A Shade of Dragon 2 (7 page)

I
t was
daybreak when I was finally relieved of my chains. My wrists had turned red and raw from the abrasion of the metal. But, as I limped in my now soiled and singed petticoats, I was still grateful that Lethe had honored his promise to provide me with a cell—even if I would have been even more grateful if he had allowed me to return home.

At least the masked guard who came to collect me brought a fresh change of clothes.

“The prince sends his apologies for your circumstances,” the guard told me. He all but added,
Human trash
. “He wishes you to know that it was by Emperor Vulott’s command, and not his own, that you have been relegated to the dungeons. Although there are no single cells available, he has also demanded that the cells be made tighter, so that one may be afforded for you alone.”

“Oh… I don’t need that.” I didn’t want to force other prisoners to stand, or suffocate. “I’ll be fine in a cell with others.”

“I’m afraid the prince insisted,” the guard said. His stink-eye game was strong as he led me past row after row of jammed cells, until we reached the cell closest to another stairwell, a stairwell I hadn’t seen until now. “These will be your quarters until he is able to secure you a ‘proper’ room.”

I would have addressed the unnecessary tone, but “respectful communication” didn’t even clear the list of my concerns anymore. Rather, I let him lead me into the cell, and when we were inside, he thrust a set of pure white, linen fabric into my arms. It all matched, so it was difficult to tell what was petticoat and what was shawl, but I could see that it was intended to be some multi-layered, otherwise light gown.

The guard forced me to change in front of him, because he was “required” to return my garments to the royal family. Feeling wholly embarrassed, I stripped down and handed him my blue velvet gown, which I had peed in during the night.

I wanted to ask the guard for more information—when I would see Lethe again, if he would come back and give me food, if he would bring me another change of clothes tomorrow—but I could tell by the disgust in his eyes that this guard only spoke to me because he had been ordered by a member of the royal family to do so. The ice people, it was clear, maintained deep and abiding prejudices toward all non-ice people.

I let him leave, and I wandered to the high window at the very top of my cell. The dungeon was much larger than I had thought, but I saw no other cells with windows save this one. Even this single window was so lonely. It was small, and it was barred, and it looked out onto a low and milky sky.

I wound my arms tightly around myself, realizing that this gown was much thinner than the other gown had been, and that meant I would get much colder.

I wished Theon was here.

H
ours passed
; I was too tired to remain awake, waiting for someone to come with more news, trying to find a way out by my hopeless self. I slipped off to sleep, my head resting on a clot of straw in one corner, the rest of my body shuddering and shivering on icy stone.

My dreams were chaotic and garbled. Theon came to rescue me, but then, as we embraced, he transformed into Lethe. The flames became icicles dancing over our bodies. Michelle danced into my cell and tore him away from me. She laughed, and blue scales coursed over her face and entire body. She ballooned out, as I had seen Theon do, and became a dragon. An ice dragon? But then the ice melted, and the water boiled, and Theon returned to me. He swept me up into his arms and I moaned his name in gratitude. My heart leapt in a burst of joy; had it only been days since I had last seen him? It felt like years. His warm amber eyes gleamed down at me, his complexion aglow with gold and rose. I threaded my fingers through his hair—which I remembered as being thicker, wavier, and shorter—and drew him close, both of our mouths opening eagerly for a kiss of greeting. But as his tongue filled my mouth, a blade of horror plunged into my breast.

His tongue was cold.

As cold as ice.

My eyes bulged open.

The ice prince’s frigid hands slid around me, pulling me upright. I continued to kiss him because I had to; what would he have done to me if I had reared away from him and displayed all the disappointment I had felt in that moment? Would I have not been shackled to the wall again? Would I have not been forced to urinate on myself while waiting for a guard?

But on the inside, my heart tore into a deep schism.

Our lips separated, and I was glad. I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. Lethe wasn’t a bad guy, really… he was just a little mad, but who wouldn’t be, given his life story? That didn’t mean I had to love him, though. It was even possible that I couldn’t love him. Who knew why we loved the people we did? And yet it was abundantly clear that he loved me. Why? We’d only just met, and yet he had attached himself to me with the readiness and trust of an abandoned child.

