Heartless (32 page)

34

The dragon princess landed on the beach, well outside the city. Smoke billowed as thick as thunderclouds overhead, turning the ocean a stormy black. Her once beautiful city was a mass of rubble and fire, made all the more terrible by the memory of what it had been. She found herself thankful once more that she had no heart, for it would have broken in two at the sight.

On reluctant feet she crawled along the seaside up to the road, hardly noticing the difference when her body lost its grand proportions and again became that of a girl. Only when a foul-smelling wind blew, threatening to knock her off balance, did she realize and look down at herself. Her shape was human, but her hands and feet were scale covered, and she could feel scales on her neck and chest. Her fire flared cruelly at the sight of her own ugly limbs.

“No. I don’t want it anymore,” she hissed between sharp teeth.

But something inside her hissed back,
How will you live without it now? What do you want instead? Food? Water? Such weakness!

The dragon girl felt the heat boiling up inside her and knew she could not stop it. It was her life now, the very foundation of her existence.

“Very well,” she murmured, and fire danced on her tongue. “Very well, but only a little more. I won’t need it soon. But for today I will burn.”

The fire grew as she neared the ruins of her city. Many of the buildings still stood, but they were darkened with ash, standing like lost orphans amid the wreckage. The destruction here was much greater than she had seen in Southlands. She felt she’d burst with fury at the injustice.

Good
, the voice inside her murmured.
You need your fire hot for this.

She picked her way down the smoldering streets, her dragon feet impervious to the heat and jagged edges of broken stone. She fixed her gaze on the hill above the city, where the walls of the palace still stood, and she could see the high gables and windows of her former home, ghostly gray against the smoke-darkened sky. The road up Goldstone Hill was long and deserted. Bit by bit, she picked her way to the palace gates, breathing in great gulps of dragon fumes. Each breath fed her own fire, which was by now a raging furnace in her chest.

The palace gates lay in twisted ruins on the ground. She stepped through the melted and broken metal and gazed again on the scorched grounds of her home.

Men of Shippening filled the yard, marching down the burned steps from the front door into the courtyard. On their shoulders and in their arms were her father’s treasures. More treasure, gold and silver and jewels, lay scattered about like discarded rubble. Intent on their task, none of the men noticed her standing quiet as a shadow in the ruins of the great Westgate.

She felt fire rise like bile in her throat.

“Hello, my child.”

Slowly she turned to her right and faced the tall man with a face as white as leprosy and eyes as black as death. He stood leaning with his shoulder against the wall.

“Welcome home,” he said, revealing fangs in a smile.

–––––––

Late in the morning, after a sleepless night in hiding, Felix crept through the servants’ wing, Monster twining between his feet and purring but otherwise quiet. Felix tried to kick him away, but the cat returned each time. “Fine,” Felix whispered, glaring down at the cat. “But you’ve got to be quiet, understand?”

Monster flicked his plumy tail.

Felix put his ear to the door that led from the servants’ wing into the main hall of the palace. He could hear the tramp of feet coming and going, the voices of officers growling orders and soldiers responding.

“The duke has ordered it all cleared out by nightfall. Look lively. Watch where you’re stepping – do you want to break that? It’s worth five times your life, man!” This from a voice more distant, yet bellowing enough to carry down the hall through the door to Felix’s ears. Two more voices followed, muttering but near enough to be heard.

“Why do we need to empty the storehouse?” the first one said. “He’s taken the palace, hasn’t he? Practically taken the country. Why does he need to loot a treasure store that is already his?”

“Erh,” his companion snorted. “S’ain’t the duke’s orders we’re following. I’d stake my life it’s that . . . that
other
one’s doing. We’re looting for him, and he’ll take it all, and how will we or anyone stop him, I’d like to know? He’ll leave the duke a crown here all right, but a penniless crown in a penniless kingdom. And d’you think the folks of Parumvir will stand for our duke one moment more once
himself
has flown back to wherever he belongs?”

Their voices faded. Felix cursed and flexed his fingers over the hilt of his sword. Looting his father’s treasure store! He wanted to burst out upon them, sword flashing, knock them flat, strike them . . . But what good would that do?

He needed to find his father. That’s all that mattered now. They would worry about treasure later, but for now he must find a way to the king. But how could he slip down to the dungeons when the only stairway leading that way was currently trafficked by those Shippening thieves?

And with the palace halls crawling with his enemies, Felix dared not so much as open the door to the passage in which he hid.

He knelt down, and Monster jumped onto his knee. “What am I going to do, beast?” the boy whispered.

At that moment a new voice boomed through the hall. “Drop what you’re doing and go! Out to the courtyard at once, you dogs!”

Monster jumped from Felix’s knee, growling as the clatter of many priceless items dropping to the hard floor and the metallic whisk of many weapons being drawn echoed in the hall. Footsteps pounded and disappeared as the great front door boomed shut.

Cautiously, Felix cracked open the door and peered out from the servants’ passage. The hall was empty. Monster slipped between his feet and trotted forward, but stumbled across the treasures that he could not see littering the floor. He stopped and lowered his nose to sniff at a jewel box lying open at his feet. Felix stared up and down the hall. He had not even known that his father owned all these beautiful things. He looked toward the door, shut and silent. Faint noises sounded from the yard beyond, but he hardly cared for those.

When he looked back up the hall, it was empty too, as was the narrow staircase leading down to the treasure store and to Oriana’s old dungeons.

Clutching the hilt of his sword and taking courage in its familiar heft, Felix slipped from hiding and raced to the dark staircase.

