Heartless (33 page)

Within three paces she lost all human semblance and was in full flame, fire bursting from deep inside her, hotter than she had ever before burned, so hot that the stone steps of the palace began to melt, and she focused all on the spot where the Dragon stood. The black figure disappeared in the onslaught of blue and red fire. Screams from dozens of soldiers were soon drowned out in the awful roar of her fire. The world was nothing but flame; nothing but heat filled every sense.

At last she stopped and staggered back, poisonous smoke filling her eyes. But even as she stood blinded she heard the Dragon’s laugh again, fuller and deeper than before.

“Was that all you had inside?” With a sweep of his arm he cleared the smoke, revealing himself unsinged upon the melting steps. “I misjudged you. I thought your flame far greater than that!” He opened his mouth, his jaw dropping grotesquely to his chest, and his own flame billowed forth, sweeping over her.

She stumbled back as though struck with a mace, turning her massive head away. At first her dragon hide absorbed the heat. But soon she felt a change. The fire became so hot, it penetrated under her scales to her soft flesh, and the scales themselves burned and melted.

She screamed. A high, inhuman, hideous scream that shattered glass, then rose in intensity and horror. As she screamed she struggled to escape, but the inferno surrounded her no matter where she turned. She thought she could bear no more, but it went on and she did not die.

When the Dragon swallowed his flame, he towered over her, black and monstrous, his crest upraised like a kingly crown, his wings arched behind him.

“Foolish sister!” he roared, snarling down on her smoldering frame. “You thought to kill your king, your Father? I
gave
you your fire! Do you think you can use my own flame against me?”

He smacked her, his claws tearing into her burnt flesh. She screamed again and crawled away, her torn wings beating feebly on the ground.

“Try it again, dragon!” He struck her a second time and a third. “Burn me! Let your flame build up and smolder inside as you smolder outside. Come on, dragon!”

Where the strength came from she could not say, but with all that was in her she pushed herself to her feet, sucked in a great gulp of air, and took to the sky. The Dragon King laughed at her flight, sending more flames after her, but he did not follow.

“Go!” he shouted. “Finish yourself off! I’ll find you later and gnaw your bones, my child! I’ll gnaw and burn your bones!”

35

She could not fly far, for her wings were shredded and disintegrating like burned leaves. The young dragon fell from the sky no more than a mile from the city and lay where she had fallen on the sand by the sea. Her breath came in uneven gasps, and each one caused searing pain through her whole body. She closed her eyes and slipped into darkness, knowing that she was dying.

Her mind filled with images and sounds crowding together and vying for dominance. The images were all from her life – from her very earliest memories of playing with Felix down by the Old Bridge, to much-hated lessons with her tired-eyed tutor, to Nurse’s funny old face. Over the visions and collage of colors, she could hear voices, such familiar voices.

“Trust is knowing a man’s character, knowing truth, and relying on that character and truth even when the odds seem against you.”

“Oh, my love is like a white, white dove, soaring in the sky above!”

“I can only pray he will prove worthy.”

“Oh, my love is like a fine, fine wine . . .”

“I cannot bear to watch these suitors of yours, knowing I have no right to . . . to pursue you myself.”

“ . . . If only she’d be mine!”

“Will you trust me?”

“ . . . a sweet, sweet song . . .”

“Una, trust me.”

“Oh, my love . . .”

“I will trust him till I die!”

At the sound of her own voice shouting those last words, fire blazed up in her mind. Such a lie! Her trust had broken, shattered along with her heart. All that was left inside burned and burned, destroying the images in evil flames, destroying the voices of her loved ones.

The Dragon’s eyes, like liquid fire, swallowed her, and she choked and drowned in flames. This was death, then; this was the end of all dreams.

A wood thrush sang like a silver bell, high and sweet.

I love you, Una
.

She opened her eyes unwillingly. The murmur of waves on the shore filled her ears, and gentle rain fell upon her burning skin, at once painful and soothing. Tears mingled with the rain, and those drops hurt most of all, yet she did not flinch away.

