“There’s no time!” She heard the dark-haired Dragon say urgently. Dur resisted but between them they began dragging him away. They were dressed like him—in black leather leggings and loose white shirts—and even through the storm of her feelings Mirabel sensed the intense longing they kindled in the keep’s maidens.
“Stop them!” someone yelled.
“No, let them go!” Loric’s command reverberated through the hall and everyone immediately fell silent. He took the six steps separating him from Mirabel in two bounds and snatched the knife out of her hand. He flung it away, assuring himself with a glance behind him that the three Dragons had indeed left the hall. Then he faced his wife across their ruined feast. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeply etched and for the first time he looked his age to her.
Dur had held her eyes until the last possible moment and she had felt him willing the blade into her body, his expression louder in her blood than the commotion in the hall. He had wanted her to follow the knife’s shining path and she had been at the point of surrendering to him—she had been about to feel his penetrating stare plunge with the blade into her womb. The dagger was the organ of his desire, the instrument through which he could fully possess her by stripping her of her flesh, because no matter how much it hurt her he knew that, in the end, it wouldn’t kill her. After the initial fear and pain she would be able to watch the knife plunge into her body and then slip out, again and again. She would be able to penetrate herself with the blade’s deadly erection over and over in an ecstasy of triumph. This was what he wanted, to give her the supreme pleasure, the absolute fulfillment of identifying with the eternal force inside her that was mysteriously experiencing itself through her body.
Loric returned to her side. “If you will excuse us, we wish to retire now.” He addressed the court. “Tomorrow, however, I shall send a message to Moonshadow’s prince and inform him that his young men need disciplining.” That was all he said and since no one really understood what had just happened, they were relieved he made light of the whole affair. And it was, indeed, time to make the long climb up to a bed’s welcoming cloud. The older lords and ladies were glad they themselves were no longer so exhaustingly headstrong while the young ones felt elated and inspired by this display of love’s passionate disregard for authority and danger.
Chapter Eleven
It was still snowing in the morning, if it could be called that. The clouds were so thick—the Lords stuffed their pillows well—the sun barely lifted its head. Neither Loric nor Mirabel had slept all night and the gray-white dawn suited their tired eyes. A sunny morning full of the cheerful conversation of birds would have offended their profound melancholy. They both felt as cold inside as the world was outside, their untouched bed reflecting the pure white sheet spread across the land. They had come to no conclusion. Questions lay between them as hot as the live coals smoldering in the chamber’s several braziers. The three logs burning in the hearth before which the princess sat staring at the flames’ vibrant personalities symbolized the young Dragons who had flown from the hall last night. Yet no matter how close she got to the heat, she continued trembling inside beneath her husband’s frigid regard. It was just as well that there was no possibility of venturing up to the burial grounds today in search of Dur, for not even she could have come up with a plausible excuse to do so.
They had talked for hours, yet there was really nothing much to be said as it was impossible for either one of them to be objective. The issue was too much a part of them since it was their very natures they were dealing with. Mirabel knew she had to make a decision, yet that too was impossible because she was aware of all she would lose whereas she could not even imagine what she might gain. However, that things could not go on this way was obvious. At least Loric had been forced to acknowledge this fact and was now facing her dilemma with her.
They hadn’t spoken a word to each other during the long climb up the tower stairs and the first thing he did when they finally reached their chambers was pull her dress off and toss it into the flames. There was only a small tear in it where the point of the knife had penetrated. It could easily have been mended, but she didn’t protest. She understood it was her very flesh he would have liked to rip off her bones for betraying him.
By destroying the gown Dur had seen her in, the prince symbolically made her purely his again. He stripped off his own clothes impatiently and then thoroughly surprised her by wrapping them both in a blanket and forcing her to sit down beside him in front of the fire. For a blessed while they enjoyed a reprieve from the storm raging outside and in their souls.
They basked in the delicious, comforting intimacy they had shared for so long until, inevitably, they were forced to face the problem, and before long they were sitting apart from each other, wearing their own chilly black robes. Loric stoically endured the garment’s cold folds, patiently waiting for his body to warm it up, while she knelt as close to the fire as she dared, rubbing her palms together and desperately trying not to cry.
Yet even as she shivered she smiled wryly over at him, for she recognized that their behavior in those moments were expressions of their different natures. She did not possess the calm ability to endure that he did. She would rather risk burning herself than sit a safe distance from the flames. She loved the way they caressed the smooth limbs of the wood and she wanted to be part of this wild yet controlled dance, of this sensual destruction that also sustained life.
Soon it was morning and even the passionate fire was a tired ghost of itself. The servants would be up shortly to rekindle it, offering its fickle spirit fresh limbs to arouse it. They would also bring the lord and lady of Visioncrest their breakfast of fresh goat’s milk, served at body temperature in the summer and comfortingly warm in the winter, soft-boiled eggs and thick slices of black bread slathered with salted butter and decoratively surrounded by orange slices.
