With a final shriek, the Lady draws back her arm and flings Lionheart with all her strength. He flies through the darkness, straight toward the carcass of the Dragon he never fought.
Flames leap into his eyes.
Lionheart startled awake when a candle’s light shone in his face. He sat up in his chair. The room was stuffy with the curtains drawn, but simultaneously cold without a fire. Daylily stood before him, holding a bronze candleholder with both hands. The flickering flame cast strange shadows on her face, emphasizing the hollows under her eyes.
“Lionheart,” she said, “you were moaning in your sleep.”
He stood up, straightening his shirt and shaking his head to drive the weariness away. Not that it helped. “What are you doing in here, Daylily?” His voice was thick.
She said nothing at first, merely gazed up at him. Were those tears he saw gleaming in the candlelight? “I’ve just heard,” she said.
“Just heard what?” The memory of his dream remained vivid in his mind. The smoking carcass on the street.
“My father told me.” Her hand trembled, and the candle flame flickered. “The Council of Barons has been called.”
Her words drove everything else from Lionheart’s head. He stood still, gazing into those blue eyes of hers, and for a moment he thought how beautiful she had once been.
“That’s it, then,” he said.
“I . . . I’m afraid so.” She licked her lips. Was she uncertain what to say? Daylily was never uncertain. It was not part of the pattern that made up the Lady of Middlecrescent. Yet there was hesitancy in her eyes as she put out a trembling hand and touched his. “Leo.”
He pulled back sharply, stepping out of the glow of her candle, back into the deepest shadows of the room. She took a shuddering breath. When she spoke again, however, her voice was steady. “I cannot marry you now.”
The Lady’s words returned to him: “He will lose everything he holds dear.”
“Of course not,” said Lionheart. He turned his back on Daylily and her candle, his shoulders hunched. “Of course not. I understand.”
“Please, Lionheart—”
“Go away now, Daylily.” His voice was unnaturally calm. “Go away. Marry Foxbrush. Tell him that I hope he enjoys the task of fixing what cannot be fixed and bearing the blame when it remains broken.”
She did not reply. Gliding like a ghost, she made her way to the door, pausing a moment to look back. Then, surprising herself, she said, “You should never have banished Rose Red.” Lionheart whirled to face her again, but she could not see his expression in the dark. He could see her, she knew, so she raised her chin, her face set in a calm mask. “You should never have banished Rose Red,” she repeated. “If you can, you should find her.”
“How can you say this now?” he cried. His voice was piteous rather than angry. It cut her to the heart. “You did not speak for her when she needed you. You left her to the mob’s demands, refusing to offer help. You would have let them hang her! You let me . . .”
How could he finish? He dropped his head and let the words die.
Daylily remained as cool as ever. She softly repeated, “You should find her, Leo.”
Then she left the room, shutting the door in her wake.
Lionheart, alone in the dark, wrung his burned hands at the door. Curses welled up in his mind, too many to escape his mouth. At last, he cried to the silence, “I did what I had to do! There was no other way!”
But this time, no voice in the silence reassured him.
1
It’s tradition,” said King Fidel.
“I don’t like it,” his son replied.
The close confines of the carriage suddenly seemed closer still as the king and his son glowered at each other. They turned away, each looking out a side window. The king’s view took in both the distant and not-too-distant towns and villages they passed along the way, and sweeping fields beginning to put forth a show of the harvest to come.
Prince Felix’s view was of the sea. Gaheris Road skirted the seaside cliffs, offering travelers a breathtaking vista of tossing waves, of distant sails, and of inescapable bigness. Storm clouds gathered on the horizon.
These were as nothing compared to the storms brewing within Felix’s breast.
“It’s not a matter of like or dislike,” Fidel said. He kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the landscape, careful not to look at the boy. He was afraid he might say something he would regret if he did. In the last two months—ever since Una’s wedding—Felix had grown progressively more impossible. He was inexplicably moody, liable to shout and storm one moment and sink into still more sinister sulks the next.
