Dragon Rose (26 page)

I returned to the hearth and stood in front of the fire, combing out my damp locks, hoping the heat would dry them sufficiently so I could return to the painting soon. It was then that Sar came to check on me and have the bath removed. Once more I watched as the guarded expression on her face softened somewhat when I thanked her for the bath and told her of my plans to do some painting.
 

She told me that sounded like an excellent notion and went back out, now that the tub had been removed by the two burly servants whose sole job it seemed to be to move the thing from place to place within the castle. I found myself wondering then if Theran used the same tub…but no. That way only lay more tortured imaginings, and I had had quite enough of those.

Better to go into my bedchamber and retrieve the painting, now that I knew myself to be truly alone. The preparation took more time than it usually did, simply because all the pigments on my palette had quite cracked and dried, and I had to carefully measure out a good batch of new ones. Perhaps it was a blessing, for in doing so I had to focus on the task at hand and nothing else.
 

At length, however, they were ready, and I picked up my paintbrush, surveying the portrait with care. Truly, I had so very little left to do—enhance the shading of the fabric on his right shoulder, to evoke more of the velvet’s nap, and perhaps the lightest touch at the crown of his head, to bring out the slightest hint of deep brown in those otherwise raven tresses. But I knew I must keep going until I was satisfied, until I thought the man’s image was truly complete.
 

Even those small things took longer than I had thought, and I paused at one point to light all the candles in the room. Their flickering illumination was oddly comforting, as if the dancing flames were a series of delicate little companions, something to help me believe I was not quite so alone. With them to guide me, I returned to my work.

I did not note the hours passing, and no one came to look in on me. Finally, though, I stepped away from the painting, and realized I was done.

Nothing to add, nothing to change. Nothing to do but stand there and gaze at him, and have those painted eyes regard me in return.

What had I expected? I honestly did not know. My mind had been a stranger lately, slipping from one fancy to another, dwelling in darkness. Perhaps I had thought once the painting was done, the man within it would step forth to rescue me from my solitude.

Of course he did not.
 

I realized I still held the paintbrush clenched in my fist. Very gently I set it down on the worktable. I knew I should lift up the portrait, set it back in its hiding place, put myself to bed. It had to be very late, even though I had dined early.
 

I didn’t know where the thought came from. It echoed in my mind, soft and insidious, oddly compelling.

She will tell you what to do next.

Perhaps once I might have paused to question it. However, in that moment, in my emptiness and despair, I knew where I must go.

Dark and silent the corridors of the castle, only a candle in its sconce from time to time to light my way. I slipped through the dim hallways, moving silent as a shadow, heading back to the place where I had thought I would never return.
 

Even colder now than it had been, my breath like shards of crystal here in the abandoned chambers. Of course these rooms had no candles, but a full moon poured its icy light through the tall, narrow windows. Somehow I knew where to go.

The book had several loose sheets tucked within its pages. They drifted to the ground like withered leaves, and I knelt to retrieve them. The same scrawling hand, although it seemed slightly clearer than in the note with its five words repeated over and over. More than five words here, too, at least as far as I could tell. I moved to the window, ignoring the chill air that seeped around the frame. I was far colder than that by now; my heart had turned to ice.

There is only one way out. It seems so simple, now that I understand. A moment of pain, perhaps, but then I will be free of this place. I will fall, and drift on the wind.

I will be free of him.

It seemed so clear to me then. I had finished my painting. What else did I have to hold me to this place? I could go, and there would be a new grave for the snow to drift upon, and then in five or seven years the Dragon would summon another Bride. My heart ached for her, but I knew I could not warn her. Whatever doom came upon her, it must be hers alone.

The latch was stiff, the wood swollen with damp and neglect. I felt a fingernail break upon it, and yet I still struggled with the stubborn piece, somehow telling myself that it must be
here
. It must be this window, for from here I would drop quickly, with nothing to break my fall. It must be here, for the tower was quite desolate, and no one would mark what I had planned to do until it was too late.
 

Finally the latch lifted out of its housing, and I tossed it away into a corner before pushing the window open. A rush of freezing night air blew in, lifting my hair away from my face, penetrating my dressing gown as if it were not there. Well, it did not matter. In a few minutes, I would feel nothing at all.

I grasped the casement with both hands, steeling myself for what would come next. As she had said, it would be only a moment of pain. Only a moment.

“Rhianne!”

His voice cut like a whip crack through the empty rooms.

No. I would not allow him to stop me.

Fingers tightening against the rough stone, I pushed myself outward, letting the night wind embrace me.

“No!”

His voice fell behind me, dropped away as I let myself drift into the cold air. White swirls of snowflakes followed me down, wrapping around me. Their touch was gentle, as if in welcome. Why, this would not hurt at all…

But then a rush of movement, the glint of gleaming scales beneath the harsh moon. Clawed hands reached out to grasp me, to pluck me from the wind’s embrace and gather me into his own. I struggled, but those inhuman arms were too strong. He held me close to him, and I felt the heat of him go through me, heard the thudding of his heart as it echoed the beating of his mighty wings.
 

We came to rest in the snow-covered courtyard, and he set me down before the castle’s front entrance. A shiver of those enormous wings, and then he was himself again, black robes forever hiding the evidence of his curse.
 

At another time, in another life, I might have still marveled at what it had felt like to be held in a dragon’s embrace. At the moment, though, I only ached with thwarted fury. I should have been free. I had not asked for him to save me.

“Let me alone!” I cried, and ran up the steps into the keep.

What I was thinking precisely, I could not say, except that the one tortured Bride’s tower was not the only one in the castle. My own rooms were quite high enough. They would serve.

I heard Theran’s heavy boots behind me and knew he had not given up the pursuit. Very well. He was taller and stronger, but I was lighter of foot. And I guessed he did not have room in the narrow tower stairwell to safely change into his dragon form.
 