She gazed up into Aethelbald’s face. He held her scorched body tenderly in his arms.

“Why do you love me?” she asked, her voice rasping in her burnt throat.

He put a hand gently to her face and wiped a hair from across her eyes. She could feel rain on her bald scalp and knew that she had little hair left. “Because I choose to,” he said. When he blinked, two tears fell on her cheeks, painful yet blessed. “I chose to long ago, long before we met. When my father sent me to win you, I loved you already.”

“You’ve made a poor choice, you see,” she said. How harsh and horrible her voice sounded in her own ears. “Nothing but a dragon.”

“I knew that from the beginning.” All the sorrow in the world was in his face. “I have watched many dear to me fall prey to the Dragon’s fire before. So yes, I knew already, Una. Yet you are my chosen love, the only one for me.”

She turned her face away. “Others have told me as much. Their words were empty.”

“Look at me, Una.”

She would not.

“Una!”

Slowly, though the sight of his tearstained face burned more than fire, she raised reddened eyes to his.

“My words are not empty.”

A sob caught in her throat, and she gasped at the pain of it, then gasped again when she realized that tears filled her eyes. They gathered and spilled, trailing excruciating paths down her blackened cheeks, yet the relief of tears was greater than the pain. She felt his arms tighten about her, and he pressed his cheek against the top of her bald head, letting her cry softly.

“My Prince,” she said at last, her voice catching. “You know I cannot love you.”

Aethelbald leaned back and brushed a tear away with a gentle hand. “Let me enable you to.”

“No, I cannot!” she said, shaking her head. “I
cannot
love you. I have no heart . . . none.”

“Then let me give you mine,” he said.

“It would burn away inside of me!” She wanted to cover her face with her hands but found she could not move her arms, could not even feel them anymore. “Everything inside me burns now. Everything is fire and ash.”

“As long as you are a dragon, yes.”

“I cannot help what I am,” she whispered. “I would if I could. I tried to kill the Dragon as I was told. I know he must die before I can be free. But I could not kill him. And now I am . . . now I am dying.” She closed her eyes. “It is too late for us, my Prince.”

His voice came mellow and soothing to her ears. “As long as you are a dragon yourself, you cannot hope to defeat the King of Dragons. The fire in you must die first.”

“I
am
dying,” she said. She could feel the minutes of her life flitting away. “I will be free soon.”

“No!” he said, his voice thick with tears. “No, you cannot die while still a dragon. I will not allow it!”

“There is nothing to be done,” she murmured. “I cannot change what I am. Even if I kill myself now, I cannot change what I am.”

“You must let me do it,” he said.

“What?”

“You must let me kill you, Una.”

An evil voice screeched through her memory.
“You know what he did, little princess? He took out his sword and tried to run me through!”

“You must let me, Una.”

She felt her breaths coming harder, and each one was agonizing.

“You would kill me?”

“I submitted to him, and he tried to kill me!”

“I kill you to save you,” he said. His eyes pierced her with their tenderness yet also filled her with fear.

“I trusted him, and he betrayed me!”

“I am dying already,” she whimpered, and more tears stained her face. “Must you kill me?”

“You will die as a dragon if you do not let me help you,” he said.

“Trust me, and you will die instead a princess.”

“I trusted him!”

She tried once more to move but could not find her limbs. “All right,”

she whispered. “Do as you must, my Prince. I . . . I trust you.”

Gently Aethelbald lowered his face to hers and kissed her on her charred and blackened mouth. She closed her eyes and felt she could not bear such exquisite pain or beauty.

He laid her down in the sand. Each movement and shifting of her limbs was agony, but it would soon be over. He stood over her, and behind him dragon smoke churned in an angry sky. With a metallic ring he drew his sword. She trembled where she lay.

“My Prince!” she gasped. “Will it hurt? I am afraid.”

“It will hurt.” His voice was heavy with sorrow, yet his eyes were full of love. “Death is painful.”

Gazing into those eyes, so deep, so kind, she took in a last breath.

