Iron Hearted Violet (30 page)

“Am I to understand,” guffawed one particularly ancient council member (Wyfryn was his name, a skeptical old fellow and not one for listening to stories), “that we are now expected—in a time of war—to take orders from a confirmed lunatic?”

“Confirmed by whom?” I cried, indignant.

“By
reason
,” Wyfryn said nastily. “Destroy all the mirrors, indeed! Inventing curses and magics when the barbarians in the north cry out for our blood and servitude. The very idea!”

“But it’s true,” Demetrius said. The council erupted.

“Who let this boy in here?” Wyfryn shouted.

“This is a council of war,” shouted a general. “Not a nursery school!”

“Get the boy out of here at once,” roared another general.

Demetrius, always such a calm boy, so implacable even in the face of panicking animals and outraged human beings, bowed his head for a moment. And because the old men and women of the council
expected
the boy to stamp and pout and throw a fuss, his calm, unflappable demeanor
shocked them into silence. Or, more likely, it was simply the presence of Demetrius himself. Something about that boy made people want to listen. The gaggle of squawking old men became instantly calmed. Demetrius cleared his throat.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the enemy at work here is
not
the enemy we are fighting against. The war that idiot Mountain King wages on us right now is a ruse. Something to put us off our guard. Something very powerful is—at this moment—inside the castle.
Inside.
Lay your hands on the stones if you don’t believe me. Feel them beating. Look at the cracks. They’ve been getting worse for weeks.”

“Fairy tales,” Wyfryn spat, though I noticed his hands shaking as he looked upward at the spidery cracks growing across the ceiling and down the walls.

“I think we both know that isn’t true. You are my elders, all of you, and you have from me the respect that is due. But I’ve heard the voices of the protectors of the castle—the protectors who made the tunnels that the Princess Violet and I roamed through from the time we were little. The protectors who were left here by the Old Gods in case the Nybbas—” A shocked gasp shot through the room.

“How does he know that name?”

“He dares speak it!”

“Its story is forbidden!”

Demetrius continued, undeterred. “In case that
thing
should find a way to awake, enlarge, and empower itself. My beloved elders,
this has happened
. It’s happening right now. The Mountain King has been manipulated by flattery and false promises. He has been duped. All it wants is its heart. Surely you can
feel
it. It’s beating right now. And getting stronger every second.”

“I feel no such thing,” Wyfryn said. “And I’ve just about heard enough. Guards! Remove both of these miscreants from our sight!”

What happened next was quite a bit of shouting, the loudest of which came from my
self
, who erupted in a long and misguided tirade about my rights as the new king, saying that I would see to it that each one of them spent the rest of his or her days rotting in the lowest reaches of the dungeons, and making other statements of an equally low and cowardly manner that I, quite frankly, am thankful have been lost to time, and world, and dimension.

“Stop,” Demetrius commanded as the guards rushed in. “You must listen,” he shouted as they bound my wrists and
pushed me roughly from the room. Demetrius, in contrast, fought and struggled, and no fewer than six guards were needed to hold him, bind him, and carry him away. This was made more difficult thanks to the actions of Nod, Moth, and Auntie, who managed to stymie the guards—a slice to the leg here, a toppled chair there, and once, an entire painting removed from the wall and smashed over one soldier’s head. “
Please!
” the boy cried, nearly in tears. “You have to believe me. I went to the center of the castle. I found the path to the temple of the Old Gods deep underground. And one of them spoke. We are in terrible danger. A rogue god, imprisoned in our mirrored sky for two thousand years, is straining at its bonds and seeks to destroy the castle and enslave our people. It did it before, and the results were terrible. We need to protect the castle. Every man, woman, and child.”

“Your lies become more fanciful by the moment, boy,” Wyfryn said. “The Old Gods are dead. Their final act was the building of the multiverse. Everyone knows that. Guards, stop the boy’s mouth until you reach the dungeons. The last thing we need is for the child to start spouting heresy to the kitchen staff.”

