flew down the stairs and arrived panting at Tessa’s side. He turned to Tessa, his face stricken, the skin around his lips pale white. “The next time you have a plan,” Will heaved, catching his breath, “Please. Just don’t.” He hugged her to him. They both watched as a coil of swampy-colored green thread drifted away and the dragon disappeared.

  “Another thread,” said Will. “Another life to be gathered back in by Gray Lily.”

  Tessa, covered with dust and
splatters of rapidly disappearing dragon blood, was still dazed as Will pulled her tighter. She sagged against him, grateful for the support. Every muscle in her body seemed to be quivering from either exhaustion or relief. And after seeing the thread of the dragon drift away, she felt impossibly tired. What the Norn wanted her to do was more than impossible. It was hopeless.

  “Now listen to me.” Will spoke into her hair, and maybe he sensed her despair; his voice was fierce and low. “I don’t care what happened before. I don’t care what happens tomorrow. You will do whatever you must. I trust you.”

  The words filled Tessa with a pure, strong joy.

  He drew back and looked at her. His eyes were blazing. “And I love you. I have loved you from the first time I saw you.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Tessa murmured, looking into his eyes. “Some things change.”

  “Some things don’t,” Will answered. He pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her.

  After their lips parted, Tessa whispered, “I love you too. Today and always.”

  Will stepped back and smiled. “I think we can hold out here against whatever Gray Lily sends,” he said. He took her hand and they climbed to the tower window once more, lugging their weapons.

  “I think you may be right, Esquire de Chaucy,” said Tessa. It was true; suddenly she felt that together they could handle anything. She smiled to herself. Together they would find a way. She stole a glance at Will, remembering something. Marriage to a girl with a large estate, soldiering or the priesthood.

  “By the way,” she said. “I was thinking about those three career choices you mentioned?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You can forget about two of them.”

  “Which two?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “You figure it out.”

  “Ah.”

  They came to the window and looked out at the grassy expanse. Tessa’s smile faded.

  Down below, Gray Lily was no longer alone. Beside her stood a man dressed all in black. Tessa could see a frizz of reddish hair and a pale, freckled scalp.