“Penelope,” Lethe said. He did have gorgeous eyes. Unlike Theon’s, which were always so steady, Lethe’s seemed to swirl like the interior of a snow globe. “You don’t deserve this.”

My throat clutched around my esophagus. Was he going to set me free after all? Return me to Beggar’s Hole, Maine? And, ultimately, Theon?

“Just look at yourself. You have hay in your hair. Your feet are so, so dirty. And your wrists…” His fingers traveled to my red wrists, and the chill of his lips was a relief when they kissed across that raw flesh. “My love, nobility such as yours demands a room in a palace. Not a cell in a dungeon.” Wrapping his frigid palms around my wrists, he pulled me to my feet. I shuddered with gratitude for the numbness that his touch provided. “Did the guard give you my messages?”

I nodded, relieved to be removed from the dungeon, and disappointed to be remaining in the castle. “He told me that it was your father’s order, not yours, that I be removed to the dungeon,” I said, even though Lethe had certainly seemed at the time as if the idea had been his own. “And he told me that you had been the one to demand that I have a cell by myself.” Lethe seemed to be demanding more of me, so I went on, “Thank you,” however uncomfortable. It was hard to be thankful for much surrounded by so many in need, including myself.

“That wasn’t the only thing I wished for him to tell you.” Lethe led me through the cell, opening the door and closing it behind himself, then pulling me toward the second stairwell. The dungeon was so large, I could not even see the first stairwell. I could only gaze into the distance, a row of cells and manacles tapering off into shadow.

Lethe turned, sliding one hand away from my arm and into my hair. His emotions must have been intense, for his breath came at me in little clouds of frost.

“I’m in love with you, Penelope. And you will be my queen.”

A
s Michelle
and I descended into the bowels of the dungeon, my nostrils flinched at the odors which rose to greet us. Waste. Decay. And mingled amongst these came moans and howls of hunger, of pain, of pleading. “Jesus,” Michelle muttered. Even in her peasant ensemble, she looked too regal to be surrounded by such mess. “Remind me again why Nell is worth all this effort?”

I paused only long enough to glare over my shoulder, and then we continued along the path.

The winding stone stairwell dumped us out into the greater dungeon area, filled with cells which I had seldom seen used in my time at the castle. Now they were brimming with prisoners. There were so many prisoners in our dungeon now that I could not see every face, for the crowd teemed with faces, and so many were dirty and beleaguered… Even if you had known someone once, would they look the same now?

As we stepped onto the ground floor, a great cry rose up from the barred rooms. It was the prisoners. The fire dragon prisoners.

They recognized me, even in the peasant’s garb, and they called out for help. Cruddy hands stretched through the bars, and my heart ached, knowing it would be impossible to save more than one or two. In fact, my own escape was questionable. Most if not all of these people would need to be left behind for the sake of the mission.

I hardened my heart to their pleas…

“Prince Theon! Oh, Prince Theon, you’ve come to save us!”

… and I scanned solely for the faces of family, or Penelope, to extract from this pit.

My jaw clenched at the thought of the skeleton key refusing to work even here, in a dungeon full of innocent people. Surely—surely Pythia was not so biased toward the ice dragons.

“Son,” a voice called. It came not from the cells… but from the wall of manacles on my left. And I would know that voice anywhere.

It was the voice of my father. The rightful king of The Hearthlands. Erisard.

He was bound to the stone wall, but his legs had given out on him, and it appeared that his shoulders had both dislocated from the strain of his weight. He’d wasted away in his time here—three weeks, dear gods—and his body was papered in cuts and bruises, welts in various stages of healing. Some were vivid red from fresh marks.

“Father.” I touched his face and brought it up to the light. His eyes could barely open. He would be dead soon if I did not take him to the shelter now. He must have lost twenty pounds in his time here. “Don’t worry… don’t worry.” For the first time since she’d been snatched away by Lethe, Nell actually faded from my mind. “We’re going to get you out of here. I have”—I dug in my satchel for the key and extracted it in a near fever—“a key.”

As I inserted and turned the key, Father sought my eyes. “You must go. They’ll kill you, Theon.”

The damn tumblers would not fall! Pythia had been a complete fraud! This key—what had it ever unlocked? Nothing!

Around us, the torches blazed.

“Let me go,” Father pleaded.