But neither Demetrius nor I made it farther than three
paces into the corridor. It was there that we met Captain Marda, her band of young—terribly young!—soldiers standing behind her with their knives unsheathed and their arrows nocked. Standing between two child soldiers was an elder lieutenant of the Mountain King’s guard. He was unarmed, but he did not look like a prisoner of war. His face bore no contempt, no scorn, no rage. Only terrible, terrible fear. And his eyes were fixed on the leather sack in Captain Marda’s hand. And inside the sack, something wriggled and fought. A foul-smelling steam poured through the cinched opening, and the Captain held the sack at arm’s length, though, despite that, her hand was dark red and starting to blister. Her jaw was set, and she gave a grim smile.

“I order the lot of you to stop and unbind your prisoners.” She turned to the war council gathering at the doorway, and bowed low. “Begging your pardon, my beloved, but your refusal to listen to the boy is both imbecilic and suicidal. He speaks the truth, and I can prove it.”

“Indeed, sirs,” the northern lieutenant said, bowing low. “The war, as we knew it, has altered. Or, more specifically, it is ended, and a new one has begun. Our King is missing. Or dead. Our armies have been scattered. And a terrible enemy has been cutting us down, one by one.”

“Lies!” Wyfryn cried, his ruddy face transforming to purple. “Insubordination! Captain, you shall join these two in the—”

But he stopped. All mouths hung open, and all eyes focused on that trembling, writhing sack.

Because whatever was in that sack could speak.

“
WE ARE THE SERVANTS OF THE IMPRISONED GOD
,” the sack said.
“RELEASE THE NYBBAS.”

Violet forced herself to her feet, holding on to the side of the dragon for balance.

YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T STAND.
The dragon’s thoughts wormed into her own, as though they had always been there.

“Don’t worry about me,” Violet said. She coughed violently, each cough pushing a shard of pain into her body, lodging it deep. She spat blood onto the ground. The dragon’s breath was keeping her from dying, for the time being. But it was a temporary measure and only, Violet knew, delaying the inevitable.

I am dying
, she thought.

I should be afraid to die
, she marveled.

But she wasn’t. There was a task to do.

MY HEART IS HERE
, the dragon said.
UNDER THIS GROUND. THIS IS, IN FACT, MY GROUND—FOR THE PLACE WHERE WE BURY OUR HEARTS IS SACRED TO DRAGONS. WE SHOW IT TO NO ONE. AND WHEN WE MAKE OUR YEARLY PILGRIMAGE TO VISIT OUR HEARTS, TO FEEL THEIR HOT BEATING AS NEAR AS OUR OWN BREATHS, WE ASK THE OLD ONES TO GIVE US THEIR BLESSING, AND WE PRAY THAT OUR YEARS IN SLAVERY ARE NEVER REPEATED IN THIS OR ANY LIFE.

“Yes, yes, very interesting,” Violet said impatiently. “And now it is time to dig it up. But to replace your heart, we need a blood sacrifice. The ancients were terribly clear on that. Fortunately, we have an abundance of blood—and a willing sacrificial victim.” Violet patted the arrow in her chest, sending a new, hot jolt of pain, nearly breaking her in half. “I’ll have to cut you, but the heart will heal you up once it’s back in. Or my blood will. That’s what my father’s ledgers said, anyway.”

AND THEN WHAT?

“Then everything.” Violet sank to the ground, the strain of speaking nearly sapping her entirely. “All your fear?
Well, it won’t be gone exactly, but you’ll be able to face it. In other worlds, long ago, dragons lived in tribes. They had families and societies and even nations. Because back then, everyone knew that a dragon put its heart away until the heat of adolescence faded. When dragons replaced their hearts as adults, the hearts didn’t incinerate. They heated and glowed like liquid iron.”

AND THAT WILL HAPPEN TO ME?

