Iron Hearted Violet (31 page)

Captain Marda reached into the bag and pulled out a small, golden-scaled lizard. Its skin shone like molten gold, and I found myself wondering whether her hands would blister and burn as she held the creature. It struggled and thrashed against her grip. Its mouth, madly snapping at the air, was curiously filled with row upon row of bright black teeth, each one barbed and tilting inward. Even more curious, its mouth was
only
teeth. No tongue, no palate, no soft tissue around the throat. A mouth that looked as though it could never be used for eating. Or speaking, either, not that I
expected a lizard to talk, and yet a voice came out of the creature—not from its
mouth
, mind you, but from the creature
itself
. “
FREE THE HEART OF THE NYBBAS
,” it said—which is to say, its
body
said—over and over and over again. That lizard was a
weapon
. A moving, reactive, sentient weapon, but a weapon all the same. I shuddered to look at it.

“My lords and ladies,” Captain Marda said. She did not tell her band of young soldiers to lay down their weapons, nor did the armed guards surrounding the council lay down theirs. They looked to the Captain, then to the unarmed northern soldier, then back to the Captain. Still no one seemed willing to make the first strike. Had there not, everyone reasoned, been enough of us killed? Could we bear it if a drop of Andulan blood were spilled by Andulan hands?

Captain Marda cleared her throat. “My beloved,” she added, because it was proper. “I wish to show you something, that you might understand the nature of the threat that is, even now, drawing closer to the castle, our home.” She turned to one of her soldiers—a girl younger than Violet. “Lilan,” Marda said, “if you please.”

The girl paled slightly but did not hesitate. With heavily
gloved hands, she grasped the lower half of the creature’s body, and Captain Marda unsheathed her knife. The cut was quick and bloodless. Indeed, the knife sliced through the creature silently and easily, without the resistance of bone or sinew. But before we could wonder at it, the Captain began barking orders at the girl.

“Hold tight now, soldier. Don’t let that thing touch the castle.”

Lilan, now quite red in the face, gripped the halved creature with both hands, holding it as far from her body as she could. And in an instant, I understood why.

A head peeked from the bloodless wound. Two hard, glittering eyes blinked in their golden sockets. Two bright shoulders wriggled free, followed by the upper half of a body. And, in Marda’s hand, the other half of the creature sprouted a new tail, new hips, and new flanks. Where there had been one, there were now two.

Captain Marda grabbed Lilan’s doubled lizard and threw both of them into the sack. They wriggled and thrashed and screamed.

“This is what we’re up against. A swarm of…
creatures
—though they are unlike any creatures that I’ve ever seen. A swarm of weapons. There are millions of them, and they
have been gathering from all corners of the world—though from where, exactly, and
how
, I cannot say. But it seems that they are done amassing and are now on the move. And while they are slow, they are relentless. By my estimation, they will arrive by morning.”

The northern lieutenant spoke up. “These… things cannot be beaten by the sword. And while one can do damage, a dozen can rip a man to pieces. This I have seen.” He shut his eyes tightly, and his face clouded over. “We lost an entire camp. Good soldiers. Children too young to be soldiers, but soldiers all the same. We panicked and scattered. I do not know how many were lost.”

The Captain cast a shrewd eye on the guards binding and gagging poor Demetrius, who still struggled in their hands, his eyes wide and horrified, unable to look away from that terrible sack. “Would you care to release that boy, soldier? He looks as though he has something to contribute to this conversation.”

“No,” Wyfryn began, his voice weak and faded. “There is nothing. He’s just a—”

“
Release him
, soldier,” the Captain interrupted, her voice so forceful that the young soldier obeyed at once. Wyfryn
tried to say something else, but the words garbled in his mouth and leaked into a whine.

