Heartless (26 page)

“The Lady of Middlecresent! Lady Daylily!” The crowd redoubled its shouts, and the musicians struck up a lively tune so the young people could dance again to express their joy.

Una clutched her stomach. The fire rolled inside her, and she felt she’d be sick as she watched the beauty accepting smiles from the prince. Her jester. Her Leonard. Sobs and fire choked her throat. Without hope that her voice could be heard in that joyful din, she raised her right hand to her face and shouted, “Leonard!”

The noise did not decrease; the festive mayhem did not abate. But the prince stepped away from his lady, leaned over the rail, and searched the seething masses. His gaze met Una’s.

He gasped.

Blood like lava pounded in her veins, and she panted with the terror of it. For Una felt, in that moment when she saw the look on his face – not a look of joy or delight, as she had so long dreamed of seeing when at last reunited with him, but of pure surprise and, an instant later, pure horror – that she would burn him alive with the heat of her eyes if she could.

“Una.” His lips formed her name, though she could not hear him. His hands tightened on the rail, and he shook his head and looked again. She gazed up at him, all the sorrow in the world on her pale face, and he knew his eyes did not lie.

The lady touched his shoulder and asked a question. Startled, he turned to her and made a hasty reply. Then he vanished from Una’s sight, leaving the lady standing alone.

Una could not look at her but turned away, waiting. She knew he would come. This time, he would come.

27

"Una!”

She turned around, and there he stood. His crown was gone and he wore a cloak to hide his rich clothing, but she would know him in a thousand.

“Leonard,” she whispered, her voice drowned in the din around them.

He stepped forward, his eyes intent on her face. “Una, what . . . what has happened to . . . What are you – ”

He grabbed her hand, and she kept the other tucked out of sight as he drew her aside, elbowing his way through the crowd, which did not recognize him and which was only too glad to get away from the pale, foreign girl. Lionheart half sheltered her with his cloak, as though trying to hide her from prying eyes, or perhaps to protect those eyes from seeing her. He brought Una through the worst of the crowds, then pulled her down a narrow side street where few people walked. He took another turn and another. Neither tried to speak; both moved as quickly as they could.

They came at last to the outskirts of the city, where few houses stood and a trickle of a drainage stream flowed quietly under an unguarded footbridge. At the bridge, Lionheart halted and let Una go. He threw back his hood so that she could see his stern face. His hair stood all on end, just as she remembered.

“Where is your father?” he demanded.

“I do not know.”

“You are come alone, then? How did you get here? Why was I not given advance notice of your coming?”

“No one knows,” she said.

Prince Lionheart shook his head. “You can’t do that. You’re a princess.

You can’t travel all the way from Parumvir to Southlands by yourself!”

“But I did.”

He stared at her, studying her face. “What has become of you, Una?” he asked, and she could hear fear lying just beneath the surface of his voice.

“I could ask the same,” she whispered.

“No, I mean it,” Lionheart said, shifting on his feet. “There is something odd about your face, something not – ”

“Again, I could say the same,” Una replied, and a tiny smile lifted a corner of her mouth. “That beard . . .” She reached out a hand to his face, but he caught it and pushed it away.

“This is no time for jokes,” he said.

Una drew back and wrapped her arms about herself, still keeping the scale-covered hand hidden. “Then it is true,” she said. “You have killed him.”

“Killed whom?”

“My jester.”

He stared down at her a long moment, a number of dark expressions sliding across his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Oh, Leonard!” She tried to touch his arm, but he turned away and stepped back.

“I’m not Leonard, Princess Una,” he said. “I thought I told you that.”

“Where did you go?”

He raised an eyebrow and refused to meet her gaze. “Here, obviously. Back to Southlands.”

She shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t!” he snapped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m not sure you do either. You aren’t speaking rationally.”

“Leonard – ”

“That is not my name, and I wish you wouldn’t use it!” He pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning. “I did exactly what I told you, went exactly where I said I would, back . . . How long ago was that? Many months! I left your home and traveled directly down here, just as I had purposed while enjoying your father’s hospitality.”

“And you fought the Dragon? Killed him, even?” Una stepped closer to him and reached out again to touch his hand, but he pulled away, tucked his hands under his arms, and leaned against the bridge railing. She forged ahead. “Please tell me, my prince. Tell me how it happened.”