Thinking about it, Mirabel was surprised to find herself hungry. Then she remembered that she had eaten hardly anything last night because her heart had been so full reliving Dur’s incredible kiss. Loric had to understand! It wasn’t as if she were involved with a normal man. The young Dragon was, in every sense, impossible to resist, and yet she wasn’t in love with him. Her husband simply had to believe her. Apparently, however, the fact that she even thought of Dur was enough to turn his heart to stone against her. More than ever she needed his help and support and he refused to give it to her.
“I’m surprised one of the head luminaries hasn’t shown up yet,” he commented just as they heard the doors open to admit the servants.
All night Mirabel had longed to retire to the smaller, cozier room where they usually slept but he seemed determined to remain in his princely space and the last thing she wanted to do was leave him, so she resigned herself to shivering in the darker chamber. He sat in his stag’s chair, his legs stretched out before him, half emerging from his thick robe. He looked perfectly relaxed but she knew he was as tense and hard inside as the antlers cradling him. Their personal attendants—a pleasant elderly couple—were surprised to find them in this room, which was as drafty as a cave in winter even though countless braziers and the large fireplace kept it warm enough.
“Good morning, my lord. My lady.” The man handed his wife the two covered silver trays he had carried up and then went to fetch the small breakfast table and chairs from the other room.
“Good morning, Alina,” Mirabel murmured.
“I’ve seen far better!” the woman replied with a touch of the prince’s sarcasm—she had been waiting on him for decades. Her husband returned and she set the trays down on the leather-topped table he carefully placed between the prince and his bride. “I hear there was some trouble in the hall last night?”
“For once what you heard is true,” Loric said, ignoring the food.
Mirabel roused herself as the glorious smells practically lifted her body up off the floor.
“My lady’s appetite never fails her,” he added
.
Alina and her husband glanced at each other even as they tactfully went about their chores. What exactly the prince had meant by this remark would give them and the rest of the staff a tasty morsel to mull over on this Lord-forsaken day. Outwardly everyone disapproved of the young singer from Moonshadow, yet in their secret hearts they thanked him for the diversion he had provided, which helped take their minds off the long winter to come. The odd thing was, no one knew where the three handsome youths had vanished to. That they had left Visioncrest altogether despite the inclement weather was almost certain. They had not visited any of the stables after leaving the hall so they must have had horses hidden somewhere, possibly outside the herb garden, which was easily reached by way of the kitchen. Whatever the truth, the old couple went about their work pleasantly diverted by these speculations.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Mirabel inquired meekly of her husband, unable to resist seating herself at the table and taking a soothing swallow of warm milk.
“I ate last night, remember? I wasn’t the one with a guilty conscience.” His stare condemned her untroubled appetite as indecent.
“Oh, stop it!” she yelled.
“Control yourself, my lady.”
She took such a huge bite of bread it seemed she was chewing on it forever beneath his hostile scrutiny. “Don’t look at me like that!” she demanded after she was able to swallow.
“How would you like me to look at you?”
“Like you used to.”
He laughed bitterly, his black hair falling forward and hiding his face from her as he stared over at the rekindled fire.
Their attendants silently left the chamber and she was suddenly exhausted. She couldn’t fight his pain anymore—it was a wall as high as the heavens in which she could find no ledges, no hand or footholds to support her efforts.
“You know it’s you I love,” she insisted wearily, wincing as she bit into a bitter slice of orange. It was the final crop from Bloodflower, where the weather was still much warmer than at Visioncrest. She tossed the other half of the slice back onto the tray and something inside her broke.
“But this has nothing to do with love and you know it!” She stood up angrily. “Love cannot keep us young and beautiful! It cannot cure us if we fall ill or revive us when we die! Love is utterly powerless!”
“Don’t say it.” Loric looked right through her. “I’ll say it for you. You were right.”
She turned so quickly that silver rattled on the small table as she knocked against it.
“Good morning.” The Lord’s expression was even more somber than the sky outside the narrow window beside which he was suddenly standing. Every time she saw him, for an awkward second she felt like a helpless little girl again.
“I don’t think so,” she snapped, her nerves crackling with excited terror.
“The latent seed of her power should have been better cared for,” he said, the lines of his handsome face resembling carved stone as he stared with such penetrating directness into her eyes she felt impaled.
“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing all this time?” Loric finally rose from his chair.
“She’s a potted plant and her roots are too potent. They’ll crack your keep wide open and bring it tumbling down around your head if you continue trying to restrain her growth.”
Mirabel’s breaths quickened and her pulse sped up as if the Lord’s forceful presence was a massive hand reaching into the cage of her ribs. She wasn’t sure whether he would crush her heart to end her frustration or if he intended to set her free.
“I give up then,” Loric said.
She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to look back at him but she was unable to move— the Lord was literally holding her motionless with his eyes.
“Then you surrender her to us?”
“No!” she gasped, struggling to regain control of her body.
“I do—”
“Loric?!”
“I do not. Never. I love her.”
