Iron Hearted Violet (27 page)

“I can’t bring Violet to you?”

“NO.”

“But what if she doesn’t believe me?”

“THERE IS NO HOPE WITHOUT RISK. FIND THE DOOR TO THE KING’S STUDY. THAT’S WHERE YOU’LL FIND VIOLET. TELL HER TO BRING THE DRAGON TO ITS HEART. TELL HER THAT THE DRAGON CAN HELP HER DESTROY THE NYBBAS.”

“But how?”

“SHE WILL KNOW. OR SHE WILL FIGURE IT OUT. THEN BRING THAT IDIOT STORYTELLER TO THE FRONT LINES. HE MUST EXPLAIN TO THE COUNCIL THAT THE WAR THEY FIGHT IS A WAR IN ERROR. HE MUST WARN THEM THAT A NEW ENEMY WILL ATTACK. EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND
CHILD NEEDS TO FIGHT. THE SERVANTS OF THE NYBBAS HAVE BEEN RELEASED, ALAS. AND THEY ARE COMING.”

Demetrius hardly listened after the bit about the doors. Instantly, he ran from door to door, opening wildly. He opened a door that led into the Great Hall, and another that led into a storeroom, and another that led to the library, and yet another that led into a lady’s dressing room. (That was the only one to which a rather red-cheeked Demetrius gently closed the door. The lady in question did not notice. Indeed, no one did.) Auntie, Nod, and Moth remained frozen where they stood.

“Don’t just stand there! Help me look!” Demetrius shouted as he opened doors to workrooms and dungeons and kitchens and corridors.

But Auntie looked upward. “Sir?” she said. “I must know. I’ve lived ever so much longer than I should, and have done what I can to do what is right. But I must know. Do we…”—she gulped—“
return
to you? At the end. The stories say—”

“
AUNTIE
,” the voice said gently.
“YOUR PEOPLE ARE SOME OF THE OLDEST CREATURES IN THE MULTIVERSE. INDEED, IT WAS YOUR ANCESTOR WHO WAS MY FIRST FRIEND. YOUR
PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS ENDEAVORED TO DO RIGHT, AND I HAVE ALWAYS APPRECIATED IT.”

Except for the pounding of Demetrius’s feet as he searched the names above the doors, the cavernous room was silent. “So,” Auntie said. “The answer is no? Is it yes?” Her voice wavered in her throat.

“MY BELOVED, THE TIME HAS COME TO FIGHT A TERRIBLE POWER FOR THE GOOD OF ALL. WOULD IT MATTER WHETHER YOU RETURNED TO ME OR NOT? WOULD IT CHANGE WHAT YOU DO
NOW
?”

“No, sir.”

“THEN CONTINUE, DEAR—”

“I can hear her! This is the one,” Demetrius shouted, throwing his weight against the ancient door. It didn’t move.

“It’s stuck!” he shouted.

“WAIT! DEMETRIUS! BEFORE YOU GO IN—”

“Why won’t the door open?” He smashed his weight against the door again and again.

“YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND SOMETHING ABOUT VIO—”

“
Open, curse you!
” Demetrius shouted as the door inched open a crack.
“Violet! Can you hear me?”

“SHE DOESN’T LOO—”

But the door opened, and Demetrius ran through.

The voice rumbled a sigh.

“See what I mean?” Moth said. “Intelligence. You’re the one who set this nonsense up.”

“GO. PLEASE. THE THREE OF YOU. IT CAN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT YOU.”

“Well,” Auntie said, regaining her brusque demeanor. “At least you admit it.” And with that, she bustled after Demetrius, Moth and Nod trailing behind her.

The King’s study had books lying open all over the desk. Ancient texts, journals, diagrams of dragon anatomy and dragon physiology. Violet shook her head.

“All this time. I didn’t even notice what he was doing. All I cared about was what the Nybbas told me to care about.”

“It’s a silly, vain thing and encourages silly, vain thoughts. It wasn’t your fault, Violet.” I swallowed painfully, noticing the growing shame in my own chest. “You weren’t yourself.”

“It’s no excuse,” she said, running her hand over her father’s notebook. She turned the page.

“When that thing that we do not name,” it said in her father’s slanted handwriting, “stole the hearts of every dragon in the multiverse and brought them here as slaves, much of their history became lost to them. Just as our history, from before we were brought to the mirrored world, is lost to us. Only scraps remain. Still, if these scraps are correct, then perhaps it is true that the dragon’s heart can be replaced. That the danger posed by the heat of adolescence weakens over time. And, indeed, their hearts—those weak, delicate, breakable things—may be their biggest strength after all.”

Violet didn’t look up. Instead, she rested her forehead on the heels of her hands to brace the weight of that ridiculous hair.

“He talked to you about this?” she said.

“He did,” I said. “Your father spoke to many people. Experts, thinkers, and storytellers.”

“And is it true? About the hearts?”

I paused, running my fingers through my beard. “In my profession, we do not necessarily trouble ourselves with
facts
. And
truth
is a thing typically unfettered by… that
which is
provable
. Sometimes there is a division between
accurate
and
true
.”

Violet let out a terrific grunt and slammed her fist onto her father’s desk. I jumped. “Beloved Cassian, have you always been this tiresome? Get to the point.”