I didn’t even hesitate. I couldn’t look at him. His words were ridiculous. They weren’t even worthy of consideration. He was mad with hunger, and thirst, and sleep deprivation and pain. I would die before I left this place without him.

“I’m no threat to them, Theon,” he told me. “I’m old… They just use me… for a laugh.” The fire in my body had reached a peak I could no longer mediate. “But you, you’re young—strong—you’re too real a threat—”

With a roar of frustration, I gripped the chains which held him and discharged a stream of orange fire, as thick as magma, onto them. They turned orange to match the flame and then melted away, over my hands and onto the floor. I stepped back and stared, dazed, at what I had done. I had never before, not in human form, caused such damage with my fire. I had never melted metal until it flowed like water. And my hands…

I held my hands to my face, checking the palms and the backs. They were unscarred. They had withstood what should have burned even a fire dragon.

My father slumped to the ground, both arms hanging at odd angles. He would have cried out in pain, I was sure, if pain really existed for him anymore. I feared he had entered the state of numbness shortly before death.

Tender but resolute, I scooped him into my arms and stood.

“Well, crap,” Michelle commented. “I guess we don’t have any more space on this one-man rescue wagon for Nell, do we?”

A retort surged in my throat—if Nell cannot walk, you shall carry her—but the clamor of bells roused us from the would-be tiff.

“What is that?” Michelle cried, her hands clapped over her ears.

“Someone sounded the alarm,” I called back, already turning toward the stairwell. “They know there are intruders in the castle!”

A
s we ran
through the dungeon, I recognized one face standing out from the blur, perhaps because it was so vividly cemented in my memory from when he’d been carried off into the sky by an ice dragon. Einhen.

“Theon!” he called, waving his one good arm through the bars. “Theon! Prince! Friend!”

And even knowing what a liability it would be, I hesitated. It was because of me that he was here. Maybe Michelle had insisted on Khem, but I had been the one to invite Einhen to what could very well be his death.

Dammit.

Wincing to myself, I shoved the skeleton key into Michelle’s hands. We didn’t have much time, but they all deserved to be free, didn’t they? “Unlock the cells!”

“Come on.” Michelle pouted, clearly dismayed.

“I said unlock the cells!” I snapped.

This time, Michelle fell back a step, although the smug glare never quite left her eyes. She turned to the lock on Einhen’s cell and jammed the thoughtful key into it. My secret logic was that perhaps she would fare better than me. Amazingly, the key spun and the door popped open. Michelle extracted the key again and ran to me.

“All right. Let’s go!”

So her sense of invincibility did, in fact, know bounds.

Einhen joined us, and with him came a rush of desperate prisoners, more than twenty and as many as thirty; at each cell we passed, I forced Michelle to go and turn the key again. Each time, the damn thing worked and another thirty prisoners came rioting forth. In a throng, they spilled toward the stairs, and with them, Michelle, Einhen, Father and I traveled.

In a sick way, the escaped prisoners from these cells provided us with the perfect cover. Disguised in the rags of the working class, we blended into this throng of malnourished, bedraggled prisoners of war.

I retrieved the key from Michelle and we moved together up the narrow, winding flight of stairs. Although the guards had been alerted that there were intruders, they would not be anticipating a large-scale breakout from the dungeon. I almost lost track even of Michelle several times, and of us all, it was she who typically stood out in any crowd.

The stream of escapees burst from the dungeon door, and already, over the swell of clanging alarms, I could hear the hollers of guards. Their wintry arrows parted the air, and a man disappeared in front of me, trampled by the crowd. I clutched Father to my chest, careful of his arms. Even in all this uproar, he was barely conscious. I could only pray as we milled through the streets and out of the city, that he would survive even the trek to the shelter. If I moved quickly…

If I transformed…

Would I be able to fly? Or would my wings stiffen and cause me to—

My eyes fell on Penelope, and for a horrible moment, surrounded by the madding crowd, the moans of pain and barks of the masked guards, the damnable alarm system which dampened all other sounds, I froze. An onlooker would have assumed that an icy arrow had plunged directly into my chest, and in a way, one had.

