“Neither does the king.” Varvare pocketed the thread. “I’m goin’ to get you out of here.”
“What?”
“I can see behind the veils, Beana. My mo— The queen can too, I think. And I know that she can sometimes break the enchantments. I believe I can as well. I’m goin’ to release you, and we’re goin’ to escape, you, me, and the Boy—”
The lady knight surged to her feet in a terrible clash of chains. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t even try it, Rose Red, I beg you. If you can see his enchantments . . . Don’t you see that if you break these chains you will die? The moment they drop from my hands, you will perish.”
Varvare gasped and drew back from the door. Then she cursed, “Dragon’s teeth!”
“Hen’s teeth. You know better than to use such language.”
The princess struck the door with her fist, then struck it again, fury shaking her body. “We’ve got to get out, Beana! I think . . . I think King Vahe plans to kill me.”
“What? What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. But sometimes the way he looks at me, I get the feeling he’s measurin’ me for my coffin. And I don’t think he’s goin’ to wait much longer before he does it.”
Beana shook her head but was silent a long moment. She’d had plenty of time to think in that blackness, and had come to several conclusions she could not shake no matter how she tried. At last she said, “Rosie, I know what my Master has been telling you. Don’t think I don’t. Call for Lionheart.”
A long silence filled the air between. At last Varvare said, “No.”
“Please, dear girl. My Master knows what is—”
“Your Master doesn’t give a monkey’s eye for me!” Varvare snarled, and her voice was, in that moment, the voice of a goblin. “I loved him. I really did, Beana. But he doesn’t see the likes of me, ugly as I am, one of those monsters he has rejected!”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” said Beana. “Those are Vahe’s spells speaking, not you.”
But Varvare scarcely heard her. “He only cares about his great and mighty purpose,” she cried, “and someone like me can live and die, and it doesn’t make a lick of difference! I’d rather die than do what he asks me, to call for someone who forgot me, then betrayed me, and never once saw me as anythin’ but a monster. To be used for his own ends! I’d rather die, Beana. Do you hear me?”
She turned away from the cell door, her arms wrapped about herself. “Besides, he ain’t listenin’ for me. Not the way I listened for him. It was always that way between us. I know that now.”
With that, she left the cell, ignoring Beana’s voice, though she cried out after her. Varvare’s whole body shook with rage and despair, and she sat down in the black stairway leading up from the dungeons, unwilling to face the people of Var scurrying about above. Somewhere, far away, that silver voice still reached out to her.
Beloved.
“I won’t do it!”
Beloved, trust me.
“I cain’t! Not anymore.”
I will always protect you.
“You’ve done a dragon-eaten job of it lately.”
I will always protect you. This doesn’t mean that you will not know pain. But I am here with you. Nothing can thwart the plans I have for you.
“I don’t care what plans you have for me! You left me here to rot, and I’m rotten to the core now. I am a goblin’s child.”
You are my child.
Varvare got to her feet, dashing the tears from her face, and hastened up the steps, two at a time.
Call for him.
“I won’t. I’ll get myself out of here.”
She went to find the Boy.
And Beana, alone in the darkness, bowed her head and whispered prayers she could only hope were heard.
The assembly hall of Var boasted windows that reached from floor to ceiling, at least three stories tall. Roses grew all over around the frames, at least as far as the Boy could see. Varvare saw things differently but didn’t bother to explain as much as she flung open a casement and let her shimmering cord drop.
The windows of the assembly hall were many stories high, but this was the only place Varvare had found in the whole palace where a daring descent would leave the intrepid beyond the walls of Vahe’s stronghold.
The cord she had woven from stolen enchantments was long enough to tie around the base of the old queen’s statue in the hall and still reach most of the way to the ground outside. The Boy stood by with his mouth open, watching her work. He could not see the cord, and it looked to him as though the beautiful veiled princess (whatever her name was) had lost her mind. “What are you doing?” he asked at last.
