“Even so I can’t help but wonder, looking at you,” the goblin said, and the shadows could not disguise the gleam of his sharp teeth, “are you beautiful? Are you what that word means?”
She wanted to fall off the stool and crawl away. Instead, she spoke in a dry, crackling voice, “I’m very plain indeed.”
“That,” Corgar whispered, “is the first lie you have told me. The first of many to come, I trust.”
“I have no reason to lie to you,” she said.
To her unending relief, he narrowed his eyes and stepped back, removing his hand from her face. “Continue your work,” he said as he turned to the door.
Would he go? Would he leave her alone even for a few moments? Long enough for a key to slip into a lock, for an old door to creak open and shut? What did it matter if she was lost in the darkness? What did it matter if she escaped to barren countryside in the depths of winter with no provisions? If only she could get away! If only she could escape this chamber, once her sanctuary, now her prison!
Corgar’s hand was on the latch. He stopped. He looked around.
“Give it to me,” he said.
“Give you what?” Leta asked.
He was back across the room, towering over her, and no gentleness remained in his voice. “Give me what you’re hiding,” he demanded. “Don’t think you can keep it from me. If you do not place it in my hand, I will tear it from you myself.”
There was no way he could know about the key! And yet, looking into those dreadful eyes, Leta dared not protest, not even to herself.
She put her hand into her bodice, withdrew Mintha’s furtive gift, and dropped it into Corgar’s outstretched palm. It disappeared behind the curl of his claws.
“Get back to work,” the goblin said.
8
WITH THAT DEFIANT CRY, I TOOK TO THE AIR. The Netherworld could not contain me. Nor could the Near World or the Far. I flew beyond them all to the heavens themselves, into the presence of Lady Hymlumé. I would devour the moon! I would end her song! Then all would know my might, and all would tremble at the name of Hri Sora! And the strength I felt then would ease my pain.
Even as I neared the gardens of the moon, even as I saw Hymlumé’s face turn to me in fear, the Dark Father drew up beside me. The blast of his breath sent me tumbling away, and I suddenly realized my mistake. I was the most powerful of all my Father’s children, the firstborn among all dragons.
But I was not Death-in-Life.
“You fool! You wretch!” the Dark Father cried, his voice a wave of fire. “You will not shout this defiance in my face! You will not flaunt this strength that I gave you!”
His great claws reached out. With a stroke, he tore my dragon wings from my shoulders.
So the decision was made. She was a traitor twice over.
Mouse, jostled in the midst of the frightened crowd, pulled the blindfold back over her face. Now the jostling was worse. But she shouted like the others, and it was she who began the cry, “The heir? Where is the heir?”
It was taken up. Priestesses barked orders to silent slaves, and once more Mouse found herself knocked about. She fell to her knees on the stone and put her hands over her head in a feeble attempt to protect herself, still shouting, “Where is the heir?”
Someone grabbed her by the shoulder, dragged her to her feet, and tore her blindfold away. By the flicker of torchlight, she stared into the face of Sparrow.
“I saw what you did!” said the priestess, her onetime sister acolyte.
Mouse shook her head. “I did nothing—”
“Silence!” Sparrow snarled. “I saw what you did, traitor! It’s time the Speaker knew what you really are!”
She dragged Mouse through the milling throng to where the high priestess stood like a stone, listening to the sounds of panic, her eyes still shielded.
“Speaker!” Sparrow cried, and the high priestess turned at the sound of her voice. “I saw it! I saw what happened! This one”—flinging Mouse on her knees—“cut the heir loose! She let him escape into the Diggings!”
The high priestess’s face was unreadable behind her blindfold. Mouse, crouching on the stone, could scarcely see anything for the wild careening of the lights around them.
The Speaker raised both arms. “Stop!” she cried.
Immediate silence fell upon the throng. Still blindfolded, the high priestess turned to those nearest her. “The heir?” she demanded.
“Gone,” a priestess replied. “Vanished into the dark.”
“I told you, Speaker! It was this Mouse who let him go!” Sparrow cried.
How calm the high priestess was even as her world fell apart around her. In that moment Mouse’s heart beat with the adoring admiration it had first felt for this woman, years before.
But the second beat was a cold bump, and she thought, She knows! She knows what the Flame is, and yet she does what she does!
“Stand up, Mouse,” the Speaker said.