“The Dragon was gone by the time I arrived,” he said, “leaving my kingdom in ashes, my people rendered near helpless with fear, my father near crazy with sorrow.”

“You never saw the Dragon?”

The prince still would not meet her gaze. “Don’t think it’s been easy. I maybe didn’t fight a monster, but the work I’ve had to do, the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve poured into rebuilding my people, and will have to keep pouring out for years to come before we’ll ever reach our former – ”

“You never saw the Dragon?”

“Aren’t you listening to me? It was gone by the time I got here.”

“That’s not what he said.”

“What?”

“He said you made an agreement, that he wouldn’t kill you and would let you return home if . . . if what? What was your side of the bargain?”

“Una, your voice . . .” He stared down at her, and fear raced across his face, but he hid it the next instant. “What are you saying? Of whom are you speaking?”

“You know whom I mean.” Una stepped close and grabbed his arm with both her hands, but he yelped and shook her off.

“You burn!” he said. “Una, are you ill?”

She pulled her hands close to her sides, her fists clenched. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I am. What was your side of the bargain, Lionheart? When the Dragon agreed not to kill you?”

“You’re babbling nonsense,” he growled. “I’ve made no bargains with anyone. I came here, just as I told you. Why don’t you listen?”

“No bargains?” Una spoke to the boards of the bridge. “What about the bargain you made with me?”

Lionheart did not answer. The drainage stream trickled underneath them laboriously, as though any moment it would dry up altogether.

“You asked me to trust you,” Una said. Her voice quavered, but no tears came to her eyes. “You asked me to trust you, Lionheart.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “I must have forgotten. But I should never have said that or anything of the kind to you.” He rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. “And your ring, the one you so generously lent me. I’d almost forgotten that as well. I will pay you back for it, I promise.”

Dirty promises!

Flames raged inside her head, but Una bit her tongue and struggled to suppress them.

“You promised you’d return,” she whispered.

“If I did, I shouldn’t have. I should have known my obligations would keep me here.”

“And her?”

Lionheart lowered his head, trying to look her in the eyes, but she turned away. “I am going to marry her, Una. I had no right to say any of those things I said to you. I am ashamed of any implications I made.

They were foolish, thoughtless – ”

“Which gives you the right to unmake them now?”

The sun disappeared behind a cloud, casting the world below into shadows. But Una’s world burned red.

“You asked me to trust you.”

“I take it back!” he cried, flinging up his hands. “Things change, Una. People change. Can’t you get that into your head? My promises to her are good, unlike any I might have made to you. I made them after winning back my kingdom, under my true name, not in disguise as a . . . as a Fool. As a lackey cleaning the dirty floors of those who should have been my peers! I am not ashamed of any promises I have made to her.”

Una stepped back as though struck. “You are ashamed of those you made to me?”

“Una – ”

“You are ashamed of me?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth!” he barked. “I am ashamed of that whole period of my life, that degrading, despicable – ”

“You never fought the Dragon,” Una said and gasped suddenly.

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t, and there’s no shame in that either. I must do what’s best for my kingdom. That includes not being devoured by monsters. Can you understand that? My people need me alive, not roasted.”

Fire flickered in her throat. “You never fought the Dragon.”

He spoke through clenched teeth. “I told you, Una, sometimes plans change. I’m sorry, but – ”

“I’m sorry?”

“Is that a question?”

“I suppose so. I’m trying it out for size. Usually I find that ‘sorry’ isn’t enough, so I don’t often bother with it anymore. . . .”

“It isn’t enough,” she whispered.

He shook his head, exasperated. “I can’t help that.”

“You never fought the Dragon.”

“No, and I won’t.”

“You never fought – ”

She swung her scale-covered arm at him, swiping with curved claws. He cried out and dodged aside, knocking her arm away, and she staggered forward on the bridge, bent double. The flames inside her burst through.

Lionheart shouted and fell flat, then pushed himself back on his hands and elbows as a pair of black wings rose and overshadowed him. “Una!” he shouted.

A dragon head reared up, roaring in pain and anger. Eyes like lava turned on him, and the gaze burned.