“Do it,” she said.

His sword was swift and sure. In a flash of silver, he pierced her through the breast, deep inside. She screamed as she felt the blade entering deeper, down into the furnace that was her soul, ice-cold amid the flames. Down into the darkest fire it penetrated, and the flames fled before the blade. She felt herself slipping away. Out of a heavy, twisted body, she glided into light, cool air.

Dragon claws tore at her back, pulling her, restraining her. She felt the blade twist inside, screamed again in agony.

“I trusted him, and he betrayed me!”

Last desperate flames clawed at her.

Betrayed!

Her own dragon eyes glared at her, full of hate, full of fire.

Betrayed!
the dragon cried.

Then it was finished. The husk of her body lay empty, the fire gone forever.

36

The Dragon watched the men carry King Fidel’s treasures from his vaults and place them in piles about the courtyard. He picked up a golden goblet. The soft gold melted at the touch of his hands, and the elegant curves sank into an unlovely lump. He tossed it back to the pile with a smile. The shape was nothing, the beauty unnecessary. All that mattered was the gold.

As the sun sank low, casting the dark shadow of the palace over the eastern courtyard, the duke came to the doorstep, his arms folded across his barrel chest. “That’s most of it,” he said. “Only a few chests left.” His eyes spoke other things, but fear restrained his tongue.

“Good,” the Dragon said. “Now you may bring Fidel and his son to me.”

The duke blinked. “His son? The brat was dead long ago.”

“I think you will find otherwise if you go now and fetch the king to me.”

The duke’s eyes narrowed. He pointed to two of his men and ordered them down to the dungeons, then waited at the top of the steps, watching the Dragon move from one pile of treasures to the next. Things were not going as he had expected when he made this bargain many months ago. Certainly he could take the throne once the king was dead, but how could he hope to keep it? Not an ounce of Parumvir’s royal blood flowed in his veins, and without the promised marriage to the princess he could not hope to justify himself to the angry people of this land. The best he could anticipate would be constant battle, constant unrest, and if the Dragon took much of this treasure . . . But surely he could not carry it all away with him, or even very much?

The duke spat on the stone steps.
Curse all dragons and their bargains.

“Unhand me!”

The duke turned at the frantic voice, and his eyes widened with surprise. The two soldiers he’d sent to the dungeons returned, one of them dragging King Fidel by his chains and the other, lo and behold, holding Prince Felix by the arm and the back of the neck. The young prince flailed and kicked viciously against the much larger man but to no avail.

“What is this?” the duke roared.

“We caught him in the dungeons, my lord,” the soldier holding the prince replied. “He was with the king, tried to free him but had no key, you see. Little urchin – ”

The duke grabbed Felix by the shirt, yanked him from the soldier’s grasp, and lifted him off his feet, snarling into his face. “What are you doing still alive?”

Felix, white as a sheet, could not speak, suspended as he was in the air. Fidel rallied himself and raised his arms, chained together. “Don’t hurt the boy!” he cried. “He . . . he’s not my son, just a servant who wanted to help me, but he’s nothing, really! Send him away. Don’t harm him.”

“Not your son, eh?” The duke drew his long dagger. “In that case you shouldn’t care if I – ”

“Wait.”

The duke froze as the Dragon’s hiss tickled his ear. He dropped the prince and backed away as though stung. The Dragon stooped down and gazed into Felix’s face.

The prince stared back, then suddenly cried out and flung his arms over his head, recognizing the tall man’s eyes as the same burning orbs that had glared over the wall at him the night the Dragon came.

“It is as I thought,” the Dragon said, straightening and looking down on the boy cowering at his feet. “You have poison in your veins. They couldn’t work it all out of you, could they, little prince? Your sister has proven disappointing, but you perhaps – ”

“No!” Fidel screamed, pulling against his chains so hard that he fell on the stone steps. The soldier holding the end of his chain kicked him in the side, but the king struggled up. “No!” he cried again. “Don’t touch him! Leave him alone!”