Rather like now. Fidel drew a long breath, reminding himself that lads of nearly fifteen were often a bit turbulent, and it befit him as king to treat his son with kind but firm resolve. Or at least not to shout.
“It’s not a matter of likes or dislikes,” he said in what he hoped was a mild tone. “Tradition is what tradition is. Now, of all times, we need to give our people a sense that the security of the past will continue through the present and beyond.”
“That doesn’t even mean anything,” Felix snarled, watching a ship faintly silhouetted on the far horizon. For some reason, he felt an overwhelming desire for the gathering storm to rise up and swallow it whole. Perhaps if he willed destruction hard enough, he could somehow make it happen. His eyes, unseen by his father, narrowed to slits.
“Perhaps, my son,” said Fidel through his teeth, “you are refusing to understand the meaning.”
“I don’t see,” Felix said, “how the name of a new palace makes any difference to anyone. It doesn’t change anything that happened. It won’t make the people feel more secure. And I don’t like it.”
“The kings of old have always named their palaces after their sisters,” Fidel replied. “Amarand, Oriana . . . both of them named for the sisters of the ruling kings of the day. You will be King of Parumvir soon enough. It will please your subjects if you follow the tradition of your forefathers.” Here at last, Fidel turned to face his son, who was slumped down so far in the carriage seat that one would never guess the gangly heights to which he had grown in the last few months. He would be a tall man, and handsome too, once he caught up with himself. But Felix’s face was almost unrecognizable to his own father.
Unrecognizable but also familiar. Dangerously familiar. With the familiarity of things that should be forgotten yet nevertheless linger and press upon the memory. Something in the gleam of the boy’s eyes, something like fire, something like . . .
Fidel shook that thought away, unwilling to dwell on it. The danger was past. Prince Aethelbald had delivered them all from the Dragon’s evil fire and smoke. Now was the time to focus on rebuilding, on reestablishing his kingdom. Fidel must not start imagining new enemies.
Especially not in the face of his son.
“Lights Above, boy!” Fidel sighed, hoping his voice sounded kinder than he thought it did. “I don’t know why we are even arguing about this.”
“You’re king,” Felix growled. “Name the new palace after your sister.”
“I have no sister,” Fidel replied coolly. “Don’t be difficult.”
Felix did not respond. He licked his lips, hungrily watching the distant ship. The storm clouds darkened, far away yet so thick and threatening that if he wanted to, he could believe they were smoke, roiling, torrid smoke.
“Are you listening to me, son?”
Harsh eyes snapped to meet the king’s. For a moment, Fidel drew back, and his face went deathly white. But the next moment, he shook himself, swallowing back curses. It was only that the events of the past winter were still so near. One must take care not to dwell upon them but to look forward to the future. Even a future including one dreadfully ill-mannered son.
But not a dragon. The Dragon was dead.
Fidel released a breath he had not realized he was holding. “Well?” he demanded.
“What about the Smallman King’
s palace?” Felix said. “Didn’t he live in the House of Lights?”
At this juncture, Fidel hated to concede anything. Yet, after swallowing several hasty retorts, he responded, “True enough. However, according to the Chroniclers, he built onto the House of Lights, and in that new portion he lived and held court. It was called Letania.”
Felix’s eyes flashed. “Letania wasn’t his sister.”
“No. She was his wife.”
“Why don’t we name the new palace for my wife, then?”
“Well, Felix,” Fidel said, his voice sinking to a growl despite his best efforts, “if you had a wife, that idea might possibly come under consideration, mightn’t it? Unfortunately, as I hope to raise the walls sometime within the next five years, well before you’re married, the matter will need to be decided considerably sooner than that!”
And each turned back to his window.