“You never fought the Dragon,” the monster spoke, and smoke rolled from her tongue. “Will you fight me now? Will you kill
me
?”

He lay paralyzed in her shadow, a dry scream trapped in his chest.

She leaned in, her fiery eyes threatening to engulf him, to burn him to embers. But her voice wavered. “Won’t you try, my prince?”

He covered his face with his arms, turned, and tried to crawl away. She placed a great claw on his back and pushed him to the ground. The bridge creaked and groaned. “You killed him,” she growled. “You killed my Leonard, Prince Lionheart, killed him as cruel as murder. But you won’t fight the Dragon. Coward!”

She felt his stiff body relax under her claw in hopeless certainty of death. She opened her mouth and felt the flames building inside to bellow forth and consume him.

Una! Where are you?

Behind the roaring of her fire, she heard a voice, small and silver.

A thrush song.

Una, I’m coming for you.

Wait for me.

She raised her head and let the flame burst out and burn the sky. Then her great wings opened and carried her up and up, into the deepening twilight.

Lionheart rolled over and lay upon the bridge, gasping, unable to make his lungs draw a complete breath, gazing up into the empty sky.

28

Felix walked from his bed on unsteady feet across the white stone floor to stand at the edge of his chamber. It was open to the outside world, high upon a great mountain, and looked out across a landscape altogether foreign to him.

“The Far World,” he whispered as he gazed upon things he had thought existed only in tales. Strange mountains jutted like teeth across a hazy horizon while a river, sinuous as a snake, cut through miles upon miles of forest.

He’d seen mountains before, of course, and forests and groves and rivers. In fact, he’d seen these very same mountains, these very same forests, this very same river, for they were the Northern Mountains, Goldstone Wood, Goldstone River. But he stood now in the Far World of Faerie, and everything was different here – bigger and stranger, more wild and more beautiful. Felix leaned heavily against a white sapling that felt strangely like marble under his hand. He looked at it but could not tell if he supported himself against a column or a tree. He shook his head, which was clouded and uncertain. His knees shook, whether from weakness or from fear he could not guess.

“Your fever has broken at last.”

Felix turned, looking over his shoulder. The woman with whom he had spoken a few times now stepped through a leafy curtain, bearing a silver tray that held a tiny silver bowl and a thin silver pitcher. She wore a long lavender tunic and billowy trousers of light green beneath, after an old and foreign style that Felix had never before seen. A filmy scarf draped over her hair, which was black, and her eyes were blacker still.

As she came closer, Felix frowned. At first he had thought her not much older than Una, but now he guessed that she must surely be far older, though her dark features were smooth and soft like a girl’s.

Dame Imraldera smiled and set the tray down on a small white table beside his bed, then poured water from the pitcher into the bowl. “Are you thirsty?”

Felix shook his head but after a moment’s thought changed his mind and nodded. He reached out for the bowl she offered and looked at it. “Will it . . . do anything to me?” he asked.

She laughed. “If you’re afraid it will doom you to an eternity as my slave or something along those lines, no, it will not. It is water, nothing more.”

He sipped it and found that it was water, but the woman was wrong to say it was nothing more. It was light and clear, like nothing he’d ever tasted – perhaps most like the drops of honeydew he and Una used to suck from honeysuckle flowers. He downed it greedily, but when he reached the end felt that it was enough and did not ask for more. He handed the silver bowl back to the woman. “Are you a Faerie?” he asked.

She shook her head, still smiling. He liked her smile, he decided. Her teeth, he noticed with some surprise, were just the tiniest bit imperfect. Were Faeries allowed to have crooked teeth, even if it made them somehow more beautiful? “Mortals cannot see Faeries within the Wood,” she said.

“I can see you,” he said.

“But you cannot see the Faerie attendants around you.”

Felix blinked. He looked quickly over his shoulder, as though he might catch a glimpse of some winged creature if he were fast enough. And while he thought for half a moment that something flashed in the corner of his eye, the room, for all he could see, was empty except for him and the woman. “Then you are not a Faerie,” he said. “But you can see them?”

“I can.”

“Then you’re not mortal?”

