Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales (4 page)

The sunset bleeds gold and vermilion over the cliffs of Roussillon. I tap Aurora's ribs with my heels, urging her toward our post. The contact is all but unnecessary. We were introduced to each other at birth. Most of the time she knows what I want before I do.

No delta dragon from the Camargue to the west, Aurora is fire born, her Persian mother transported to our village via the Silk Road. She was a gift to my family from the Artists Guild, in gratitude for my father's twenty-five years of service as captain of the watch. A position I inherited.

It was a rich gift indeed, made possible by high demand for the pigment created by Roussillon tradesmen, and the pottery designed by our artists. I can neither confirm nor deny there's a catacomb beneath our village full of gold coin, but there are those who
believe
it to be true, and this is why a village of tradesmen and artisans requires a full-time watch.

Aurora's scales, burnished by the sun's last rays, reflect gold or a deep orange-red depending on the direction of the light. She moves like a dancing flame over the ochre landscape. We are like sisters, Aurora and me. I wear my hair in a crown of red-gold plaits, and my guard uniform has been dyed with local pigment to complement her coloring. I prefer her company to any living creature's.

Aurora knows the truth about me. Raised a dragonmaid—the first in our village—my first meal was the same as hers: dragon's milk, to make me strong. My father wed me to the blade before I could walk. My sword, too, came to me by way of the Silk Road, the hilt's gold filigree and ruby embellishment designed as a companion weapon to Aurora's fire. She and I are the defenders of Roussillon, and as such neither we nor our family ever want for anything. Nothing required for our survival or comfort, anyway.

But on the night watch, I burn. The desire for another sort of life consumes me like the potter's fire. I can't even say what sort of life I would prefer. I only know that when I sleep, and especially during certain phases of the moon, I feel like
color
is billowing inside of me. Like if I don't hold my breath I'll erupt in orange and vermilion and gold.

I nudge again at Aurora's ribs, and she drops in through the mouth of our cave. From here we've got a sweeping view of the valley, and it's on clear nights like this when outsiders creep up on us from the south, or our own countrymen from the north. My costly sword has never drawn blood—except by accident during my training. The threat of Aurora's fire has been enough to turn back many a would-be raider.

Inside the cave, Aurora spits flame at the wood we collected at the end of the last evening watch. We keep our fire small for most of the night, but I allow myself more light between sunset and nightfall so I can work. The walls of the cave are bright with my paintings. It's the only way I can contain the storm that rages inside me—by letting out the colors, one brushstroke at a time.

My mother is a potter. My brother, an apprentice to the most skilled pigment chemist in the village. There are few here who don't earn a wage from the ochre dust in our hills. But I was not given a choice. How long, I wonder, will the paintings be enough? Already, I feel they're not enough.

Aurora settles in the mouth of the cave. Wings at rest, amber eyes alert. Great paws crossed like a dog's before the fire. She glances at me, huffing smoke before returning her attention to the world outside. She feels my discontent, though she doesn't understand it. She doubles her own vigilance when I'm distracted by my painting. I'd trust no one but Aurora to watch our valley alone. Day or night—even in the transition between—her eyes miss nothing.

I stare at the final whitewashed section of cave wall, near the back where the light is poorest. After I've covered it, I'll have to resort to painting the ceiling from Aurora's back. Or find another cave that's big enough to hide both of us.

Or have Aurora fire-blast it all away and begin again.

My eyes roam over the work of previous weeks and months. I'd started with shimmering, serpentine rainbows—my attempts to channel the colorful chaos inside me. Then familiar scenery—lavender fields and vineyards. I tried the smaller scale for a while—baskets of fruit and rows of fresh-baked bread in the market—but soon tired of the inanimate and began to paint living creatures. Horses grazing below the village. Chickens pecking crumbs from the cobblestone streets.