“That’s precisely why you should give her into our care.”
“You mean let you kill her? Why don’t you ever say what you mean? At least with your rebels she stands a chance of surviving.”
“And of losing her soul. You heard her little speech just now.”
“I didn’t mean it!” she cried. It was true—she hadn’t meant it. Her love for Loric was everything. She knew that. Of course she knew that.
“She didn’t mean it.” Her husband backed her up. She could feel him standing just behind her but he didn’t touch her. “Let her try to ride the Dragon and if she falls…”
“She might be lost forever. It’s different with her mother, who’s an inseparable part of her father, sheltered under his wing, but Mirabel is half Dragon already without any of the experience or the wisdom.”
“She’s a monster child, is that what you’re saying? She’s too big to suckle but too young to fly on her own, so naturally there’s nothing to do but slit her throat?”
“You don’t understand, Loric. There are more like Dur and his two friends.”
“You mean you have a revolution on your hands?” The prince sounded delighted.
“Imagine three cats in a room full of mice. That’s the danger to Visioncrest now. Imagine a small army of cats and you can see what will happen to the kingdom. They feed off the sensuality that makes you so vulnerable and even though they might not mean to hurt you, their curious, sensation-hungry play will kill you in the end.”
“That’s not true!” She was vehement, her need to defend Dur rising even over fear for herself.
“Mirabel, there is a responsibility that comes with a mastery of energy. We cannot use it merely to satisfy selfish desires.”
“And your Dragons are tired of being so good, is that it?” Loric demanded. “Who can blame them? You’ve fashioned such a wonderful playground and they’re barred from enjoying it. I’m actually beginning to sympathize with them. Mirabel is living proof what they want is possible, which is why you’ve done your best to ignore her existence. It’s why you were content to let her grow up in absolute ignorance and then to hope she’d be satisfied with her tame little role as princess. You thought it would placate her desire to fully understand her own nature and develop whatever powers are latent within her.”
“Her fate remains your decision, Loric. It’s the stability of your kingdom that’s in danger, not ours. Dur and others like him can cut themselves off from the rest of us if they’re foolish enough, if they want to risk buzzing—as you once colorfully put it—so close to the honey that they stain their wings and suddenly discover they’re too heavy to fly and can no longer rise above the boundaries they find so stimulating. They’ll drown in their own hunger for sensation and the rest of us will continue on as before. What concerns us is the safety of your world.”
“Do you believe they would cease to bother us if Mirabel…left?”
“I do.”
“But you say they’ve always wandered the kingdom disguised as lords from other keeps.”
“Yes but they were essentially powerless to interact with you for more than a brief while until Mirabel offered them her body.”
“You mean that whenever I see them they’re all actually inside me?” Difficult as it was to understand, she was strangely thrilled by the thought.
“In a manner of speaking. You’re an absolutely irresistible instrument to them, Mirabel. Through you they can take form as never before and your attraction to them helps them sustain it.”
“Then they’re only my imagination?” Now she was disappointed.
“No, they’re very real and the more you open yourself to them the harder they’ll be to get rid of because both sides will become addicted to the experience for different reasons.”
She was grateful for how wonderfully patient he was being with his explanations but Loric’s silence worried her. Three beautiful young Lords had entered her. Their unbound force had penetrated deep into her feelings as they used h
er to satisfy their desire for sensorial experience. Her husband was probably so furious it made him speechless.
“What happened that afternoon, when she was apparently almost struck by lightning,” the Lord continued, his vivid blue eyes never for an instant releasing hers, “was their first attempt. Their excitement and lack of experience affected their control. They didn’t mean to hurt her. They should have known better than to all…thrust into her at once but they simply couldn’t resist what she offered them.”
“I didn’t offer them anything,” she protested breathlessly.
“You fell into the web of their riddle, Mirabel.”
She remembered offering them her name three times, which according to the complex beliefs they had confused her with was giving them the gift of her trust. She had been foolish enough to believe they were really lords from Blackroot and that this explained their unusual and seductively subtle values. “All I did was tell them my name…”
“After they warned you that to know someone’s name is to have power over them.”
“They tricked you.” Loric sounded oddly gratified. “Do you still think so highly of them, my dear?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t angry with Dur for the way he and his friends had used her. They had nearly killed her. Perhaps he had come to her alone the other times she had seen him because they realized she still couldn’t handle all three of them at once. His companions had been in the hall only a few moments the night before—she didn’t feel they had entered through her.
“Do you wish to stay with him?” the Lord asked her abruptly.
For a confused and guilty moment she wasn’t sure if he was referring to Loric or Dur but in either case the answer was a fervent, “Yes!”
“Then all I can say to you, Mirabel, is be careful, extremely so. And you, Loric, are going to have some serious trouble on your hands. They’ve only just begun to use her. Soon all three of them will be able to come into the world through her and others will want to follow, although Dur and his friends will, of course, try to keep her all to themselves. I strongly suggest you let me take her now.”
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