She smiled, flashing those white, slightly crooked teeth. “Will you allow me to check your wounds, Prince Felix? You have been sick with fever these last many days, and I’m not sure I should even allow you up. But I will as long as you won’t fuss as I check your bandages. Agreed?”

Felix hesitated and glanced back across the wide view he had been observing before she entered. He blinked. Then he cried out in alarm and leapt back.

The vista of mountains and vast expanses was gone. His view was now simply of trees and more trees, close and surrounding him. “What in the name of Iubdan’s sin-black beard – ”

The dame touched his shoulder, making shushing noises. “Prince Felix,” she said, “come away from that window. The sight will only distress you.”

“But . . . but I saw . . .” He struggled to find the words to express himself. “I was up on a mountain, and I saw all the Far World. . . .”

“Hardly
all
the Far World, young one!” the woman said, chuckling quietly. “I’m sorry, Prince Felix. This Haven, you must understand, rests in the Halflight Realm between your world and Faerie. Sometimes it will show you the world beyond; sometimes it will not. It is strange and uncomfortable, I understand. . . . Long, long ago I once saw as you see. But please trust me when I tell you, you are safe. You are safe in the Prince’s Haven, and you are safe in my keeping.”

Felix turned to her and saw that her eyes were kind and, he thought, sincere. He went to sit on the edge of his bed, which was softer than goose down, and the woman peeled back his shirt and – clucking like Nurse and shaking her head – decided to change the bandage on his shoulder.

“It was a deep wound,” she said, taking a roll of soft gauze from the folds of her robe and cutting the old bandage away with a tiny knife. “A lot of poison seeped in, and I feared infection.”

“Am I all right?” Felix asked, watching her uneasily. Everything she did looked as though it should hurt him, yet her fingers were so gentle that he felt no pain. Still, he winced back uneasily from the knife.

“You will be,” she said. “But you must listen to me and do as I ask, or things may go the worse for you.”

He scowled a little. “I’m not a baby,” he muttered, low enough that he didn’t think she would hear. But the corner of her mouth lifted, and he knew she had.

“What did you say your name was?” Felix asked once she had finished applying the new bandage.

“I am Dame Imraldera,” she replied.

“And you are Aethelbald’s servant?” Felix shook his head. “You people have the strangest names.”

She laughed outright at this, and Felix blushed. “Perhaps not so strange as
Felix
,” she said, “though I think your name suits you. And the Prince is my master, yes. But he is more than that to me. He rescued me from . . . from an evil such as I will not describe to you here and now.” A dark expression passed across her face as she remembered, but she shook it aside. “He rescued me, and now I call him my brother as well as my lord. I am the keeper of this Haven, which belongs to him.” She gave him a reassuring smile.

But Felix did not feel reassured, and his head hurt. He looked down at his hand resting on the soft blankets of his bed. “How long must I remain here, Dame Imraldera?”

Her smile disappeared, as though the sun dropped out of the sky and behind a dark horizon. “I do not know, Prince Felix,” she said. “It may be that you can never leave.”

“What?” Felix jumped to his feet. “What are you saying?” he roared. “Of course I must leave! I can’t stay in this Faerie place forever! What about my father? He needs me. I have to go back!” He ran to the edge of his strange room and discovered that the forest was gone and once more he stood on the edge of a precipice. Far below him the river snaked by, a silver thread. He gulped and paled, backing into the room. “I have to go back,” he said. “There must be a way out of here.”

“Of course,” Imraldera said, coming up beside him. She was shorter, but when he looked down at her he felt almost as though he looked into the face of his own mother. He blinked back tears, hating himself for crying.

“My father,” he said, his lip quivering. “He’s in trouble, you understand. And he sent me away to protect me, but I’m afraid he’ll need me, and then I won’t be there, and . . . and what if he thinks I’m dead? What will he do then? As it is he’s worried sick about my sister, Una. Don’t you see? I’ve got to go back!”

Imraldera touched his shoulder gently. “Please come sit again, child. My Prince has gone to your father. All will be well.”

“I’m not a child.” Felix sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand but allowed himself to be led back to bed. He sat on the edge of it, scratching his left ankle with his right foot. “What about Una?” he asked.

Imraldera did not answer but poured more water into the silver bowl. “Drink this.”