“Captain,” Demetrius said once the gag was out of his mouth, “the Princess Violet is alive. That name the lizard spoke? The Nybbas? It is the name of a god—a wicked god. And it is trying to enslave our world, and every world. Violet was tricked and transformed by the Nybbas. It is imprisoned and hobbled in the mirrored edge of the world, and cannot act without being ordered. Not without its heart. We have to protect the castle. The heart
is
the castle. It’s inside each stone. As long as the Nybbas does not have its heart, it’s vulnerable. Or that’s what the runty god said. Violet has gone—” Demetrius’s voice cracked, his worry for his friend nearly breaking him in half. “She’s gone to get the dragon, and the two of them will find a way to defeat the Nybbas—to destroy it. We
have
to buy her some time. Once the Nybbas has its heart back, there won’t be a thing we can do about it. We have to keep those creatures away from the castle for as long as possible, or everything has been in vain.”

“The creatures are devilish,” the lieutenant said, “but they are not insurmountable. Nets deter them. So do ditches.
Anything to disrupt the swarm, turn it in on itself, will buy you some time. And if the sword is useless, perhaps we should try fire.”

Captain Marda turned to the council who, every last one of them, looked at the floor. Some of them—Wyfryn included—were muttering words like
preposterous
, and
fanciful
, and
fairy tales
. While others just stood in a stunned silence, every once in a while stealing glances at the thrashing sack in the Captain’s hand. “Since the King appointed Cassian as lord regent, it matters not what
you
have to say. You served at the pleasure of the King, and now it is Cassian whose pleasure matters. Your illegal arrest notwithstanding.” She turned to me, and though she bowed, her eyes were as sharp as a sword to my heart. “Beloved Cassian,” she said. “Last I checked, you were still regent. What are your orders?”

And perhaps it was the sudden realization of the terrible danger that my darling Violet was in, or perhaps it was the pleading look on the face of Demetrius, or even the tiny dagger in the hand of an invisible Nod pressed firmly against my throat. In any case, I felt the spell of the Nybbas fall away from my soul like a spent cocoon. I shook myself, feeling suddenly free.

I was ready, at last, to do the right thing.

“Gather every man, woman, and child. Every person with two hands and strength enough to heft a shovel or haul wood or push a cart. We will be ready to fight by morning.”

When Violet woke, she was warm, comfortable, and cradled in a pair of arms, her cheek pressed to something smooth and alive, the sound of a heart’s beating thrumming against her skin.

In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as an infant, gently bound in a soft cloth and tied securely to her mother’s body. She felt a memory of her mother’s hands, and that memory was immediate and tactile and terribly alive. Her hair, her skin, her dark, husky voice—all were as close as breathing. Violet nearly shattered with grief. Very slowly, she opened
her eyes. It wasn’t her mother’s arms around her—of course it wasn’t. Her mother was dead and buried.

The arms holding her, the heart beating next to her own—they belonged to the dragon. It rocked her back and forth as though she were an infant.

PLEASE WAKE UP. OH, PLEASE, PLEASE WAKE UP
, the dragon silently pleaded.

“Mama?” Violet whispered in her stupor. Then she coughed. Then groaned. “I mean, Dragon.”

YOU’RE ALIVE!

“I am?” Violet looked around. The wound in her chest had been dressed and bandaged with a shiny, pearly substance that adhered directly to her skin. Dragon tears, Violet guessed. It ached terribly, but the bleeding had stopped.

DON’T MOVE. YOU’VE LOST A LOT OF BLOOD.

“Where are we?” But once the words were out of her mouth, she knew. The sky met the earth like the edge of an upturned bowl, and curved smoothly upward and outward, until the reflections in its surface blurred into a broad, slick shimmer.

THE EDGE OF THE MIRRORED WORLD.
The dragon’s thoughts were hushed and amazed.
YOU WERE RIGHT. I’M NOT AFRAID. I CAN HARDLY
REMEMBER
EVER BEING AFRAID.
The dragon stared at its reflection, enlarged and enormous in the sky’s concave surface, a look of wonder on its face. It turned its head this way and that. It blinked its one bright eye.
I SUPPOSE IT WOULD BE RUDE TO SAY THAT I AM BEAUTIFUL, BUT I DO
FEEL
THAT IT MUST BE SO.

