Veiled Rose (27 page)

In desperation, he reached out to the voice, like a child lunging from a stranger’s arms toward its mother, heedless of the drop beneath it, caring nothing for danger in its desire for the familiar. “Help me!” he called to the voice.

Tell me what you want,
it said.

“I want to escape this fire!”

And so you shall, for you are not his lawful prey!

In an instant there flashed before his mind’s eye a face, black amid the fire, white eyes full of fury.

“Thank heaven, you’re safe!”

The ebony face vanished when a man’s deep voice, hard-edged in relief, spoke from beyond the veil of dreams. More voices spoke, and the gloved hand took hold of him again, and he felt the shifting of the horse beneath him.

Then the fire claimed him once more.

This time the dream continued uninterrupted until Lionheart began to believe with what was left of his conscious mind that he had in fact died and, bypassing the Realm Unseen, his soul had flown straight to this hell. Despair, potent and cold amid the raging flames, slashed across his heart.

“No, no!” A new voice spoke. “No, please! Don’t let him go!”

He felt, as though from a great distance, a kiss upon his forehead, and it was cool, though not cold. Then the voice, low and mellifluous, began to sing.

Beyond the Final Water falling,

The Songs of Spheres recalling.

Won’t you return to me?

When the voice became a bird’s strange, inhuman song he could not guess. Or perhaps it had always been so? But as the sound washed over him like rain, the flames in his head died, the poison in his breast ebbed away. Lionheart blinked open weary eyes and for a moment saw a face he had never before seen, a beautiful one, young yet ageless, with golden skin and great silver eyes. The face of a princess.

He fell at last into a natural sleep.

Daylily sat beside the prince’s bed in a darkened chamber. Her face was paler than usual, yet no other signs betrayed the harrowing journey she had just experienced.

Six days she had traveled without food, walking beside the fevered Lionheart slung over the back of her black gelding. They’d found little water along the way, and most of what they’d found was spoiled by the horrible smoke that filled the countryside. No one met them on the road. Everyone had fled at the Dragon’s approach, and the land was as barren as an old battlefield. And always that iron-gray sky oppressed them.

Daylily may have been the darling of the royal court, but she was also the daughter of a baron. She could bear hunger and thirst and an endless trek down an empty road.

What she could not endure was the fear.

The fear of being watched. That compulsive need to look over one’s shoulder or to search the heavy sky. The way one’s eyes couldn’t help but dart to any shadow that moved across the ground, expecting to see the spread of wings. Nearly a week of this life would drive anyone mad, and Daylily’s careful mask threatened to break with tears on more than one occasion.

All that kept her going was Rose Red.

Daylily could not see behind the veil. She could not tell how the smoke, the subtle poison, or the bone-weary journey affected the maid. Perhaps she too was crumbling. Perhaps she felt nothing at all. More than once Daylily longed for a veil to hide her own weakness. She could not let this person—this goat girl—see her break.

So Daylily went on, sometimes leading the gelding, sometimes allowing Rose Red to lead while she put a hand on Lionheart’s leg to support him in the saddle. He was terribly hot to the touch, and several times she thought he must die, the fever was so great.

But at last they saw a sight more welcome than angels: the dust of horsemen riding their way. The Baron of Middlecrescent, the moment word had reached him of the Dragon’s coming, had set out to see that his daughter was safe.

Now at last they were hidden in Middlecrescent, many long miles from the Eldest’s City and the site of all that destruction. Lionheart was tucked into a bed, where he periodically burned and froze, tossing and moaning and talking to someone unseen in his sleep. Daylily rarely left his side.

Neither did Rose Red.

When Lionheart finally came to himself, the fire was mostly gone. All that remained was a dull burn in his chest, but even that seemed to fade as he returned at last to the waking world. His vision was blurred, a haze of colors and shadows. He blinked, and it cleared some; blinked again and he saw Daylily’s face surrounded by her cloud of red hair. It looked like fire.

He sat up sharply with a gasp, then grimaced as his head whirled.

“Hush! Hush!” Daylily spoke softly and put her arm across his shoulders. They sat thus a moment, stiffly. Then gently, almost motheringly, she drew him to her, and he rested his head against her shoulder, his eyes closed, breathing in her scent.

“Where are we?”

“Middlecrescent. Do you recall nothing?”

He shook his head and breathed again deeply. She smelled of lilac soap, like his mother and courtly ladies. She smelled of one who had tried to scrub clean from a deeper, fouler stench.

Beneath the clean, there lingered yet a breath of smoke.

He pulled away from her, shaking his head again and opening his eyes. He looked up into her face. “Tell me.”

