Veiled Rose (49 page)

Beana bellowed like a bull and charged the young lord, butting him hard in the gut and sending him sprawling. The poker clanged across the floor as it flew from his hand. “Beana, no!” Rose Red cried, afraid that one of the others, who were grabbing weapons and approaching menacingly, would strike at her goat. She cast a desperate look at Daylily.

But the baron’s daughter stood quietly, her gaze averted.

Rose Red grabbed Beana and, though she was hardly bigger than the goat herself, lifted the animal off her feet and ran from the kitchen. A kitchen knife struck the door close to her ear as she went. Once outside, she put the goat down and barked, “Run!”

The two of them fled while the newly liberated prisoners gave hot pursuit, shouting and brandishing whatever makeshift weapons they could find, furious in their terror. For although the Dragon was gone, his poisons lingered, and the frightened men and women must find some vent for their fear.

And Rose Red had forgotten that she no longer wore her veil.

T
HE
N
EAR
W
ORLD

S
HE BELIEVED HIM.

Light of Lumé be praised, Una believed him!

Lionheart may have been sacked. He may have been penniless. He may have been half a world away from his homeland. But as he made his way down Goldstone Hill that night, his heart exulted. He thought he might spread wings and fly all the way back to Southlands! For Una believed, and Una had given her trust.

She’d given him more than that.

Lionheart opened his hand to look at what nestled in his palm. Even in the darkness on the hillside, the white stones shone smooth and the opal fire inside gleamed.

He’d told her the whole story, of course. Everything, from the moment the Dragon arrived in Southlands and enslaved the whole country. He told her how he’d traveled to the Far East and learned how the monster could be defeated. He’d not revealed that little detail, of course. That was secret knowledge. Besides, he didn’t want her to think he would take the ring from her.

And he wouldn’t have. Even as he’d poured out his heart to her, Lionheart had known he could never do as the Lady asked. He would return to Southlands on his own and face the Dragon. But he’d do it without robbing Una.

Then, lo and behold! A miracle had happened. Just as he had turned to go, she’d called out to him again.

“Here,”
she’d said, twisting the ring off her finger and pressing it into his hands.
“It was my mother’s. I don’t know how much it is worth, but something close to a king’s ransom, I should think. Use it for your journey and . . . and come back soon.”

Lionheart smiled as he remembered her words. Perhaps the storybooks weren’t so farfetched after all? All those foolish songs of Sir Eanrin at which he had scoffed, those touting the virtues of true love and self-sacrifice . . . maybe they weren’t the twaddle of an idiot? For Una loved him and had entrusted him with her ring. And he loved her, and would prove the hero he must be.

Don’t forget your dream!

“You see,” he whispered when the Lady’s voice came to him. “I haven’t forgotten! I’ve got what you sent me here for. I will kill the Dragon yet.”

But, sweet prince, that is not your dream.

Lionheart closed his hand around the ring once more, frowning. “What . . . what do you mean?”

You dream of being prince once more. You said nothing of killing the Dragon.

“I . . . I did. I cannot be Eldest if I don’t kill him.”

You asked how you might deliver Southlands from the Dragon. You said nothing of killing him.

“I—” There on the empty road leading down from Oriana Palace, Lionheart stood still and pressed his fists to his temples. “I must kill . . . I must—”

“Well met, boy.”

Lionheart’s eyes flew open. He felt dizzy, disoriented, for the Lady’s presence was heavy in his mind. Even so, he made out the dark figures surrounding him in an ever-closing circle.

He stood face-to-face with the Duke of Shippening.

“Beastly lout, eh?” said the duke, and his face twisted into an ugly smile. “Funny song, that.”

Lionheart swallowed and shook his head, trying to focus. “It was a . . . a joke, Your Grace,” he stammered. Then he bowed for good measure. “A jester’s joke, no more. A Fool has to—”

While he was still doubled over in his bow, someone smacked him from behind, sending him sprawling at the duke’s feet.

Shippening looked down from around his ample stomach. “I’m not what you take me for, boy,” he said. Then he leaned over and grabbed Lionheart’s shirtfront, hauling him up to stare into his face. The duke’s breath was foul, and he spat when he spoke. “I am not the fool here.” His smile vanished behind the deadliest expression Lionheart had ever seen. “What’s more, I remember you. I don’t forget a face.”

He struck. Lionheart’s head exploded with pain, driving even the Lady from his mind. The duke’s voice was low and biting, like slow-working poison. “You stole my slave from me. You made a laughingstock of me before my guests and took from me a gift from my ally. A gift not easily reclaimed.” He struck again, and his blow was like a hammer, jarring Lionheart’s senses. A third blow, a fourth; then the duke dropped him. Lionheart lay where he fell, his mouth open in soundless agony.

“Take him,” said the duke. “Bind him. We’ve got ourselves a journey tonight.”

They followed one of the Paths.

Lionheart was blindfolded and trussed up like a hunting trophy slung between two broad men. But he felt the moment they stepped onto the Path. It brought back with painful clarity, even through the pounding of his head, that night on the mountain when he had lost himself in the darkness and wandered in a world not his own.

But there was no Rose Red to call to his aid now. Besides, his mouth was gagged.

He still clutched Una’s ring in his hand, however, and he drew comfort from knowing it was there. Whatever else happened, he had what he’d come for. He’d just have to figure out the rest as he went.

Then the presence of the Dragon drove everything else from his mind.

Fire surrounded Lionheart everywhere, even deep inside himself. Fire and rage.

“Years I have wasted!” the Dragon’s voice boomed like thunder. “Five years and more bound in this incarnate body, pursuing that little beast! She is not the one I seek. But I won the game!”

