Heartless (25 page)

26

The dragon fire that sustained her had sunk low in her breast. But Una felt it there still, where her heart should be. “No,” she whispered, clutching the front of her gown. “Let it die. Just let it die.”

She knew it would not.

She practiced walking among the tall forest trees, struggling to carry herself upright and lift her feet. Her movements needed to be less awkward if she was going to pass unnoticed in the city. The sun rose high above her, but the air was icy. She welcomed the fierceness of winter air against her skin, however, desperate to cool the burning that pulsed through her. Her left hand seemed to suck the light into its dark scales and render it blackness. She covered it with her human hand, tried to tuck it under the folds of her tattered garments. The left sleeve of her dress was still mostly intact, and she pulled it low over her knuckles.

“I must find him,” she told herself, looking out from the shelter of the forest up toward the city. “Or at least have word of him.”

The thought filled her with fear. The Dragon’s words came to mind:

“Betrothed to another.”

She stepped out of the trees. “It’s not true,” she said. The place on her finger where her mother’s ring had once sat felt strangely bare. Una clenched her hands, human and dragon, into fists. “I trust him.”

Fire burned her throat, but she swallowed it back.

The climb was long and hard, particularly now that she was unused to her small human body. She discovered a path that progressed steeply up the otherwise sheer rock face, and she followed it, sometimes bent double to use her hands as well as her feet. The muscles in her arms shook with effort, and often she had to stop and breathe deeply, closing her eyes.

The sun set and the moon rose. Somehow, the white face of the moon was more terrible to her than the sun’s golden rays. The moonlight was icy, and she thought she would freeze on the outside even as she burned to death within. She lay down upon the trail, exhausted, her arms over her face to shield her from the moon’s eye, and slept a tormented sleep.

When Una woke she did not open her eyes but kept her arms over her face, feeling the sharp scales of the left one biting into the skin of her cheek. She did not want to face the sun nor the rest of the climb. Birds sang their morning chorus, and she cursed them bitterly between her teeth.

A jangling bell sounded in her ear, startling her from her stupor of misery. She sat up, every part of her body aching from a night spent on rocks, and looked up the path.

A goat stood not many paces above her. It flicked its ears and winked its yellow eyes at her, then voiced a disapproving,
“
Bah!”

“Good morning to you too!” Una snapped, drawing up her legs and scowling at the goat. She pressed her forehead into her knees, once more blocking the sunlight and wondering where she would find the strength to continue her long climb. Perhaps she would not try. Perhaps she would simply stay put until the sun and the moon burned her away to nothing and the fire inside her went out.

“Oh!” a voice said. “There
is
someone!”

Una startled for the second time that morning and blinked up the path once more. Beyond the goat another figure appeared. At first she could not tell if it was male or female, for the person’s face was shrouded in a linen veil and the voice that spoke was very soft and hard to discern. But on second glance, Una determined it was a girl, a small one with hunched shoulders and a hand put out to touch the rock wall on her right.

“Beana told me someone needed help down here,” the veiled girl said, moving around the goat. “Shoo, Beana.”

“Bah!” said the goat.

“Who are you?” Una asked. Her voice was harsh in her mouth, but she hardly cared.

“I am nobody,” the girl said. “Who are you?”

Una shook her head and gave no answer. She buried her face in her knees again.

“Have you come from the Wilderlands? Are you trying to climb to the Eldest’s City?” The girl drew closer until she stood over Una. Her voice was easier to understand now that she was near; she spoke with the strong accent of Southlands.

Una did not look up but shrugged her shoulders.

“You are weak and worn.” There was a long pause, then, “And I see that you suffer.”

Una felt a hand touching her scale-covered arm. She snapped upright and pulled it away from the veiled girl’s grasp. “Leave me alone!”

“Please, m’lady,” the girl said humbly. “I am not one to judge you. Will you look?”

Frowning and cringing away, Una lifted her face to see the hand the veiled girl extended to her. To Una’s surprise, she saw that the hand was gray and hard as stone, and tipped with long claws. She looked up at the veiled face and could just discern eyes through a slit in the linen. “Are you . . . are you like me?”

The veiled one shook her head. “No, m’lady. But let me help you even so.”

Hesitantly, Una reached up and placed her awful hand in the awful hand of the stranger. She was surprised at the strength in the veiled girl’s grip as she found herself pulled to her feet.

“You go to the city?” the girl asked.

Una nodded. She allowed the girl to put her arm across her shoulders and support her as they began to climb the trail. The shaggy goat turned about nimbly and led the way, sometimes pausing to bleat an irritable “Bah!” as she went.

The sun was high by the time they came to the plateau above. Una shook herself free of the veiled girl. “Which way to the city gates?”

“I can take you there myself,” the veiled one said. “I serve in the Eldest’s House. I know the way.”

“Serve in the Eldest’s House?” Una felt the fire flickering inside her.

“Have you seen . . . That is . . . have you heard tell of . . .”

“Yes, m’lady?”

Una shook her head and moved away from the girl. She couldn’t bear to know. Not yet. No, she must find him, that was all, and he himself could tell her all she needed to know. “Thank you for your assistance,” Una said, turning her back on the girl. “I will find my own way.”

“Please, m’lady – ”

“Leave me alone!” Una cried. And with a strength she had not realized she still possessed, she started running, running across the open land to the city before her, fueled by a fire inside and a keen desire to leave the stranger and her ugly goat far behind. When at last she dared look back, she breathed in relief to see she was not followed.