The stairway was utterly black, save for the light of a few lanterns hung on the walls by Shippening soldiers. Felix swallowed hard, wishing his heart would settle back in his chest where it was supposed to be, and started his descent. Once, long ago, he had been taken to view the ancient dungeons. Memories of the heavy iron chains and the cave-like rooms still crept into his nightmares now and then. He hated the thought of his father in such a place but did not doubt that the duke would keep him there.

He reached the door leading to the dungeons and found it unlocked. He stepped first into the guardroom. Much to Felix’s relief, a lantern hung from the ceiling. He climbed onto a stool in order to take the lantern from its hook, then approached the tunnel that led deep into the rock of Goldstone Hill to the dungeon cells. His courage faltered as he gazed into the blackness.

“Father?”

Darkness swallowed his voice.

“Preeeow.” Monster rubbed against his calf. He reached down to stroke the cat’s back, but Monster slipped from beneath his hand and trotted into the tunnel.

Gulping, Felix followed the cat, calling every few steps, “Father?”

The third time he called, he heard a moan from a cell on his left. He held his lantern up to a tiny wooden door with bars near the floor, through which food could be passed. Monster crouched at the bars, his tail twitching. “Father, is that you?” Felix said.

“Felix?”

The voice was faint but unmistakable.

“Father!” Felix crouched down and looked through the bars, but the light from his lantern showed him nothing. “Father, it’s me. I’m here to rescue you.”

“Felix, you fool!” His father’s voice growled through the darkness. “Why did you come here?”

Felix blinked, hurt at his father’s tone. But he saw a thin white hand reach between the bars, and he took hold of it in both of his. “I had to come, Father.”

His father’s hand squeezed briefly, but his voice came harsh from the other side of the door. “Go away. Now! Get out before those men return.”

“I have to free you first,” Felix said. Then he stopped and sat up, letting go of his father’s hand. He had overlooked an important detail: the dungeon keys.

–––––––

A shout rang through the courtyard. The dragon girl turned, startled, and saw the Duke of Shippening at the top of the front steps, gesturing toward her and bellowing, “Quick, men! Surround her! All of you!”

The men at work hauling the treasures dropped their burdens, drew their weapons, and rushed toward her. She was surrounded in a moment, one pale girl in a forest of a hundred swords. She stood quietly with her head bowed and did not meet their eyes.

“Let me through!” the duke bellowed, and a ripple moved through the many-layered fence of soldiers as they made way for their overlord. He stood at last before her, his arms crossed, looking down on her.

“Your looks ain’t improved much, wench, and I’ll tell you that straight.” The duke puffed heavily through fat lips. “Well, ’tain’t no difference. He was right anyway. He said you’d come back if we captured your father.”

Her head jerked sharply, though she did not look up. “My father?”

“Wouldn’t let me kill him yet. Said it would be a waste of good bait.” The duke reached out and grabbed her chin roughly. “My, but you’re an ugly thing, like a lizard you are! But you’ll do, little princess. Now I’ll send your father to join your dead brother, and with you as my wife, no one will contest my claim to the throne!”

She raised her eyes to his face, and the duke found himself looking into bottomless depths of molten heat. He screamed as though burned and backed away into his circle of soldiers who, frightened, also stepped back, raising their weapons higher.

The Dragon’s laugh rolled like heat lightning over their heads. The men of Shippening fell away, parting so that a path cleared between her and the Dragon. Their eyes locked across the distance.

“You are much too honest, my child,” the Dragon said, smiling so that she could see the fire between his teeth. “Look at you. Even now you look more dragon than human. Most of my children hide it better.

You will not be able to walk in man’s world like that.”

“I am not your child,” she growled.

He shook his head and strode with a catlike tread down the path between the soldiers until he stood over her. “Of course you are,” he said. “My own pretty child.”

“Dragon!” The Duke of Shippening’s voice quavered, but he coughed and spoke again. “Dragon, honor your promise now. Give her to me.”

“Honor
my
promise?” The Dragon turned a slow gaze upon the duke. “I don’t recall you honoring yours, Duke Shippening. Did you bring the king here? My memory seems a bit hazy on that score. I could have sworn that was
my
doing.”

“You have no use for her,” the duke said. “Give her to me, as we agreed!”

The Dragon turned his slow smile back down upon the girl. “Your last brave suitor is most ardent. At least one of them still wants you, little princess.”

She did not break the Dragon’s gaze as she spoke. “Duke Shippening, leave my father’s house immediately.” Her voice hissed with fire.

“Wh-what?” the duke cried.

She turned to him, and her stare could have melted his eyes had he stood closer. “Leave my father’s house.”

The duke paled and stepped back, his hands before him. One by one his men had slipped away, loath to remain so near the Dragon and the strange girl, and now the duke found himself horribly alone. He sought his one ally. “Dragon?”

The Dragon laughed again, turned on his heel, and started toward the sagging front doors of the royal house. “Come with me, daughter. I would have you bear treasures back to my Hoard. I have been considering how I should best transfer them. Your coming is fortunate. There is much more inside, down in the vaults to which you so kindly led me. Once you have borne them to the Village, you will await there my return.”

“Stop,” she said.

The Dragon paused on the threshold and looked back over his shoulder.

She raised her chin. “You will not enter my father’s house again, nor – ” She choked on the flames in her throat. “Nor will you touch his goods with your dirty hands.”

An evil laugh filled the courtyard as the Dragon threw back his head, shoulders heaving. “Foolish child.” He showed every tooth in an awful smile. “I am your Father and this is my house now, remember? So of course I shall enter and take what belongs to me. And you will help me. Come, girl, before I lose my sense of humor.”