“You didn’t have to bring me here,” Violet said, forcing herself to her feet. She saw the reflection of her body—her wrong body—in the curved mirror of the sky. She grimaced and looked away. It made her sick to see it. “You could have let me die.”

The dragon turned its head toward the girl, gazing at her sadly.
NO
, it said.
I COULDN’T. I COULDN’T LEAVE YOU AT ALL. I TRIED TO LEAVE YOU—TRULY I DID. BUT LOVE HELD ME BACK. IT IS, IN THE END, ANOTHER KIND OF SERVITUDE. BUT I CHOOSE IT. AND THAT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

Violet looked away.
Does love bind us
? she wondered.
Or does it set us free?
She did not know, but looked up at the mirrored sky instead. The Nybbas was in there.
Somewhere.

A HEARTBREAKING SCENE
, said a whispery, slithery voice from the other side of the mirrored edge of the known world. It sniggered unpleasantly.
I THINK I MIGHT CRY.

Violet watched in horror as an image of her
self
(herself
as she
was
, as she was
supposed
to look before she foolishly asked the Nybbas to change her) uncurled from the rim of the land and grew to hideous proportions against the curve of the mirrored sky, an unnaturally broad smile snaking across its face. The Violet-shaped image threw back its head and laughed, its mismatched eyes leaking tears.

“You!” Violet cried, ignoring the wound in her chest, picking up a rock and throwing it at the image’s belly. The pain knocked her sideways. She toppled over with a thud. The rock bounced off with a metallic clink and fell to the ground. It didn’t leave even a scratch.

ME
, the Nybbas said, tossing back the tangled curls that were
supposed
to belong to Violet, and running its tongue along that dear chipped tooth.
THOUGH I MUST APOLOGIZE FOR MY APPEARANCE.
It cast a smug glance down at itself.
I CAN ONLY ASSUME IT’S DUE TO YOUR INCESSANT AND UNGRATEFUL LONGING FOR YOUR ORIGINAL FORM.
It examined its bitten nails.
CAN’T THINK WHY. AND AFTER MY KINDNESS AND
EVERYTHING
.

“You’re a thief.” She gritted her teeth and threw another rock. The dragon-tears bandage pulled away from her skin a bit, and the girl started to bleed. The rock bounced, and
the Nybbas smiled wider with Violet’s mouth. “And a cheat,” Violet screamed. Another rock. More blood. “And I want my face back!”

It rolled its eyes.
I’D PART WITH IT WILLINGLY, IF I COULD. THIS APPEARANCE IS… AN UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECT, AND AN UNPLEASANT ONE AT THAT. I WILL CAST IT AWAY ONCE MY USEFUL LITTLE TOOLS HAVE THEIR WAY WITH THE CASTLE. AND I, AT LAST, WILL BE FREE. ALL I’VE EVER WANTED, VIOLET, ASIDE FROM MY OWN FREEDOM, WAS YOUR FRIENDSHIP, AND YET YOU’VE SPAT ON MY SIMPLE REQUESTS AND TREATED ME LIKE
GARBAGE
.

“No,” Violet said quietly. “I haven’t. You are worse than garbage. You are a liar. And a charlatan.
And you are no one’s friend.
”

The Nybbas-in-the-shape-of-Violet shrugged.
NO MATTER
, it said.
YOU HAVE BEEN USEFUL, MY CHILD, AND I WILL REMAIN GRATEFUL FOR YOUR WILLINGNESS TO EMPOWER ME WHEN I NEEDED POWER AND FOR BREEDING CHAOS EXACTLY WHEN CHAOS WAS REQUIRED. I SHAN’T FORGET YOUR HELP. INDEED, EVEN NOW, AS MY HEART IS IN MY GRASP, I KNOW THAT I SHALL EASILY BE
ABLE
TO KILL YOU ONCE I HAVE THE STRENGTH TO STEP OUT OF MY PRISON, BUT I THINK I SHALL
NOT
. I THINK I SHALL GIVE YOU A
FIRSTHAND LOOK
AT THE LOVELY DEVASTATION YOU HAVE CAUSED FOR MY BENEFIT.