Felix obeyed and felt sleep weighing down his eyelids. “Dame Imraldera?”

“Yes?”

“What happened to me in the Wood? Why was I brought here?”

“A dragon, Prince Felix. He breathed poison into your mind, made you see what he wanted you to see. Such is their way, such is the power of their venomous breath. And when he tore you, the poison of his claws sank deep inside of you. I have extracted most of it, but some I may not be able to get out, and if you leave the safety of our Haven, an infection would set in.”

“Is there a chance you can get it all out?”

“There is always hope, Felix.”

Felix lay back on his pillow and turned his face away from her. Sleep claimed him soon after.

–––––––

The flames were so hot, and the young dragon flew and burned and flew and burned. The fire would not die, and she could not escape it, so on she went, aware of nothing but the burning. She did not notice the passage of time, neither the rising nor the setting sun. Her world was all flame, which sometimes built up so horribly that it burst from her mouth, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. The people she passed over cowered in terror as her shadow darkened their lands, but she did not see them. Nothing but fire and ashes filled her mind.

At last – she couldn’t say how much later – some of the flames began to wane. Her vision cleared, and she looked down to discover where she had come.

Below her stretched the vast expanse of the Red Desert.

World of dragons.

When she looked west toward the setting sun, she could still just make out a green stretch of land. But east, where twilight deepened, all was barren.

She flew on, feeling strength leave her body as the fire cooled inside.

Soon she would have to rest. But if she rested, she might have to think, and that would be unbearable.

On the horizon, great stones that might once have been pillars but were now blasted beyond recognition stretched ragged hands toward the sky. The dragon flew toward them. Soon they loomed over her, towers of rock, and with her last burst of strength she propelled herself in among them, taking shelter in their shadows. Her wings crumpled, and she collapsed on hard stone.

–––––––

She woke in sunlight. A small ray gleamed through a crevice in the rubble above and shone down upon her face. She groaned and tried to turn away, for the light hurt her eyes. Sand and stone scraped painfully against her cheek. Surprised, she reached up and touched her face and found that it was smooth and scaleless once more.

But then the dragon girl looked at her hands. Both were covered in scales, and talons tore into the rock on which she sat. She stared at them, numb, unsure what she felt. The sun shone full upon her now, causing her skin to glow white, almost translucent. Yet her hands seemed to absorb the light.

She stood and felt dizzied by the lightness of her human body. Her clothes were more tattered than ever, exposing her legs and her dragon arms. Her sleeves, which had disguised most of her scaly arm in Southlands, were in shreds.

Looking around, she found herself in an alley of stone vaulting high above her to a narrow opening through which only small patches of sunlight could creep here and there. A twisted path stretched before and behind her. Steadying herself with her right hand on the wall, she followed the path forward. More patches of light gleamed down at intervals, but she avoided them, sliding instead through the shadows. She had no idea where she went or why, and neither did she care.

The realm of dragons
.

A shape moved in front of her. She gasped, surprised but not afraid. She felt she could not be afraid anymore.

It moved again, and she stood silently and waited.

“Who are you?” a young man’s voice spoke, disembodied in the dark. A crack of light fell between them, hiding both in deep shadow.

“No one,” she answered and leaned against the wall.

“Are you a sister?”

“I don’t know.” She pressed herself into the rock, for suddenly, though she wasn’t afraid, her knees went weak. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Perhaps,” the voice said. “You sound small. Are you?”

“I’m not big,” she replied. “Not now.”

“I think you are a sister,” the voice said. “Step into the light so I may be sure.”

The dragon girl could think of no reason not to obey. She pushed herself from the wall and, shielding her eyes with one clawed hand, slid forward into the light. It warmed her clammy skin not unpleasantly.

“Ah,” the voice in the shadow rasped. “Sister.”

A hand, thin and spindly, took hold of one of hers and pulled her forward, out of the sun. She did not resist, though she half expected to have her throat slit any moment. When nothing of the sort happened, she opened her eyes and found herself looking into a pair of slitted pupils on a long, pale face. Her vision adjusted slowly in the dark, and she thought perhaps the face was young, but shadows sagged under the yellow eyes and in the hollow cheeks.