The Dragon looked at him and shook his head. “Wretched man. Your daughter succumbed to my kiss with hardly a thought. Your son will, in time, do the same. You cannot protect them. You never could.”

He waved a hand to the soldiers. “Chain both of them in the yard,” he said. “I will deal with them when I return. But for now . . . ” He smiled, and flames wreathed his face. “For now there is no hurry, and I have a promise to fulfill. I must gnaw her bones.”

His black cloak billowed into black wings, and his body became long and sinewy and horrible by the time he reached the broken gate. The men of Shippening scurried from his path like so many cockroaches scuttling into safe nooks in the rubble of the wall. He crawled over the twisted metal into the road leading down into the city.

A man stood in his way.

The Dragon stopped. His eyes slitted as he regarded the figure standing before him. The man stood in the middle of the road, his head bowed, his cloak swept back over his shoulders, a drawn sword in his hands. The blade gleamed red in the light of the Dragon’s eyes. Fresh blood stained its edge.

The Dragon’s tail twitched at the end. “Do I know you?” he asked, turning his great head to peer at the man more clearly with one eye. “You seem familiar.”

“We have met,” Prince Aethelbald said.

The Dragon drew back with a hiss at the sound of the voice. His eyes swirled with churning fire, and he revealed every fang in a snarl. Then he looked again and laughed.

“You!” he cried, his eyes narrowing to two red slits. “What are you made up as? Look at you, pathetic creature, a little man-beast! Never thought I’d see the day that you, my Enemy, would reduce yourself to such a state. You, who walk where mortals cannot; you, who bound me to the Gold Stone. Why, I could snap you up in a mouthful and still be hungry for dessert!” Tongues of fire licked between his teeth.

Aethelbald raised his bowed head, and his eyes met those of the Dragon without flinching or fear. “You cannot kill me, Death-in-Life, Destroyer of Dreams and Devourer. I know you for what you are, and none of your fires will touch me.”

The Dragon licked his lips. “So said all your little knights before I swallowed them! I have no intention of returning to that prison. I am stronger now than I once was, and you . . . Ha! You are nothing but a
man
!” He smiled. “Besides,” he said, “I have something you covet, do I not? Something you prize that you will never own, Prince of Farthestshore!”

He lowered his head, his hot breath beating down upon the Prince. “I have taken her already, my Enemy. I have taken and twisted her, burned her in my flames. And you, you will never see her again.”

“You are wrong, Death-in-Life,” the Prince said. He stepped to one side. Behind him stood a girl dressed in a simple white robe. She did not look at the Dragon but kept her gaze fixed on Aethelbald’s face. Her eyes were serene, without a trace of fire.

“Daughter!” the Dragon snarled. “My daughter, my sister! You cannot live without your fire, and I still hold your heart!”

Though her breath came a little faster, Una did not answer but kept her gaze on the Prince.

Aethelbald spoke instead. “I have given her my heart. She no longer needs your fire to live. But I have come now to claim her heart from you. It is mine now by right!”

The Dragon’s crest flared up, and fire rimmed his eyes. “You’ll have to kill me, then, man!”

He opened his mouth, and flame burst forth. Aethelbald grabbed Una and dragged her out of the way behind a pile of rubble. The Dragon snaked down the road and climbed onto the pile, looking down on them from above. More fire poured from his mouth, and Aethelbald only just pulled the princess from its path. The rock behind them melted.

“Stay close to me,” Aethelbald whispered, clutching her hand. Pulling her behind him, he ran back up the path and through the broken gate into the east courtyard. The shadows were deep on this side of the palace, and it was difficult to discern which dark shapes were piles of rocks and which were soldiers of Shippening.

Aethelbald, drawing the princess along, leapt behind a pile of rocks crumbled from the broken wall. They ducked their heads as the Dragon, his eyes streaked with fire, entered the courtyard.

The Prince let go of Una’s hand.

“Aethelbald!” she cried, reaching for him.