“We traveled north,” she said, her arm still about his shoulders. It felt an ineffectual weight, but he did not shake it off. “We left the House grounds and circled around the Eldest’s City. He . . . he did not stop us. My father met us on the road late the sixth day and brought us back here. Lionheart.” She put her other hand against his cheek, a tender gesture, but her hand was cold. Still, he did not pull away, for her sake if nothing else. “Lionheart, I thought you would die!” Her voice had never been so full of feeling. It scarcely sounded like Daylily.

Lionheart gulped, but his mouth and throat were so dry they hurt, and the muscles moved without effect. He wanted to ask for water. Instead when he spoke next, he said, “My parents?”

She bowed her head as though considering her words. “No one has word of the Eldest and his queen. The Eldest’s City is abandoned, and talk is that your father, mother, your cousin, and many others are imprisoned in the House. But no one knows.”

The room was stuffy and hot, although the window was open, allowing in a breeze that tugged the curtains of Lionheart’s bed and struck his face without any cooling relief. The curtains themselves were red velvet, and to his tired eyes the color seemed to blend in and out of Daylily’s hair.

Rose Red was present. He saw her across the room, sitting by the window, huddled deep inside her veils. Oddly, the sight of her filled him with comfort. She, at least, of all the people of his home, was safe. She was alive, and she was near, and she was familiar.

The silence had hung too long in the room. Daylily, looking to see where Lionheart’s gaze rested, felt the sudden need to speak again. “The Dragon,” she said, “has given commands. No one is to leave.”

Lionheart dragged his eyes back to her, though they slid around as though unwilling or unable to rest upon her face. “No one is to leave the Eldest’s House?”

“All of Southlands,” Daylily said. “Father told me this morning. Word has it that the Dragon has created barricades of occult workings across every port and road. Those who have tried to leave have . . . they have been destroyed. Burned.” She was calm as she spoke the words, a bulwark of strength in the midst of the storm. In the presence of that strength, Lionheart found himself both chilled and emboldened. Even as the residual poison in his veins sought to drag him back down, he drew himself up, determined not to be weak before this girl who could speak of her country’s doom in such cool tones.

“Bridges have been set afire,” she said. “They are not ruined completely; people say that because they are of Faerie make they can’t be destroyed. But since the last messengers came, they have been set afire, and they burn so hot that no one can cross them anymore. We are prisoners, cut off from one another. We are at his mercy.”

“Get up, little prince.”

He grimaced as the words shot across his memory. He pushed away Daylily’s hands. “Rose Red,” he said, and the girl by the window leapt to her feet. “Rose Red, bring me clothes, boots, a cloak.”

She hastened to do his bidding, and Daylily stood back from his bedside. “Lionheart,” she said, “you have been sick with fever, and we despaired of your life. You are not yet ready to—”

“Get up and journey into the world.”

The fiery voice in his memory drowned out Daylily’s words. Rose Red returned with the requested items and handed them to him. He sat there, looking from her to Daylily and back again. “Please,” he said, “a moment of privacy?”

“What are you proposing, Lionheart?” Daylily’s face sank into a deep frown.

“I send you to your exile.”

“I must go.”

“Go where?”

“Journey into the world.”

“He told me I must journey into the world. I . . . I believe I must go, must seek help for us.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Those who have tried to cross have all died. Burned, Lionheart!”

“If he told me to go, then surely he must allow me to cross the borders.”

“We will meet again, Prince Lionheart.”

Lionheart squared his shoulders and drew as deep a breath as his damaged lungs would permit. “This is my duty, Daylily. He has commanded me to go, and I shall do so. I will cross the borders, and I will learn how to defeat this monster. And when I know, I will return.”

“Perhaps you’ll find your throne after all?”

“Now, are you going to let me get dressed, or shall I scandalize you both with the sight of my nightshirt?”

Though the Baron of Middlecrescent protested more vehemently than did his daughter, Lionheart was still Prince of Southlands. He was outfitted to ride before the day was out. The baron refused to give Lionheart his blessing, but at least he rode with wishes for good luck.

Middlecrescent and Daylily agreed to ride with Lionheart as far as the nearest bridge, where they both secretly believed the prince would be forced to stop. It was engulfed in a blaze of heat, though the bridge itself did not burn. Sometimes, the baron thought, young men who refuse to hear the advice of their elders simply need to find out for themselves the hard way. So be it.

Before mounting, Lionheart asked for Rose Red to be brought to him. The servant girl approached her prince, trembling, and went down on her knees before him as though to receive a benediction.

“Rosie,” he said, surprised, “why do you kneel? You’ve never been so formal before me!”

“My prince,” she said so softly that it was difficult to hear. “My good master, I must ask a boon of you.”

Lionheart smiled a little, though his heart was heavy. In Rose Red’s bowed figure he saw the comfort of familiarity. He found himself longing suddenly for the friendship that had once existed between them.

His voice was heavy when he spoke. “You have always been loyal to me, Rosie. More than a servant, as you well know. How can I refuse anything you ask?”