“I don’t know your name,” she snapped.
“I didn’t ask my name. I asked what you’re doing.” He scratched the top of his head. “Though, while we’re on the subject, what is—”
“I’m getting us out of here.”
Varvare tested her weight against her knot, and it seemed to hold. The statue of the old queen scowled down upon her, hideous in Varvare’s eyes, beautiful in the eyes of the Boy. But it held its peace, watching as the princess returned to the window and looked down. “Come here,” Varvare said, beckoning to the Boy.
He stepped to her side and looked down. “That’s a long way.”
“We’re goin’ to climb down,” Varvare said. She grabbed his hand and pressed her cord into it. “Do you feel that?”
At first he did not, but something about the look in Varvare’s beautiful eyes motivated him to try. The thin line of the cord slid through his palm, and he blinked, startled. No matter how he stared he could not see it, yet the Boy knew he held something. Something strong.
“Do you feel it?” the princess demanded again.
He nodded.
“Good. I’m goin’ to tie it round your waist and lower you down.”
“What?”
“Don’t argue with me,” she growled. “I ain’t goin’ to leave you in this awful place, or let the king keep usin’ you. You’re comin’ with me. Then once we’re safe, I’ll find someone to help me, and we’ll come back and rescue Beana.” Her eyes flashed as the Boy opened his mouth to protest. “That’s the way it’s goin’ to be. Do you hear? Or do you want to stay here with the unicorn?”
The Boy’s mind could scarcely recall where he had been five minutes previous. But the one thing that remained clear in his mind with each passing moment was the memory of the one-horned beast. It drove away the soothing sweetness of rose perfume and left him trembling.
“All right,” he whispered.
Varvare quickly secured her cord around him, looping it about his waist and over his shoulders. “When you get to the bottom,” she said, “you have to untie it and drop the rest of the way. Won’t be far, but careful you don’t twist an ankle or somethin’, because I don’t want to carry you. I don’t know how much of a start we’ll get before they realize we’re gone. You listenin’ to me?”
He wasn’t. He was staring from the window down that long drop to the grass below. At least he could not see what the princess saw, which was stone-hard dirt and jagged rocks. He would never have had the courage to try then. “Are . . . are you sure you won’t let me drop?”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“That’s not saying a whole lot.”
With some coaxing, she got him to sit in the windowsill and dangle his feet out. And still the statue of the old queen watched, her stone eyes narrowing.
“You ready?” the princess asked.
“Um. Why don’t we—”
She put her shoulder to his back and pushed.
A bellow of “Iubdan’s beeeeeard!” rattled her ears, but she held on to the cord, bracing herself against the window. When the cry at last died away, she looked down and saw the terrified face of the Boy staring up at her from where he dangled not three feet down.
“You all right?” she called.
He made a sound like “Meep!”
“I’m goin’ to start lowerin’ you now. Use your feet along the wall and help me out a bit.”
Trembling, the Boy managed to turn himself around, and slowly the princess let down the cord. He was heavier than she’d expected, but she was strong. Though her father had clothed her in veils of delicacy and dainty features, she was still a goblin girl underneath. It took some work, but at last she reached the end of the cord, and the Boy dangled no more than ten feet from the ground. She looked out over the window, trying to shout without actually shouting, which was difficult for him to hear.
“All right, Boy, drop.”
“Look at me! I’m floating!”
“Hush up and drop!”
“Who are you?”
“Hen’s teeth, Boy, I’m goin’ to give you such a shakin’ when I get down there!”
At last he understood, and she gasped a grateful prayer when relieved of his weight. Clenching her teeth, Varvare climbed onto the windowsill herself and turned around to begin her descent.
And found herself face-to-face with Queen Anahid.
Her heart stopped. For one horrible moment, she gazed into the goblin eyes of her mother. So this was the end. All her efforts were ruined, here and now, just when she thought she might have a chance.