So I fled up the steps, taking some of them two at a time, nothing in me but the pounding fear that he might catch me and stop me again before the deed was done. Why he should care whether I ended it, I did not know, but I could not let such concerns slow me down. Not now.

I burst into the corridor only a pace or two ahead of him. It was enough. It would have to be enough. I grasped my door and flung it open, but that small pause proved disastrous, for then he was there, pulling me into his arms, holding me close even though I set my hands against his chest and pushed, attempting with all my strength to free myself from his grasp.

“No, Rhianne,” he exclaimed, and his arms tightened around me. “Fight it. You must fight it, my darling.”

Once I would have thrilled with joy to hear him address me thus. Now I could only whimper and push against him, writhing like a cornered cat. “You don’t need me!” I cried. “You don’t want me. Let me go. Let me be free of you!”

Whether he relaxed his hold slightly in shock at my words, or whether I had found just the right angle to slip out of his arms, I did not know, but somehow I found myself sliding away, running once more to my bedchamber, where the windows were set lower and I thought I might have a better chance at flinging myself from them before he could stop me.
 

But I had not counted on his speed, or perhaps his desperation. I had only gone a few paces before I felt his hands on me again. This time we both crashed to the floor, his weight almost fully on me. Still I pushed forward, crawling on my hands and knees. Not the most dignified way to go to one’s doom, perhaps, but in my maddened state I was hardly thinking clearly. I dragged myself a few inches, and kicked backward, catching him in the midsection. He let out a muffled grunt of pain, and I took advantage of his momentary disability to push myself up to a standing position and stagger forward. Only a few more yards…

Behind me I heard him climb to his own feet, his breathing ragged and hoarse. I fully expected him to continue his pursuit, and so I continued to totter toward the window.

He did not, however. He stood rooted in place, staring at the portrait, which I in my unthinking haste had left exposed on its easel.

“Gods,” he breathed.

Something in his tone penetrated the fog of madness in my brain. I stopped and turned toward him, watched as one gloved hand reached to his throat. The hood shook slightly, as if he could not believe the evidence of his own eyes.
 

He said, the words seeming to reverberate throughout the room,
“She will see you as you truly are.”

I did not know what the words meant, but something about them transfixed me, kept me from pursuing my headlong flight to destruction.
 

The tower trembled, as if some giant’s blow had shaken it to its very core. I stumbled and put out a hand to grasp one of the bedposts, clung to it as the shuddering increased. Behind me I heard a tinkle of broken glass as the goblet on my bedside table crashed to the floor. Theran fell to his knees, hand still clutched at his throat. Even through the commotion I could hear his labored breaths.

Then he let out a wordless cry, piercing as the dragon’s keening I had heard before, only this time somehow worse because it emanated from a human throat. At once the shaking eased, and all went still again. I remained clinging to the bedpost, unsure as to whether the earthquake or whatever it was would begin again.
 

Theran put out both hands on the rug beneath him, using them to force himself slowly upward. For a long moment he stood there, unmoving, and at last he reached up to push back the hood of his cloak.

I gasped then, and let go of the bedpost. Unwise, because my knees trembled so violently I wasn’t sure I wasn’t about to collapse to the ground myself. It wasn’t possible. This had to be yet another vision from a fevered mind.

For the man who stared back at me was the stranger from the portrait.

Chapter Fifteen

“It can’t be,” I breathed. “You aren’t real.”

“Oh, but I am. You have broken the curse, Rhianne.”

I shook my head. This was all happening too fast. And yet, somehow as I gazed at him, I felt something within me shift, as if some alien presence removed its hand, allowing me to return to myself. That fog of madness, of delusion, seemed to be burning away, lifting like the morning’s mist.

“Yes,” he said, and stepped forward before pausing, as if unsure what my next reaction might be. Instead, he gestured toward the painting. “That was the stipulation the mage laid down, so many years ago. I would wear that dread form until the woman I married could see past it to the truth of my being. He did not seem overly concerned that such a thing would ever happen.”

No, I supposed I could understand that. After all, the odds were not very good that any given Bride would have any artistic talent, let alone my odd true-seeing dreams. And I supposed that was what the portrait had turned out to be, as if some force had guided that strange gift of mine and channeled it all into the portrait. No wonder it had consumed me…

Seeing him like this, hearing the voice I so loved emerge from the face that had possessed me during the last few months…well, it was almost more than I could bear. I sat down on the bed abruptly, as if my legs could no longer support my weight.
 

“I know it must be a great deal to take in,” he said, as he moved around so he faced me more or less directly. “It’s a bit overwhelming for me as well.” And he grasped one of the gloves and pulled it off, then stopped to stare down at his exposed fingers as if he had never seen them before.

Not in five hundred years, at least.

He was pale, very pale, as anyone would be whose flesh hadn’t seen the sun in centuries. Otherwise, though, he looked exactly as he did in the painting. His hands were beautiful, too, with long, clever fingers. I thought I should very much like to sketch them.

Later
, I told myself. At least, I supposed there would be a later. We were still husband and wife, even if he was no longer the Dragon.

I could not let myself be distracted, even though every movement, every shift in expression, revealed something of him that I had not yet painted. The portrait had not captured the true glint of his blue-green eyes, or the lift of his eyebrows. And I could not let myself focus too closely on his mouth…

“What happened to me?” I asked him. “Why was I behaving in such a way?”

If the questions surprised him, he did not show it. A slight tightening of his lips, perhaps, before he replied, “It was the curse, Rhianne. It was all the curse.”

“Then perhaps you should tell me something of it. Or is that still forbidden?”

“No. All those constraints are gone now as well. I am free.”

Then I will be free…