Silence reigned within the carriage. Without, the world was alive with the jangle of harnesses, clop of hooves, and rumble of coach wheels. Fidel traveled with a large entourage on his return journey to what had once been his kingdom’s capital city, Sondhold by the Sea. Many months had passed since the king was forced to abandon Sondhold during the Dragon’s occupation. Rebuilding of the city itself was already begun, but it would hearten the people of Sondhold to see their king and to know that he would not abandon them in the aftermath of destruction.
Felix sighed but could not relieve the heaviness in his chest. Everything about life these days was aftermath, he thought. Nothing could ever be what he had once believed it to be. Even as prince of this nation, he was helpless. Any existing protections were flimsy, likely to be stripped away in a moment.
Better to be the terror than to be terrorized, he thought. And with that thought, the storm in his breast roared like flame.
Why was he so angry?
Rarely these days did he stop to consider the source of the wrath constantly threatening to erupt from inside him. When the question arose, he could always blame it on someone else. It was the Dragon’s fault for destroying the life he knew. It was his sister, Una’s, fault for marrying and leaving him behind. It was his father’s fault for making him live and pursue his studies in wretched Glencrocus City.
Dragon’s teeth, it could even be that cat Monster’s fault! The blasted creature hadn’t been seen since the day of Una’s wedding. And while Felix would have died before admitting it, he missed his sister’s furry companion, who had also been his companion and combatant the last many years. Una had gone away, abandoning Felix to a world that was no longer safe. Why did that dragon-eaten cat have to go too?
He ground his teeth, his mind whirling with unfocused blame. Then a thought came seemingly from nowhere but with a flare of furious clarity.
It’s Imraldera’s fault. She didn’t heal me.
Felix blinked, and his tense jaw relaxed even as his brow wrinkled. Who was Imraldera?
He could picture a face dimly in his mind’s eye. Had he invented it? A dark, lovely face; a pair of black eyes; a worried smile . . . and he thought he heard a voice that might have been a memory or might have been a dream.
“If you do not stay and receive the full healing I can give you, the poison will pump through all your veins, and work its way into your heart. And you will die.”
A searing pain shot through his consciousness. He gasped and clutched his head.
“What’s wrong?” Fidel asked, turning with surprise to his son.
“Nothing!” Felix snarled. His mouth felt hot, as though liquid fire boiled in his brain and dripped down his throat. His stomach churned and heaved, and he grimaced again.
Then everything calmed. The fire reduced, and with it went the image of the dark-eyed woman. Felix breathed deeply, once more turning to the window and the brewing storm out at sea. He wondered if it would drive inland. Remembering suddenly, he searched for the ship he had been watching. It was gone. Perhaps it had sailed to safety. Perhaps he had only imagined its existence.
Everything had changed. Felix had changed. He wondered if he would ever find himself again. Approaching manhood stared him in the face, and the terror of that sight made him writhe with fury—fury so terrifying that he could scarcely breathe.
Felix hunched down in his seat and watched the gathering storm. And the king’s entourage drew near to Sondhold and the ruins that marked the top of Goldstone Hill.
Somewhere, not too far away, something smelled both the anger and the fear. It also smelled the sorrow. Sorrow as pungent as the stench of dragon poison, strong though buried deep in the blood of the mortal boy’s heart.
It walked in silence in that place between the worlds. Its skin quivered like moonlight glancing off black water. Time was an unknown quantity in its life. The worlds in which it moved and breathed consisted always of Now.
There were moments when, through the heavy veil that always surrounded it, it glimpsed the moon and dimly recalled a Then before Now. But though it held memories of a thousand centuries, it had never known the breath of Time.
Its ageless voice, the voice of the stars come down from the sky, called. It would not step outside the Wood into the Near World of men. But it sent its voice across the miles, for what are miles to such a being? It sent its voice flying to reach the ears of that boy who sorrowed without knowing of his loss. To a mind full of poison and half broken.
Come to me.
The entourage paused at the high point of Gaheris Road to look down upon Sondhold. Felix opened the carriage door, ignoring his father’s protests, and hopped out, running to the crest of the road. From there, he could see the spreading city by the ocean’s edge. He could see the docks and the market square, the streets bustling with life.
