Iron Hearted Violet (35 page)
Read Iron Hearted Violet Online
Authors: Kelly Barnhill
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction / Juvenile Fiction / Animals / Dragons, #Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, #Unicorns & Mythical, #Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues - Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction / Fairy Tales & Folklore - General
The twelve gods stood on the surface of the land just as the world around us shrank. Mountains curled inward and disappeared; forests contracted; landmarks once impossibly far away became so near we could have called out to them. Oceans—that just hours earlier required a ride of many days to reach—lapped against the fields that once were heavy with crops but now appeared as sand dunes covered with tough, thick grass.
We tasted salt in our mouths. From tears? From the surf? Was there any difference?
We saw the people of the Northern Mountains, the Southern Plains, the Eastern Deserts, and the Island Nations to the west all walking on foot toward the burning castle—its once-beautiful ramparts now a smoking ruin in a shrinking landscape.
And we saw Violet—plain of face, mismatched eyes, pug nose, and the most beautiful thing in all the world—kneeling on the ground, holding her father, stopping his bleeding with her hands.
(She had blundered through the darkness.)
(And in the darkness her wrong body became her right body.)
(And in the darkness, her father, lying on the ground.)
(And in the darkness, the world she knew fell away.)
The ground around her was wet. She was met by the runty god. The child stopped, swallowed. “I know you,” she said.
“
YOU DO
,” the runty god said.
“I have failed you.”
“YOU HAVEN’T.”
“My father… he won’t wake up. And my dragon…” Violet’s voice choked in her throat. Demetrius ran to his friend. He laid his hands on her face, wiping the tears away.
He pulled a cloth from his pocket and pressed it on the King’s open wound.
“
YOUR FATHER IS WOUNDED. HE WILL HEAL. NOT PERFECTLY, MIND YOU, BUT HE WILL HEAL ALL THE SAME. THERE ARE WORSE THINGS
,” the god said kindly.
“AND THE DRAGON GAVE THE LAST OF HIS FIRE and the last of his life FOR A CAUSE GREATER THAN HIMSELF. THERE IS NO BETTER THING.”
“But—” Violet said, her desperation hot and sharp in her throat. “The dragon is dead because of me. It’s my fault.”
“YOU GAVE THE DRAGON HIS LOST COURAGE AND HIS LOST LOVE AND HIS LOST HEART. HE WAS A FULL DRAGON AT LAST, SOMETHING MANY OF HIS BRETHREN NEVER KNEW IN THEIR LIFETIMES. HE HAS REJOINED HIS TRIBE. HE HAS GONE ON.”
“On?” Auntie said hopefully. “Do you mean—”
“NOT YET FOR YOU, MY DEAR,”
the god said.
“BUT YES, THERE IS AN
ON
.”
“Oh.” She gasped. Auntie fell to her knees and covered her face in her hands. “I
did
know it. I
did
believe. It’s just that—”
“THERE IS NO BELIEF WITHOUT DOUBT, CHILD. JUST AS THERE IS NO LIFE WITHOUT DEATH. AND NO DEATH WITHOUT LIFE.”
Auntie nodded, picked herself up, and walked back, as stately as she could, into the shadow of Captain Marda, who bowed to the old woman.
The land shuddered and rumbled under our feet, pulling toward the castle like water down a drain. People pointed and cried out. But as the land of our world contracted and shrank, we noticed with increasing curiosity that new land, new landmarks, were coming into view. And the sky, no longer mirrored, was a brilliant blue. And it seemed to go on forever.
“What is this place?” I asked the Old Gods. “There is a story of a land of endless sky. An ancient story. I thought it was the stuff of dreams.”
“IT IS YOUR TRUE HOME. THE WORLD YOU HAVE KNOWN WAS A PRISON BUILT FROM AN ANNEX—A BASEMENT WITHIN A LARGER WORLD. BUT THAT PRISON IS NOW BROKEN. YOU ARE FREE.”
“How can we be free if the world we have known is gone?” Violet asked.
“YOUR ANCESTORS’ ANCESTORS WERE TRAPPED INSIDE THE MIRRORED WORLD AND ENSLAVED TO A WICKED AND SELFISH GOD. THIS WIDE BLUE SKY, THIS ENDLESS GREEN LAND, THIS IS YOUR TRUE HOME. BUT IT WILL NOT BE EASY.
HERE IN THIS UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, THE PERILOUS SHORE, YOU WILL FIND FRIENDS AND FOES AND HARDSHIPS AND JOY—ALL IN EQUAL MEASURE. ARE YOU READY?”