She stood at the balcony of the third floor… and she was so very small, looking down on me from up there. She was dressed entirely in white. In fact, if I squinted, it would appear that she was wearing the vestments of purity assigned to brides in the days before their wedding. It had been years ago that I had witnessed a dragon wedding. I remembered the gown she had been commanded to wear prior to the ceremony. It was light, and simple, and pure white.

As was Nell’s.

Was it only my imagination that she saw me too?

Lethe was with her. In fact, as they stood together, his arm wove around her shoulders. He didn’t see me. He didn’t recognize me in these garments. It was only Penelope who would recognize me, because she knew the soul inside my eyes before she knew the style of my dress. It was only Penelope who would recognize me, because we were linked together by something stronger than circumstance and coincidence, fates be damned—

“Theon!” Michelle yodeled ahead of me. She had reached the front gate of the palace, and was glaring at me. “Jesus Christ, Theon. Let’s go!”

Released from my moment of shock, I was propelled forward with the crowd, and we spilled together onto the front steps into the bitter daylight cold of The Hearthlands. Behind us, the bodies of fellow fire dragons lay crushed, bloodied, and frozen. But all around us and ahead of us, even more of them charged into the streets, seeking either shelter or escape.

M
ichelle and Einhen
stayed close to me as we moved through the tundra, but I could not allow it any longer. Our time was short; certainly, ice soldiers would be sent to blockade the city, and would be swift in dealing “justice” to attempted escapees. And my father… He did not have a moment to lose. On foot? With nothing but some furs, some mason jars of berries, and the gods-forsaken love letter from Pythia? What good were these trinkets to him? He would be dead by nightfall, and we couldn’t make it to the shelter in time.

I had to transform. It was our only hope. If I didn’t lock up in flight—and, of all the fire dragons, I was one of the least likely, because I was one of the biggest—then, when we arrived at the shelter, my torn clothing could be immediately replaced. I had faith in my people. They would rescue me… if I could only make it to their door.

“Michelle! Einhen!” I called to my two companions. “I must transform!” On the steps of the castle—we had only just passed the first barrier of shops—a sudden surge of ice dragons came pouring out. Reserves from the servant quarters. “Einhen! Take my father, and place him onto my back!”

“Are you sure, my lord?” He asked the question, knowing its answer, and so I said nothing in response, but bowed my head and allowed the natural fire in my body to overtake me.

The spines tore through and shredded my clothing. I usually preferred to undress and fold my clothing, not destroy it uselessly, but I had no time now. In dragon form, my hide would become almost impenetrable, but my size was also a setback. The ice dragons would see me take flight… but I could only pray they would be too mired in other fire dragons to follow suit. Michelle had set half of their dungeon free in our escape.

As I elongated, ballooned, and felt invigorated by the fire within, for a few moments, the surrounding ice land would not hinder me. I had managed flight in the December of Penelope’s country, but that December had not been as harsh as The Hearthlands were now.

Einhen nimbly ascended my shoulder blades, and I felt him secure my father at the wide base of my scaled neck. Michelle next straddled my shoulders directly behind Einhen, and with a powerful downward thrust of my wings, I tore into the sky, glaring against the frosty clouds overhead, beating my way over the city below—I could easily see the chaos in the streets—and then, as arrows of ice sang in the air around us, we passed the entrance to the city itself, blocked as I had expected… and, finally, the long and lonely stretch of arctic wasteland, on the tip of which we would find the fire dragon shelter.

N
early collapsing
into the deep snow drifts surrounding the dead trees which marked the entrance to the shelter, I realized that my left wing had gone totally numb and only continued to beat by sheer perseverance. After Einhen pulled my father and Michelle down into the snow with him, I shrank into my human form, shuddering uncontrollably, and my eyes bulged with shock. Gods. An ice arrow had sunk into my left shoulder, and the skin around the wound was turning blue.

Einhen moved swiftly, recognizing the severity of both my wound and my vulnerability nude. He and Michelle worked together to find and open the shelter door, sealed shut with ice yet again, whilst I held my now unconscious father with my one good arm. He was so light… It was incredible how, when I had been a child, he had loomed with all the brightness and intensity of a mountaintop. Now, though, he fit into my arms like a wilted damsel. Oh, Father. He was so very frail. His pulse fluttered and whispered like a fairy messenger meant only for my ears.