My skin crawled. The beating of the stones was getting louder. And perhaps this was to happen all along, or perhaps my
noticing
caused it to happen, but in any case, a hunk of plaster detached itself from the ceiling and smashed at my feet. I yelped and scrambled away. Violet barely moved. She gazed at me with those long, lovely eyes. The eyes that were not
hers
. I shivered.

“If the stories are true, Princess,” I continued, “then without a heart in its body, the dragon is a shadow of itself—lacking in courage, lacking in soul. It is only
partially
itself. But when the heart is replaced, the dragon becomes
whole
, you see.”

“So the Nybbas—it took the hearts of dragons so it could control them, and… I don’t know. Rule things. Rule everything. So the Old Gods made the Nybbas know what it felt like—took its heart away, and with it its freedom—just like the dragons. So the heart would set it free?”

“Free from the mirror,” I mused, searching through the King’s books looking for…
something
. Anything. Any book this important wouldn’t be marked, that’s for sure. But where would the King have kept it?

Violet turned the page. “On Mirrors,” the page announced in her father’s hand. Violet leaned in closer, the weight of her hair bearing down on her neck, making her wince. “There are old stories,” her father had written, “about tribes of dragons. Dragon societies. But how could it be, when the single defining characteristic of the dragon is fear? They fear one another, almost to death, facing one another only for the production of young, and that was so rare as to precipitate their near extinction. The question then is
why
. Why make dragons fear one another and fear the edge of the mirrored world? Was it, perhaps, because the—I will not write its name—feared that the dragons would find a way to escape? Did it fear the lack of fear?”

Violet asked, “Can the mirrored edge of the world be broken, Cassian?”

“Great gods, child! Why would you suggest such a thing?”

“When I broke the mirror,” she said slowly, “the Nybbas screamed. And it was terrible, as though the creature was
in pain. But it’s trapped in the mirrored edge of the world, right? If the mirror were broken, would it kill the Nybbas? Or would it just weaken it? If it were screaming and in pain, could I finish it off?”

“It would kill all of us, Violet!” I cried, terribly alarmed. The child was mad!

“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe not. Sometimes when one world ends, another one begins. But maybe it’s worth it. We can’t let what happened to our world happen to anyone else, Cassian. We are the only ones with the power to
try
.” Violet stared at her father’s writing and looked slowly around the room. Every book that her father had studied and loved had been placed carefully on the shelves, each one dusted and adored by the King’s gentle hands. Violet’s eyes welled up, and tears streamed down her beautiful-but-wrong face. “There are infinite worlds. You taught me that. And they are
innocent
. We can’t let them come to harm, Cassian. We can’t let that thing
win
.”

“And I won’t let you kill us all!”

“My mother would have wanted us to try. She would have stood up to it. You
know
she would have. Besides, we might not die. The mirrored edge of the world has been a prison. Aren’t prisons meant to be broken?”

Madness! “Violet,” I said. “I adore you and love you as if you were my own. But you are a child, and you cannot understand, and with your parents gone, I am the closest thing you have to a guardian. I am sorry to do this, child.” I turned before she could stop me. “Guards!” I shouted, running to the door. “Guards!” The door flew open, but it was not the guards at all. In fact, it wasn’t the hallway on the other side of the door. Instead, I saw a very different hallway, with a high, curved stone ceiling and polished wood doors as far as I could see. And a boy hurling himself into the room.

“Hello, Cassian,” Demetrius said.

“
YOU WON’T RECOGNIZE VIOLET!
” a voice boomed from the other side. (And, so help me, I knew that voice!)

“Demetrius!” Violet cried, covering her face with her hands. “Don’t look at me!”

But Demetrius, upon hearing her voice, couldn’t see her through the blur of his tears, his heart hanging tightly to the friend he thought he had lost.

Violet stood, ran to the far corner of the room, and pressed herself against the wall.

Demetrius walked slowly toward his friend. He was followed by three very small and very angry creatures. They looked human… mostly, but they were small enough to fit on my shoulder. I gasped.

“Look, Auntie!” the youngest of the three said, pointing up at me. “The idiot
can
see us.”

“More proof that the world is ending,” said one of the older ones. Male, from the look of him. “And more proof
that the god we put all our hopes in is a charlatan and a fool.”

“
Moth!
” said the old female. “
Blasphemy!
Show some respect!” She looked at me with a combination of criticism, judgment, and alarm. I wanted to start making excuses, though I wasn’t quite sure for
what
yet.

Violet continued to cover her face with her hands.

“I’m serious, Demetrius. I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m not
me
. And before. When I was so awful. That wasn’t
me
, either, Demetrius. I swear it wasn’t. And I am
so sorry
.” And Violet gulped back a sob with a grunt. She squeezed her eyes tightly until they burned.

Demetrius slowly reached out his hand and touched Violet on her shoulder. “Violet,” he said, “shall we play at stories?”

Violet laughed, and cried, and fell onto her knees, leaning her forehead against the wall.

“I’ll start,” Demetrius said. “Once upon a time, the world was wholesome and good. Or so we thought. But something was waiting—something foul. And it was biding its time.”

Violet sighed deeply, running her narrow hands over her forehead and along the curve of her skull. She grabbed her braided hair in her fists and hung on tight.