Violet shrugged, then winced, then coughed. She spat blood again. The sight of it made her dizzy—or perhaps the injury made her dizzy. Or the fact of dying was itself dizzying. Already her vision seemed to darken around the edges. She forced herself not to notice it. “Hopefully,” she admitted. “The truth is, you’re kind of—” Her voice trailed off.

OLD?

“Well, yes. My father was worried about it. I’d be a pretty awful person if I didn’t tell you it was risky.”

AND THEN?

“Break the mirror. You destroy the mirrored edge of the world before the Nybbas regains its heart. Once it’s out of its prison, separated from its heart, it can be killed.”

WITH FIRE?

“Yes.”
Hopefully
, she added, in the silence of her heart.

YOU ASK ME TO DO THIS. DEATH INSTEAD OF SLAVERY?

“No.” Violet squeezed her eyes shut. “I ask that
we
do it. I wouldn’t ask you to do it alone. And besides, we might not die.”
Or
, Violet thought to herself,
at least you might not.

The dragon stretched its neck upward and tilted its face toward the sky. Violet felt the inky black scales rippling over its flank, felt the shudder of fear, followed by heat, then cold, then heat again. She closed her eyes, and opened herself to the dragon’s fear. She felt it as the creature felt it—knowing full well that the dragon’s reflection at the limit of the sky was too far away to even see, but that just
knowing
it was there was reason enough to set the bones rattling and turn the bowels to water. She pressed her palm against the dragon’s side and held her breath, focusing all of her attention to her own heart, and her heart’s insistence that she not
ignore
her fear but act
because
of her fear. That her fear alone was motivation enough. She felt her heart clanging in her chest, loud as a mallet struck hard upon an iron door.

I’d give you my own heart if I could
, she thought. And she meant it.

I KNOW
, the dragon thought in reply.
STEP BACK
. It took three deep breaths, and, turning its face to the ground, shot a white-hot breath hard at the rock. It bubbled and melted
and opened into a widening gulf. Violet watched in fascination as the rock transformed to mush, then to liquid, then to steam. Finally, when the dragon had a hole about one man deep and four men wide, it reached in and pulled out a box made of glowing metal, large enough to hold a young goat. This the dragon opened, and pulled out another box, also metal, though not so hot—it steamed and smoked, but only the edges were red. Inside that box was another, not metal, but something black and hard and shiny. The dragon pulled out the box and held the object close to its body. The creature shot Violet an apprehensive glance.

“What is the box made of?” Violet asked.

ME
, the dragon thought, though its thinking was so reticent that Violet could hardly grasp it.

“You?”

WELL, NOT ME, EXACTLY
, came the slightly exasperated reply.
BUT I MADE IT. MY OWN SCALES, MY OWN BREATH, MY OWN TEARS.
The dragon sighed.
THIS IS
ME
PROTECTING
ME
.

Violet nodded. “Lie down on your back. The arrow in my chest—” She gritted her teeth and clasped the arrow’s shaft in her fist. “It’s more useful for us than those soldiers could have known. Once I remove the arrow—”

BUT YOU CAN’T!
The dragon’s thoughts rang through Violet’s skull like a bell.
YOU’LL DIE!

“My beloved,” Violet said sadly, “I’m already dying. At least this way, I won’t die in vain.”

And before the dragon could protest, Violet leaped lightly onto its abdomen and, with an anguished cry, pulled the arrow out from her ribs. She let the blood flow onto the creature’s chest. To her surprise, each drop sank instantly into the scales, disappearing entirely. Where the blood fell, the scales turned from glossy black to brilliant, blinding white. She squinted. The world around her wobbled and flowed as each ounce of strength leaked from the hole in her chest.

“Get ready, my beloved,” she said as she positioned the sharp tip of the arrow over the scales. The cut was smooth, sure, and easy. The dragon’s ribs opened like a hinge, exposing the intricate and delicate workings of its body to the naked eye.

Oh, Father!
she found herself thinking.
If only you could see!

But aloud she said, “Now! Now, my darling! Replace the heart!”

And the world around her thundered and flashed and went suddenly dark.