Behind us, ice crunched and the shelter door groaned open.

Einhen took my father from me. Michelle offered her support. I blinked with surprise, but acquiesced. I would not reject the gesture, especially coming from Michelle, who so seldom made selfless gestures.

We traveled down the earthen steps, pausing only to close the shelter door behind us. The snow would blanket it again, so the odds of an ice dragon spotting the dark speck in the landscape from on high were very low. Unless they had a spy in the castle from the beginning, their people would remain unaware of the existence of the shelter, much less its whereabouts. They had likely assumed that I and mine were merely fleeing like the cowards they themselves were.

Kidnappers.

Murderers.

Savages.

As we left behind the narrow stairwell and entered the sweeping caverns of the shelter, we were immediately swamped with concerned fire dragons. “King Erisard!” voices cried. “The king has been returned to us, praise the gods, earth, wind, fire, and sea!”

Hands sprouted from the crowd to carry me away from Michelle’s supportive embrace, and I let them, weakened by the cold. “My gods, the prince has been shot,” someone announced.

“He’s frozen to the bone! A bearskin! A bearskin for the prince!”

But to me, it all passed in a blur.

I had not seen my brother, Altair, moving in the throngs of prisoners.

Which increased the likelihood that he was dead, did it not? Had I not seen Einhen and my father because they still lived?

I had rescued my father, but left behind my beloved.

And the mirror was gone now.

And the skeleton key had not unlocked the door to the castle when I had turned it. It had not unlocked my father’s manacles, either.

What did that mean?

And Nell, standing there, staring down at me, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even moving a muscle… just staring. Lethe’s arm around her. Wearing the vestments of a bride-to-be. Three floors between our eyes. She had been in the wing of the royal family all along. Nothing like a prisoner.

What did it mean?

I had to know. I had to know…

Around me fire people cropped up, murmuring amongst themselves, and then bled away again. I was led to the quarters of the medical workers: apothecaries, surgeons, and mystics alike. I didn’t hear a word of it. The arrow was ripped clean. I grunted. A poultice was applied. A bearskin mantle was draped across my naked body. A cup of broth was shoved into my hands.

I didn’t even know where I was anymore.

After a while, I found myself removed to the men’s sleeping quarters and placed on a cot. I was told by an unknown face that my mother would see me soon. The face receded. I couldn’t even have told you with any degree of certainty what the face had looked like. They were all so blurry, and melted from one to the next, more like a painting than a picture.

A nurse maid came, and her face was Nell’s… Michelle’s… and Mother’s.

“You’ve got to rest, darling. Let your poultice do its work.”

“Mother,” I pleaded, my eyes rolling weakly in my head, my pillow soaked with sweat. “What would you do if you saw the woman you loved, standing at a great distance, another man at her side? And she stared back at you… unfathomable?”

Her cool hand whisked the hair from my forehead. But a fire dragon never had cool hands…

“You’re not making any sense,” she told me. “You’re mad with fever.”

“Have you never loved in uncertainty?” I demanded of the ceiling, my voice ragged, my hands grasping for my mother, although she was no longer there. She bled and faded away, and as my eyes adjusted, I realized that the torches had been snuffed out. It was no longer daylight—the torches were only snuffed to simulate night. I must have fallen asleep, and she had left me in peace. She would be in the women’s sleeping quarters now. The question still echoed in my head without answer: Have you ever loved in uncertainty? What would I do? What could I do?

What was this damnable, wrenching feeling in my chest… and could I snuff it out like the torches?

Shaking, I propelled myself upward, and the room did a little spin before settling around me again. I could only pray that the poison of the ice arrow would be out of my system soon, but until then, this half-reality was my world. Feeling drunk, I shoved myself to a standing position and wound my way around the shadowy cots of the men’s sleeping quarters, through the labyrinthian caverns of the shelter, and into the main hall. I almost stumbled over my leather satchel, propped against a wall.

With a surge of relief, I dug my hands into its depths and rifled through its contents in search of the papyrus of the love letter, discarded as meaningless in war… but there were many varieties of war. And in some wars, a love letter was exactly the weapon you needed.

Procuring the love letter and a writing utensil, still half-mad with fever and poison, I scrawled in almost illegible script:

“Are you falling in love with him?”