At last, perhaps inevitably, I began to paint dragons. I painted Aurora as she rested, curled like a great wolfhound. I practiced catlike eyes, ridged brow and torso, and curving fields of burnished scales. From there I moved on to dragons of every color, whole skies full of them. Teeming, writhing hosts descending over the fields. The full rich and varied palette of fire dragons. The humble deltas—slinkers and creepers that threaten with venom instead of fire. The regal northern ice lizards with their hoary breath. And rarest of all, the great Celtic Silvers, bellowing thunder that cracks mountains and breathing fog over emerald hills. No one knows for sure if these last are truth, or a fiction created to warn invaders away from Ériu's ragged shoreline.

In this last series I'd truly lost myself, though I'd gradually circled back from literal to more abstract depictions. My new dragons were ecstatic dances of color and light. Less precise, yet somehow more alive. I'd stopped concentrating so hard. I'd let go of mopping at mistakes with a damp cloth and opened to the flow.

“One more, Aurora,” I murmur. Selecting a brush from the dozen resting against the cave wall, I wonder whether I refer to this last blank canvas, or something more final.

Aurora groans and drops her head onto her coiled tail.

“Don't let me interrupt your nap.”

She gives three barks of animal laughter, and her long tongue snakes out once over her lips before she settles her head and closes her eyes. A moment later one eye opens, rolling toward the mouth of the cave.

Sighing, I bend to open my jars of paint. I lift a circle of waxed linen off the precious pot of Tyrian purple, and Aurora huffs at the foul smell.

“I know,” I say. “But I can't do a Royal Moroccan with—”

There's a loud scraping sound behind me, and wind rakes at my hair and clothing. I turn, and Aurora shoots out of the mouth of the cave like she's been fired from a crossbow.

“Hey!” I shout after her, watching her figure recede into the orange-tinged sky, not sparing a glance for the costly pigment I've dropped. She's never done such a thing, not even over the stink of Tyrian purple.

My hand curls around the hilt of my sword as I move to the mouth of the cave. I speak into the breeze that caresses my face: “What did you hear?”

My eyes scan the rocky cliffs opposite our position, sweeping down to the mouth of the valley. I strain to separate shadows in the twilight, and I listen with my whole body. No firelight blinks between the trees. No smoke smudges the indigo sky. What could have caused her to bolt like that?

I can think of only one thing: a threat too dire to wait. And here I am, trapped by the treacherous descent beyond the mouth of the cave, the geography that protects us from ambush rendering me useless to anyone.

“Aurora,” I groan in frustration.

Leaves rustle in the valley below. It's just air moving through the trees, as it always does come evening, but I decide to put out my fire. I kick the burning logs apart and lift a bucket of dirt to finish the job.

“Drop the bucket and your sword.”

I spin to face the issuer of this command, bucket dropped, but sword in hand. How has he managed to creep up on me here?

His own sword is raised in warning, and slowly, with a voice like thunder rumbling in the clouds that roll in from the Mediterranean, he repeats, “Drop your sword.”

My gaze shifts beyond, to the band of sky that silhouettes him. Hope flares as I glimpse a bright point, only to blink out as I realize it's the moon rising, spilling her neutral light into our valley.

“Isabeau.” The sound of my name in this stranger's mouth—this warrior who speaks my native Occitan with a choppy, tumbling-rock accent wholly unfamiliar to me—has ignited a hot tingling at the base of my spine.

He is dangerous
.

“She's not coming,” he continues, “and this is your last chance to do as I've asked.”

He takes two steps closer and I take one step back. His movements are slow and deliberate. His body is quiet, but I don't mistake this for calm or ease. He's watching me, expecting me to challenge him.

I'll not disappoint him, if it comes to that. But if he planned to kill me he'd have done it while my back was turned, and I'd be a fool not to use this knowledge to my advantage.

“Who's not coming?” I demand, hands steady on the hilt of my sword. I keep my sword tip even with his, though he still stands nearly six feet away.

He studies me, and the effect of his light eyes glinting from within the circles he's charcoaled around them makes me feel I'm being watched by an animal. A dark line runs down from each eye, like the track of a tear, yet they do nothing to soften his appearance. A band of silvery blue, close to the color of his eyes, traces down his nose, bottom lip, and chin. His hair is a shoulder-length tangle of dark-blond waves, and a set of silver plates like small shields form a necklace that adorns his otherwise bare chest.