No one spoke. No one was ready. We looked at one another in fear.
Finally: “I am,” Violet said. “I am ready.”
The runty god smiled.
“THEN, VIOLET, YOU SHALL LEAD YOUR PEOPLE INTO THE WILDERNESS AND BACK OUT AGAIN. YOU SHALL HELP THEM TO FIND A HOME. YOUR LIFE WILL BE HARD. AND DANGEROUS. AND YOUR PEOPLE WILL NEED YOU.”
“But you won’t be alone. No one can do that alone,” Demetrius said, stepping forward and taking her hand. “I’ll help.”
“AS YOU ALWAYS HAVE.”
And with that, the runty god vanished, along with his brothers and sisters. And we were left alone.
And it was time to go.
The next days were a jumble of activity, with Violet and Demetrius at the center of it all. Supplies needed to be gathered, animals tended, the wounded treated, and the dead buried. Violet sent riders ahead to map the terrain and to scout potential camps, territories, and settlements. Demetrius and his father saw to the horses and the goats and the sheep and the pigs, and sent the cattle to munch on sea grass, though they knew the cattle would wrinkle their noses at it.
Auntie, Nod, and Moth assisted with the wounded, and
the physicians were astounded at the vast stores of knowledge carried in the head of that tiny, withered old woman. They paid her every respect and deference and did their best to keep from offending or disappointing her. This was not an easy task.
The King convalesced in a knot of pain. His danger had passed, and we knew he would not die. But he would not be the same. “Even in the darkest winter,” he said to anyone who listened, “a Violet blooms in the snow,” and then he would fall to weeping, and only the sound of his daughter’s voice would soothe him.
The land under our feet—the once vast and productive fields of rich Andulan farmland—had shrunk to the size of a garden that might feed one man, but not the thousands of empty bellies that now followed the girl. Not a princess any longer—we had no use for such terms—but a girl who led her people all the same.
Toward a new home.
Into a new world.
On the morning when Violet and Demetrius set out, they shouldered their rucksacks and gathered the sick and wounded and infirm into carts. They herded their animals and led their people into that wide green country. They craned their necks up to the sky and marveled at the blue dome, the shockingly white clouds, the single, yellow sun. They were beautiful and hopeful and brave.
And the people followed—the different peoples of my world together.
I watched them as they walked to the limit of the horizon. The sky grew purple, then orange, then gold over their heads, and the light spilled onto their shoulders and shimmered on the ground. As the single sun sank, it glowed large and red above the lip of the land, hovering like a beacon before melting away.
And they marched toward the darkening sky.
And they marched toward the glint of innumerable stars.
And they vanished from sight.
I stayed behind. The castle is nothing more than a heap of blackened stones, but it is still my home.
The only things that live here now are memories: the press of people gathered around the firelight as a story unspooled at their feet. The screech of children down a long, dark hall. The cluster of books around the bent figure
of a King. The downy head of a precious child peeking out from the protective crook of her mother’s arms. And on those tiny lips, a flicker of a smile.
The memories press themselves against the stones. They breathe their life into the cracks. And I tell the story. The
true
story.
I tell the story of a story gone terribly wrong, and a wicked god, and a heartbroken King, and an idiot storyteller, and a stalwart friend, and a girl undone, and a whole world lost.
I tell the story of a girl with an iron heart, who loved the world and made it new again.
Many, many thanks to Steven Malk, Kristy King, Genevieve Valentine, Ted Barnhill, Julie Scheina, Pam Garfinkel, and Jennifer Regan for their willingness to wade through the different versions of this story, for their patience with my petulant whining, and for their gentle encouragement as I slogged through the drafting (and redrafting, and re-redrafting) of this book.
Many more thanks to Ella, Cordelia, and Leo, who heard this story when it was still leaking, unbidden, from my mouth as I told them stories in the dark. How could I write stories without you to listen to them, my darlings?
Physicists have long written about their theories of multiple universes, and most have done so using complicated equations and large words that I pretend to understand but do not. Not really. Thank you to Brian Greene, whom I have never met, but whose book
The Elegant Universe
haunts my dreams. And to Michio Kaku, who makes me glad that I live in a universe that has smart people who are willing to explain complicated things in language that rubes like me can understand. Or pretend to understand, anyway.
Scientists and poets are cut from the same bright fabric: They pull at the threads of truth from the edges of our understanding and weave them into the center; they wind bright knots, as tight as vises, binding idea to idea to idea; they cast their filaments ever outward and link our souls to the stars.