Iron Hearted Violet (11 page)

Later, as she laid her head on the pillow next to the Queen’s fevered face and whispered a story about a clever mouse that helped a girl win the heart of a prince, she listened to the rhythmic rumble of horse hooves assembling on the cobblestoned square and thundering away.

And that night she dreamed that she rode a black dragon. In her dream she wore a white dress, black gloves, and a flaming, pulsing heart attached to a red ribbon, tied around her throat.

The journey from the point of capture to the castle of the Mountain King should not have taken more than two days—with an hour break at midnight to rest and restore.

At the rate at which they were currently traveling, however, it was sure to take ten times as long.

“What is wrong with your horses?” the Captain shouted again. He raised his leather strap and gave the King’s horse a cruel smack on the rump.

“It’s not their fault, sir,” Demetrius said. He was weak
from loss of blood, and the world swam around him. “Our horses have been ridden hard and fast for days. They know that they are no longer in pursuit of their quarry. You may shout and threaten all you want, but these animals are intelligent, and you have not persuaded them.”

This, my dears, was a lie, and a clever one at that. But the Captain—given that he was a man of the mountains and not of the Andulan Realms—would never have guessed the truth of the matter. You see, the people of the Northern Mountains, as well as the people in the Southern Plains and the Eastern Deserts and the Island Nations to the west, all saw their animals as simple beasts of burden. But we in the central kingdom felt differently.

And so it was that Demetrius and the King and all the captured party, in their deepest hearts, whispered to their horses.
Slow down
, their hearts breathed.
Delay. Plod and shuffle, my beloved.
The horses knew and understood. And no amount of barked orders or cruel lashes on the back would persuade the animals to hasten.

The King watched the far rim of the horizon and was soon rewarded with the sight of five falcons, flying in formation in the distant sky.

And they were growing nearer.

Violet rested her chin on her fists as she lay sprawled on the floor next to her mother’s bed, her father’s papers strewn before her like stars. She had tried to organize them according to topic—the stacks of notes on dragon biology here, the notes on the mathematics and science of flying over there, the pages and pages of history and lore over there—but there was too much
in between
. Too many pages that
might
be story and
might
be science and
might
be history and
might
be complete balderdash, but she had no way of knowing.

She read, “The fact that dragons once roamed freely throughout the multiverse before finding themselves trapped—en masse—in our mirrored world is something of a puzzle. I have kept, as have my fathers and mothers before me, the details of the Forbidden Tale a secret, guarding it deep in my heart, though I never believed it to be true. I have never believed in the Old Gods, and certainly never believed in their rogue sibling. But the secret is tradition, and I have kept it, just as my child will after me.”

Violet felt her blood turn to ice.

“Still,” she read on, “there are facts that cannot be ignored. In which case, the successful regrafting of the dragon’s heart might be of a larger importance than the simple continuation of the species. Indeed, this may be the most important task ever undertaken in the history of the mirrored world.”

Violet felt her breath quicken.

She thought of the painting in the hidden library.

The mirrored figure standing on the dragon hearts.

The chained dragons with the fierce teeth and fierce jaws and blank, blank eyes.

Violet shuddered and turned the page.

And then she read this:

“The writings of Odd the Obscure and Reginald the Wanderer and B’thindra the Other all point to the same conclusion—the Forbidden Tale is true, the thing whose name we do not speak is as real as worlds, and it did, ever so long ago, bring dragons here as slaves, and it did take over our world, and it did have plans to control the rest of the multiverse before it was stopped by the Old Gods. What Cassian has always told me is wrong: The tale is
true
.”

The tale is true.

Violet gathered her father’s notes and slipped them into his ledger before binding it shut and shoving it into her satchel.
If this story
, she thought,
this Forbidden Tale is true, then what other stories are true? And if the stories are true, then why is the world so removed from the way it is supposed to be?

Violet stood for a long time in front of the mirror in her mother’s room. Her mismatched eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. Her unruly hair had achieved new levels of unruliness. Her normally blotchy skin was now raw and chapped and livid.

She was well and truly and
terribly
ugly. She couldn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t look away.

She had been, day after day, telling her mother stories, and each of these stories depicted valiant kings, radiant queens, and impossibly beautiful princesses.
This is the world as it should be
, the poor girl thought.
But somehow everything has gone wrong.

I have made it wrong.

I am all wrong.