A muscle in his jaw tightens, but he doesn't answer.

I swallow hard so my voice won't betray emotion. “You've killed her, then?”

A tight frown bends the set line of his mouth. “
Draco?
No.” He takes a slow step toward me, eyes bright with menace. “But if you want her to live, you'll drop your sword.”

Draco
…Latin. This man is no priest. Educated by priests, perhaps. Not the barbarian he appears, with his tribal markings and animal skins.

I force my lips into a smirk. He's bluffing. He has to be. One man with a sword, however skilled, is no match for Aurora. “How will you kill her when you're here with me?”

“I'll kill her after,” he growls, surging forward. His sword arcs into the air.

Having exhausted his patience intentionally, the attack doesn't surprise me. I easily block the blow as it swoops from above.

We hang there, swords locked and grinding.

“You haven't killed her,” I challenge through gritted teeth. “You didn't kill me when it was easy. You don't intend to kill either of us.”

His blade slides and twists. I hold fast to the hilt of my sword, but allow the blade to spin with his motion as he attempts to disarm me. Before his tip can slide under my blade, I use his momentum to launch a counterattack.

The impact of his block rattles the bones of my arms and chest.

He's a match for my training, and his strength is greater. I can't last unless he makes a mistake. My sword master taught me that you can make a man forget what he knows by piquing his anger—or his lust.

“Who
are
you?” I snap, the muscles of my shoulders and forearms on fire.

He leans close to our crossed blades. He's not even sweating. “I come from the Sun King, who tires of the unruly País d'Òc. He wants your gold and your
draco
.
You,
however, are expendable.”

Louis XIV, king of France, and officially our sovereign. But it's not so easy for even a king to rule a people so far from his capital. Especially once he's called to court all the Occitan nobles who might have looked out for his interests.

“Roussillon answers only to the Artists Guild,” I hiss, shoving at him with all that remains of my strength.

He drops his resistance, and the force of my shove carries him to the ground—and me along with him. I splay across his chest, our swords pressed uselessly between our bodies.

I try to roll away, but he catches my sword arm and yanks me back. We're so close my rapid breaths lift the hair around his face. The fire of his gaze scorches my cheeks.

“Let me
go,
” I demand.

As he holds my gaze, I notice a change. A pulse of…color. Blue and silver spirals, like ink under his skin. They rise with each inhale, fade with each exhale.

Fighting hard now, I manage to scramble away from him. He rolls to his feet, blocking the entrance to the cave, watching me like a wolf. Syllables roll off his tongue like stones—a language I don't recognize. The strange markings are everywhere—I watch them rise and fade across his chest, abdomen, and forearms.

“Tell me who you are,” I breathe, backing away.

His lips part, but for a long moment he says nothing. And then finally, “Roark.”

I raise my sword between us. “
What
are you?”

His eyes narrow and his head tilts oddly, like Aurora when she's listening to something. “You don't know?”

“How could I know?” My voice takes on shrillness from fear and desperation. I'm beyond controlling it. In the time of my grandparents, a priest was burned for demonic possession of Ursuline nuns in the southern city of Aix. I'd never thought it more than a story to frighten children.

But what is this, if not a demon?

His eyes move over me, raising goosebumps on the back of my neck. During our fight he never became winded. Never loosed even a bead of sweat. Now his chest rises and falls rapidly, his skin glistening with moisture.

“You've never been taken by the color,” he says.

My jaw falls open and my grip relaxes, the tip of my sword lowering. “What?” My mouth is so dry it comes out a whisper.

Again his eyes move over me, and this time I drop my gaze to see what he sees.

My sword clatters to the floor of the cave as I grab hold of my wrist. Beneath the skin of my inner arm, patterns of color shift. Ochre and vermilion, a mirror to his blue and silver.

“What have you done to me?” I cry.

His eyes widen, brows lifting. “I've woken you.”