Then, to Lionheart’s surprise—and somewhat to his horror—he heard the Duke of Shippening respond:

“Whatever, Dragon. I could not care less about your little games. Just tell me if I can gut this joker man here and now, or if I must wait a little longer?”

The blindfold was ripped from Lionheart’s face, and he was tossed, still bound, to his knees. When he struggled upright, he found himself staring up at a being at least seven feet tall, with a face like a skull, skin stretched over the bone in a thin sheet. Black hair fell down his shoulders.

His was the face from the portrait in Oriana’s hall. He was the Dragon.

Lionheart screamed inarticulately and hid his face in his bound hands. Poison filled the air; he breathed in lungsful. It boiled his blood.

“Come, Dragon,” said the duke. “You told me to bring the wretch to you, and bring him I have, alive even, though I had ideas enough in another direction. Tell me, can I kill him now?”

The Dragon snarled and hissed, white lips drawing back across his long black teeth. “Prince Lionheart,” he said. “We meet again.”

“A prince, eh?” said the duke and kicked Lionheart in the side. “Thought he had too much snobbery about him by half. That don’t make me like him any better, though. Is he the little brown prince of Southlands what’s been missing all these years? Fancy that.”

Lionheart could not hear the duke. His head pounded with poison.

But he still clutched Una’s ring.

“You were to be the key,” said the Dragon to Lionheart while ignoring Shippening as one might an irritating housefly.

But the duke persisted. “He freed the slave you gave me. Bold as brass, took off the creature’s collar and liberated it! By rights, he should have been put in a gibbet and left to starve years ago. I’m only asking to make up for lost time.”

“Enough,” said the Dragon, gnashing his teeth at the duke. “You’ve done your work, bringing him to me. Now cease your babble before I forget our alliance and have you for a late supper.”

The duke opened his mouth, thought twice, and closed it. His face went red with impotent wrath.

The Dragon turned to Lionheart again. “You were to be the key to the princess’s undoing. But she wasn’t the one I sought!” He lunged. His hands went about Lionheart’s neck, and his eyes burned the skin on Lionheart’s face. “Where is she? Where is the Beloved of my Enemy? All the signs told me that you were the key, but the little goblin withstood me. So where is my rightful prey?”

Lionheart couldn’t speak. He felt the life flowing from him, and for the moment, he did not care. Death would be better than this current existence, this fire in his veins that melted him from the inside out.

“Where is she?” the Dragon roared.

Suddenly the Lady was there. The ice of her coming was more painful than the fire, but she broke the Dragon’s hold and stepped between him and the fainting prince. Even the duke screamed at the sight of her, and his men fell to their knees and hid their faces.

“What is going on here?” she demanded.

“You should have let me have him,” the Dragon snarled. “He was supposed to be the key. If I’d had him, I could have convinced her to take my kiss.”

“You were never going to convince her,” his sister said. “You never won her in our game.”

“If not her, then whom?”

The Lady smiled. “Ask the prince what he has in his hand.”

The Dragon’s eyes narrowed to fiery slits. “Why?”

“Ask him and see.”

The Dragon turned on Lionheart, who had slumped to his side and lay with his knees curled up to his face. He could hardly breathe, the poison was so great. He closed his eyes, desperate not to see those looming specters.

“What do you have in your hand?”

Lionheart’s fist tightened.
No!
They could take everything else. They could take his kingdom, his family, his identity. They could take his life. But Lumé help him, they would not take Una’s ring! He’d worked too long and too hard. It was the key to the Dragon’s undoing. It must be! The oracle had said . . .

“Lionheart, my darling,” said the Lady, kneeling down beside him. “Show my brother what you hold.”

He looked up into her terrible, empty eyes. “You . . . you said—”

“I said I would show you how to deliver Southlands from the Dragon. This is the only way. Show him what you have.”

Closing his eyes, Lionheart uncurled his fingers.

The Dragon roared. “He holds the heart of a princess!”

“Not just any princess, my brother,” said the Lady, turning to the Dragon once more. “That is the heart of Princess Una, Beloved of the Prince of Farthestshore. Your Enemy.”

The Dragon’s cloak billowed back in a sudden blast of heat. Lionheart screamed and closed his hand around Una’s ring once more. He saw black wings and a great black body rising above him, towering as great as a mountain, and he thought he would melt in the heat. Red eyes filled his vision, and he looked once more into the face of Death.

“Give me her heart, Prince Lionheart,” said the Dragon. The duke and his men fled, leaving Lionheart alone before the monster. “Give me her heart, and I will let you live.”

“No!” Lionheart cried, raising his hands to shield his face from the heat, Una’s ring still clutched in one of them.

The Dragon laughed, a terrible sound as hot as the flames flickering between his teeth. “Your life for her heart. That’s the best I can offer you.” The two red eyes lowered, and the awful mouth hovered just above the prince so that he thought he would be devoured then and there. He huddled down, helpless and quivering in the shadow of the beast.

The Lady was at his ear, speaking eagerly. “You must choose! Choose your dream!”

“It is an easy enough exchange,” said the Dragon. “Then you may return to Southlands, reclaim your crown, rule your people. Only give me the heart of this princess, your love.”

“No!” He could not hear his own voice.

“I will eat you now, little prince. And I will return to Southlands and burn it to ash. I will swallow your homeland in one mouthful and still be hungry for more! Only you can prevent it, Lionheart. Not by killing me. You cannot kill me. No sword you can wield will ever pierce my skin, little man! So save yourself and save your people, and give me the heart of this Una, for I have greater need of it than you do.”

Lionheart thought the flesh would melt from his bones. Poison filled his soul.

“Choose your dream,” urged the Lady. “Give my brother the girl’s heart, for he played the game with me and won, and he must have it now. Give it to him!”

“Give it to me!”

Lionheart, lying on his face, his arms flung out before him, slowly opened his fist.