But it was only an illusion. Sondhold held no life, only ghosts.
Felix trembled, forcing himself to see what was truly before his eyes. The docks, still intact but forlorn without a single anchored ship, stretched like fingers into the ocean. The city itself looked as though a meteor had struck its center and blasted disaster all around. What had once been a thriving market square was black emptiness; all the buildings that remained standing were phantom structures, gutted and lifeless.
“It’s a hard sight, son,” said King Fidel, coming up beside Felix. “But look!” The king smiled and pointed. “See how far they’ve already come with the rebuilding.”
But Felix could not see what his father saw. He could not see the many laborers hard at work below; he could not see the signs of rebirth. He saw only what the Dragon had done. When he breathed, he did not draw fresh sea air with a promise of coming rain into his lungs. He breathed only dragon smoke.
It was here the Dragon had died. But the poison in Felix’s veins roared, He will never truly die!
Felix gasped, and his face was ashen. He turned away from the sight. Fidel, frowning, dared not reach out to him but asked, “Are you unwell? Shall we hasten down to the house prepared for our stay?”
The young prince shook his head. “You go down,” he said, his voice more subdued than it had been earlier. His eyes lifted to the near sight of Goldstone Hill, which rose above the city. And beyond the hill was the great, dark expanse of the Wood.
Felix licked his dry lips. “I think I’d like to ride a bit,” he said. “Where is my horse?”
Fidel, just as happy to escape his son’s unpleasant company for a spell, sent for Felix’s mount. As the company from Glencrocus continued on its way, Felix rode his little mare out from among the rest. He waited at the edge of the high road until they had all passed on down. The wind from the approaching storm stirred his fair hair, but otherwise he might have been made of stone.
Come to me.
The voice, whispering without words, called to his poisoned blood.
Grinding his teeth, Felix drove his heels into his mare’s soft flanks, driving her down the road toward Goldstone Hill.
2
The gates of Oriana were twisted and broken, melted by dragon fire.
Felix dismounted and left his horse outside as he approached the wreckage. The fire inside him pulsed with the pain of tears, though without their relief. There could be no returning to Oriana, he knew. Not really. The home of his birth was destroyed beyond recall. His father even now made plans to tear down its ruins and to erect a new palace in its place, a symbol of Parumvir’s renewed life and health. Felix hated the thought. Hated it especially because he knew it was the right thing to do.
Though the wind was cool upon his face in the deepening gloom, he sweated and was obliged to wipe his brow. Even the memory of the Dragon’s fire was too hot. Beyond the gates, the courtyard, torn up by enormous claws, strewn with broken stone, caused Felix to recoil. He let out a shuddering breath and forced himself to continue on his way across the yard, approaching the palace itself.
It was like approaching a giant rotted corpse.
The marble stairs leading to the front entrance were melted. Felix used his hands to climb up them to the doors, which sagged on their hinges, threatening to fall at any moment. He steeled himself and stepped inside.
The hall within was dark. Windows were filmed over with dust and soot, admitting no light. Candle sconces along the walls, those that had not been torn away by looters, hung empty, and shadows gathered everywhere in thick masses. A ghostly wind sighed down the empty corridors like a lost soul.
Not a stick of furniture remained, no rugs and no ornaments other than the few remaining sconces. Felix recalled that his sister’s husband had traveled to Oriana after the Dragon’s death to collect for Fidel all his treasures and possessions, those that had not been destroyed by fire and smoke. Anything he left behind had since been carried off. Felix wondered what sorts of fools would dare pillage this tomb-like place to steal poisonous objects.
Felix walked through the halls, stepping carefully so as to make no sound, his breath shallow and light. Every so often, he would breathe in the scent of dragon. It was enough to send his heart careening, his veins pulsing with either fear or expectation. A strange sensation, not altogether unpleasant. His limbs shook, and he put out a hand to support himself on the wall.
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