Her path took her directly to the city gates. She covered her hideous arm as best she could and slipped into the ranks of plentiful commoners. She still felt out of place, for everyone about her was brown and clad in brilliant colors and bangles and scarves. She took shelter behind a great mass of a woman with curly red hair and an enormous voice who kept shouting to those around her in such a thick accent that Una could not hope to understand her. Shielded by such a person, she doubted she would attract much attention. Unless the guards looked close and saw the remnants of silver threads in her tattered clothes, Una could pass for the most innocuous of peasants. But her dragon hand – what could she do with that? Once more she tucked it into the folds of her gown.

“Hey there, young miss!”

It took Una a moment to realize the guard spoke to her. She blinked and pointed to herself, raising her eyebrows in a worried line.

“Yes, you!” the guard barked. “You’re totterin’ like a drunkard! You been samplin’ the wine a’fore the festival?”

Una, who could scarcely understand a word he said, so thick was his accent, tried to shuffle past, hiding her hand, her eyes fixed on the feet of the red-haired woman before her.

“Eh, I asked you a question!” the guard said. He grabbed her right arm sharply as she passed and whirled her about to face him. She gasped in pain as his fingers dug into her skin. She twisted her other arm behind her back, hiding it as best she could. Then she gasped again when she found herself looking into dark eyes very like those eyes so dear to her memory. For an instant she thought her journey over, her beloved found.

That instant passed.

The guard dropped her arm as though burnt and backed away, his eyes widening. He shook his head and growled, “Move ’long, girl. Eh, scat!”

Una ducked her head and scurried into the city.

The streets were crowded, but it was not the sort of crowd caused when people leave their work and shops, lock up, and make for home, as would be usual for that time of day. Una had been out in the city back home enough times to know how the routine should look and feel. Rather, this crowd was a festive one, full of laughing tension edged with joyous frenzy. The people she passed were giddy, as though they had not known happiness in a long time and this new taste of it intoxicated them. They shoved and jostled, but all in fun and good spirits.

It frightened Una. Every time someone bumped into her, they turned with a smile and a bright “Sorry!” on their lips. But when she met their gazes, their lively voices turned to murmurs and they backed away hurriedly. Each time, Una wanted to hide her face, to crawl under a stone and disappear. She lowered her eyes, pulling her hair around her cheeks as a hood, and went on. She kept her left hand tucked under her arm, hoping that no one would see it.

Once a woman ran by with a wild laugh and accidentally pushed Una off the street, into a dark alley. Una, glad for momentary relief from the crowds, leaned her back against the wall and sighed, pressing a hand to her burning chest. “Let it die,” she murmured. “Oh, let it die. I must find him.”

A clatter at the end of the alley caught her attention. She turned and saw a tiny orange kitten, tail high, trotting toward her. “Monster,” she whispered, though she knew it wasn’t her pet. She knelt down, holding out a hand.

The kitten halted. Its ears went back and its tail bristled. It let out a tiny snarl and a hiss, turned, and dashed into the shadows.

Una rose and stepped back into the street. Setting her jaw, she pushed and prodded her way through the crowds, stepping on feet and using her elbows as needed. Everyone seemed to be making their way uphill, so she focused her energies on going that direction too. Somehow, she felt she would find answers there.

Leonard, I’m coming. Wait for me.

In all the babble around her she made out a few words: “The crown prince.” “The Lady of Middlecrescent.” “The crown prince.”

Una felt the flame in her chest flare every time she picked out those words. The crowd became so thick, she thought she would suffocate, and she screamed, “Wait for me!”

People backed away from her in surprise. The crowds parted, and she passed through the last street into the city square at the crest of a low hill.

The square was filled with more people than Una had ever before seen. Ribbons and banners were strung between buildings and poles and, near a fountain in the very center, musicians played and young people danced. All around her she heard the murmurs, “The crown prince! The crown prince!”

She saw a great house on the far side of the square, toward which most of the people seemed to be pressing. It had huge double doors, once white, now grayed from heavy smoke, and above was a balcony large enough to hold an entire company of soldiers. The house, she guessed, must belong to the mayor, and on that balcony the people expected soon to see the reason for all their merrymaking.

She pushed her way forward, and people, after a glance at her face, let her through without a word. She stood at last just under the balcony where the fevered excitement had reached a zenith.

“Excuse me,” she said, touching the sleeve of a burly man, a butcher by the stains on his hands and fingernails. “Is the crown prince expected soon?”

“Yes, miss,” he rumbled in the jewel-like tones of Southlands, shrugging off her hand and stepping back. “Why else do you think we’re here?”

“To celebrate his betrothal?” Una asked, reaching out to grab the butcher’s sleeve again, afraid he’d escape before answering.

“His wedding, miss,” the butcher said, using both his strong hands to shove hers away. “Don’t you know he marries Lady Daylily, the Baron of Middlecresent’s daughter, at the week’s end?”

Una let him go, and he disappeared into the crowd. She turned her gaze up to the balcony. “It’s not him,” she whispered. The flame inside hurt so badly! “It’s not my Leonard.”

Suddenly a great shout filled the square. Una wanted to clap her hands to her ears but dared not expose the scales on her left hand. She could not tear her gaze from the spot at the front of the balcony, between two flags, where she knew he would stand.

Then there he was.

She hardly recognized him clad in blue and scarlet, rich clothing fit for a prince. A crown of silver graced his head where once had sat a bell-covered hat. His face, so comical, so expressive, was now bearded and solemn even as he smiled down on the people. He was thinner, older, sterner.

But he was her jester.

“Prince Lionheart! Prince Lionheart!” the crowd cried, and there was love and pride in their voices.

“Leonard,” Una whispered.

The prince raised a hand to salute the crowd, then reached behind and drew someone up beside him. She was radiant, smiling, dressed in elegant fur wraps against the winter chill. She seemed ready to burst with joy as she waved to the people and clung to her prince’s hand.