Anahid blinked slowly, like the eclipse of moons. Then she whispered between fangs, “Hurry, child.”
That was all. The queen backed away, stepping into the shadows of the old queen’s statue, and Varvare once more knelt on the windowsill, her hands clutching her enchanted cord.
“Hey, up there!” the Boy called from below. “Careful, you might fall!”
Grinding her teeth, Varvare slid from the window and started the long climb down.
“Are you going to sound the alarm, Queen of Arpiar?”
Anahid stood in the shadow of the old queen, her former mistress, from whom she had once known great favor. She shuddered as the memory-voice hissed through her mind.
“You know what you must do.”
Anahid turned her gaze up at the statue, so carefully beautiful, just as the old queen had once been, long ago when Anahid had been but an attendant in her service, before Vahe was even born.
“Alert Vahe, Anahid. I command you.”
Anahid smiled. It was more like a snarl. “You have no power over me anymore.”
Then she raised her hand and twisted her fingers sharply. Her husband’s veiling enchantments shifted, then dropped away, revealing the true ugliness of the stone queen’s face. With another twist, Anahid wrapped those same veils around the statue’s open mouth, thus stifling her voice so that she could not give the alarm.
So Princess Varvare grabbed the nameless Boy’s hand and, free of Var, dragged him across the empty plain.
10
His heart in his throat, Lionheart ran, and in his fear he hardly noticed that he fled uphill. The ground flew by under his feet, not leagues in a stride, for he followed no enchanted Path now. No, he was pathless in the Wood, a dangerous place to be, Eanrin had said, but Lionheart hardly cared. He would wander as a lost vapor beneath these trees throughout eternity if only he could escape the monster behind him.
Only it wasn’t behind him now.
He couldn’t guess how he knew, but he realized with a start that he was no longer followed. Yet the unicorn was near. Nearer than ever, perhaps. But where?
He stopped and stood still in the forest on the hill, surrounded by trees, and he couldn’t see a thing but branches and leaves. At last he pulled Bloodbiter’s Wrath from its sheath. His breath came in pants, and he kept turning and turning, his eyes searching and finding nothing. Slowly, Lionheart let his blade drop a little and began to climb up the hill once more.
And there it stood, gazing down on him, its horn mere inches from his face.
He screamed and fell onto his back, losing hold of his sword. The one-horned beast stood over him, and the flaming horn aimed at his heart. He cried out and closed his eyes.
But the blow did not fall.
He became aware of a silver song, like water, like starlight, flowing through the Wood and surrounding him. A bird’s song, Lionheart thought, but unlike a bird as well. Trembling, he opened his eyes and saw the unicorn above him still. It was not looking at him. Its gaze was fixed on something beyond him.
Lionheart craned his neck around and saw that someone stood just behind him. Oeric? he wondered. Sunlight piercing through the foliage overhead cast the man’s face into shadow, and Lionheart could see no features. But he heard a voice, strong as a river, speak.
“Away now, Hymlumé’s child. Your time is not come.”
The unicorn screamed.
It was not a scream that could be described by any comparison Lionheart knew, for its voice was not a sound. It was a life complete in and of itself, a life that suddenly saw itself for what it was and despaired at the sight. It was the whole of disappointment and denial and destruction rolled into a tiny point of time.
Then it was gone.
Lionheart lay for he could not guess how long, his head ringing with the echoes the unicorn left behind. Then he felt a hand touch his shoulder.
“Get up, Lionheart.”
He obeyed. It was one of those voices one simply obeyed without question. Then he turned to face the speaker and still could not see his face with the brightness of the sun shining behind him.
“I have brought something for you,” said the stranger. For it must be a stranger. It could not be Oeric, who never spoke in such a voice. “Something for you to carry with you into Arpiar.”
Lionheart found himself staring at the sword offered to him hilt first.
It was a sorry weapon. It might once have been fine, but that was long ago. Now it was a ridiculous thing, the hilt melted and warped, the blade blackened and twisted as though in a furnace.