The Queen stirred and murmured in her sleep. No words escaped her dry lips, just an assortment of sounds. Violet went to her mother’s bed. She kissed the Queen’s feverish hands and her feverish cheeks and her feverish lips.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” she said. “There’s a way to make this right. I
know
there is. And I am going to find it.” And with that, Violet set off with new determination to find that dusty corridor.

She would find that library.

And she would find that book.

And she would find that painting that tried to take over the world. Anything that could do
that
would have powers. And answers.

She would find all these things, and she would set the world right. She
had
to.

“I’ll be back soon, Mama,” she said as she shut the door behind her.

“
No!
” cried the feverish Queen in her feverish dreaming. But Violet was already gone and didn’t hear her.

YYYYEEEEESSSSSS
, whispered the Nybbas.

Demetrius, despite the injury to his shoulder that, even now, continued to slowly leak blood onto his shirt, crooned to the horses. Everyone in the hunting party did. But Demetrius could
feel
the horses’ desire to run, to protect the people they loved. He could feel their growing frustration.

Horses, as you may know, my dears, are loyal creatures, devoted to their masters and families.

Demetrius had to be firm.
Soon, beloved. Plod. Shuffle. Limp. Be ready.

It was almost time. He knew from the wide circling of the five falcons that their friends had arrived.

Quick
, his heart urged the King’s horse.
Go lame. Now.

The horse grumbled silently but did it all the same. With a stumble and a sharp whinny, the King’s horse wobbled dangerously—nearly falling over and crushing its rider. It righted itself with a snort, lifted its left foreleg, and refused to place it down again.

“What now?” the Captain cried.

“I don’t know,” the King said slowly, an inscrutable look on his face. “I only hope that it is merely a bruise. I would hate to lose this horse.”

The Captain smiled. “Oh,
Your Majesty
.” His upper lip curled, showing his long, yellow teeth. “I suspect you’ll lose much more than that. There are rules about the crimes of war. Morality is merciless, after all.”

The King gazed back, his face expressionless. The Captain cleared his throat, dropped his gaze to the bonds cutting deeply into the King’s wrists, and shrugged. He unsheathed his dagger.

High in the sky, the falcons soared in a wide arc, their mouths open and screeching.
It’s him! It’s him!
their voices
seemed to call as they tumbled over updrafts and spiraled through the wind.
Strike when the hands are free.

They kept their eyes on the man with the long coat. They saw him lean toward the King. They saw the bright slice of a blade in his hand; they squinted at the glint of its edge in the sun.

“I think, Randall, that I shall have you ride with me,” the Captain said, cutting the strap that bound the King’s ankles. “This pathetic excuse for a horse will be far more useful as food for those vultures over there once its throat is cut.”

He brought the blade to the King’s wrists and cut the first strap.

“I should let you know,” the King said casually as the second strap snapped free under the blade. “Those aren’t vultures.” The third strap snapped. The King lifted his hand. “They’re falcons.”

And before the Captain could react, the King fell lightly to the ground, and the falcons attacked.

When the first falcon shot forth, the King’s soldiers unsheathed their swords and leaped out of the thickets and into the battle.

Though it seemed to Demetrius to take an eternity, the battle lasted little more than an hour’s quarter. Two Andulan
soldiers lay dead on the ground, their mouths still open and aghast, and the bodies of four guards from the mountain kingdom were crumpled in heaps under the trees. Those who remained—including the Captain, bleeding heavily from one eye—were rounded together, swords leveled at their hearts.

The King sat astride his horse, his sword pointed casually at the Captain, who, despite great pain, managed to force a look of sullen malevolence onto his bleeding face.

“The Mountain King will answer to this brazen act of violence,” King Randall said, his voice low and cold and even. “In the meantime, I want you and your men to mount your horses and quit this place. Immediately.”

“And go without weapons?” the Captain sputtered. “The wild animals will tear us to pieces.”

“Which means that you shall have your speed and your hands, in addition to your wits, as means of survival. I assume the mercy I show you now is greater than what you or your monarch were willing to afford us. Indeed, I daresay it is more than my men- and women-at-arms likely wish that I would grant.” In response, the hunters and soldiers raised their swords, baring their gritted teeth. “Still,” the King continued, “the right is mine to offer mercy or
retribution. I choose mercy. You have your lives, and we will bury your dead with honor. Go. Now. And do not look back.”