“Don’t be afraid, Una,” he said, his voice strangely quiet. “Look.” He took her chin in his hand and pointed her head to her left. She saw her father and brother chained to the base of a broken statue, coughing as dragon fumes rolled into the courtyard.

“Come out, coward!” the Dragon bellowed, flames leaping from his mouth.

Soldiers cried out, and some slipped from cracks in the wall and fled down Goldstone Hill. Flames spread about the courtyard, catching anything that could yet burn.

“Your father and brother will be killed in this fire,” Aethelbald said. “You must set them free. I will lead the monster away.” He gazed into her eyes a moment, then suddenly drew her close and kissed her, even as the air boiled and the heavens roared.

When he pulled back, he gently touched her cheek. “I will come for you. No matter what happens, I will come for you. Now go!”

He adjusted his grip on his sword and gathered himself to climb over the pile of rubble, grabbing the rocks with his left hand and pulling himself out from behind them. He leapt onto the top, a clear target.

The Dragon turned, and a burst of fire scorched the stones. Though she crouched safely on the far side, Una could feel the heat of the flames through the rocks. The Prince leapt away in time and darted across the yard, running for the gate. The Dragon, spitting more fire, turned and followed.

Una struggled to breathe amid the thick smoke and pressed her hands over her mouth. Choking back tears, she staggered across the fire-scathed yard.

“Una!” Felix shouted when he saw her coming through the haze of smoke. Fidel raised hopeless eyes, and joy filled his face at the sight of her. She fell on her knees before them beside the broken statue, and they flung their arms around her in a tight embrace.

“Look,” Felix said, pulling away. He pointed. “The soldier dropped them when he fled.”

Una looked and saw the ring of keys not three yards away. She leapt up and ran for them, hardly able to see for the smoke around her. She scraped her knuckles grabbing them up and rushed back. Felix was chained with only one cuff on his wrist, attached to his father’s arm. She tried several and soon found the key that fit his lock, and Felix pulled himself free. But Fidel was chained with links between his hands and feet, and one about his neck that the soldier had secured to the base of the statue. Una freed his hands and feet, but each key she tried for the neck chain refused to fit.

A hand reached out of the darkness and grabbed her shoulder. She screamed as she was yanked to her feet, and the keys dropped from her hands.

“I must say,” the Duke of Shippening’s voice growled in her ear, “I never thought I’d be so pleased to see you alive, princess!”

She screamed again, and Felix, roaring like a young lion, hurled himself headfirst with all the force in his young body, catching the duke hard in the side just below the ribcage. The duke grunted and staggered, and Una freed herself from his grip. She swept up the keys, feeling through for the last few that she had not yet tried. She heard the scrape of a sword being drawn but did not look around. Only three keys were left untested. She fitted one in the lock around her father’s neck and heard a click.

Fidel rose like a hurricane and threw the chains he held into the face of the duke. The duke caught them, but one of the links flew back and struck him across the forehead. He stumbled back.

“Felix!” the king cried. Felix, on his hands and knees at the duke’s feet, scrambled up, half crawling toward his father. The duke reached out a meaty hand and grabbed the young prince by the back of the shirt, his sword upraised.

A hideous roar shook the stone. Una, clutching her father, saw the Dragon approaching, his eyes red like flowing lava, and before him ran Aethelbald, his gaze intent on the duke. He leapt forward and grabbed the blade of the duke’s sword with his bare hand, pulling it from his grasp, and simultaneously brought his knee into the small of the duke’s back. He and the duke tumbled onto the stones, and Felix burst free and ran to the king and Una.

The king grabbed both his children and dragged them behind the base of the statue just as streams of fire roared past them, burning the air, melting the far side of their shelter. The duke’s scream pierced their ears for an instant and was swallowed up in flames the next.

For half a moment Una breathed as the fire lessened. Then with a cry she broke free of her father’s grasp and ran from behind the stone into the swirling smoke and ash. Coughing, she stumbled forward but could see nothing.

Red eyes glowed above her, cutting through the darkness and ash. She saw by their light the charred bones lying upon the stones.