“I . . . I have a sword,” he said, casting about briefly for Bloodbiter’s Wrath.
“Not such a one as this.”
Lionheart licked his lips. “I don’t think . . . I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think this will do me any good.”
The stranger continued to hold it out. “This sword has slain dragons,” he said.
Lionheart gasped, and he realized suddenly to whom he was speaking. In that same moment, the stranger vanished, and Lionheart stood alone with his hands clasped around the hilt of a pathetic, ruined sword.
The statue queen stood with her arms upraised, holding the ceiling of the assembly hall. She could not lower them to tear the enchantments from her mouth, thus she could not call out to King Vahe when he entered the hall. And he saw nothing, of course, her brainless offspring. What was left to see? Anahid had coiled up the enchanted thread and carried it away with her, perhaps had destroyed it. She had even closed the window and adjusted all the roses around it so that no sign remained of Princess Varvare’s escape.
No sign, save the absence of the girl herself.
Vahe stood in the old queen’s shadow, his shoulders squared, his gaze sliding slowly across the room as he searched for his daughter. She always holed herself away in this place. None of Var’s courtiers entered this room unless summoned, for they all feared the gazes of their former sovereigns. Gazes full of vengeance and hatred, which the veiled goblins knew they deserved. But Varvare had nothing to fear from her ancestors save their scorn, which didn’t seem to bother her. Thus Vahe had always been certain of finding her hidden away in this room, staring dumbly into space . . . worthless little thing that she was.
But he didn’t see her, and the faintest inkling of concern tugged at his mind. Of course, he had nothing to fear, he told himself. The Lady had promised him the fulfillment of his dream, and she must honor her word.
Yet here he stood on the cusp of fulfillment, mere hours away from the appointed time, and the agony of waiting was almost beyond bearing.
He felt the stone gaze of his mother’s statue and looked up with a snarl. But his snarl melted into a smile when he saw the enchan
ted gag in her mouth.
“Well, Mother, this is a fine look for you, I must say! You have never been more beautiful than when silenced.”
The old queen stared down at him. She need only hold his gaze long enough for him to think. To think and to realize.
No one in Arpiar had the power to manipulate Vahe’s enchantments except . . .
With a cry, he raised his hand, took hold of the spell threads, and yanked the gag from the old queen’s mouth. “Anahid did this!” he roared, and for a moment the veil on his face slipped to show the foulness beneath. “Why? Tell me!”
The statue smiled, and no veils could make her beautiful in that moment. “Your little princess isn’t so spineless as she looks, son of my heart. She unwound your roses and made a rope, and by now she’s halfway to the borders.”
“Anahid is behind this, isn’t she?” the king declared, wringing his hands and gnashing sharp teeth.
“Only in keeping her mouth shut. My granddaughter has my blood in her veins after all. She is stronger than you thought!”
Vahe did not hear these last words. He was already running from the hall, shouting for his slaves.
The farther they got from Palace Var, the more the pain increased, first in the Boy’s hand where the rose thorn had pierced him, then slowly spreading through his veins. Fire that had lain dormant reawakened and burned, and there were no enchanted roses to stifle it now.
His footsteps faltered. “I want to lie down,” he told the princess, who dragged him firmly along. The grass under his feet was soft and thick, and the sun was warm on his back. More than anything, he wanted to curl up, close his eyes, and perhaps die. But the princess was firm.
“We’re gettin’ out of here, Boy. Pick up your feet!”
“But it hurts.”
“Nonsense!”
Varvare would not stop. Her eyes saw behind the veils covering Arpiar, down to the barren rock and dust of a plain. Sometimes she glimpsed the ghostly roses of the king’s spells, and when she saw them she also saw the Faerie Paths that crisscrossed the kingdom, Paths that could carry a person across great distances in moments. But she dared not use these. They were Vahe’s.
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