At those words, she shivered and pulled away. But Aethelbald’s hand remained on her elbow, and somehow she felt able to step forward again.
They passed through the shadowy figures, and to her surprise not one of them looked their way. She and the Prince might as well have been invisible. Startled by this, she found herself looking more closely at the figures than she had before. She discovered that most of them did not walk toward any particular destination: They paced. Some of them paced the whole length of the cavern, turned, and paced back again. They walked with their gazes fixed on the ground just beyond their feet, and as they walked they muttered quietly to themselves. Sometimes fire licked between their teeth or in their eyes. Sometimes they would stop and spit a small flame toward the ceiling. Then their pacing would continue, getting faster all the time, until finally they burst into flames and rushed from the cavern out into the desert, venturing to unknown destinations. They would return eventually, and if not, who cared? All were too busy in their own pacing to notice.
She herself had not noticed until now.
They reached the mouth of the tunnel unhindered. “There,” she said, trying to pull her elbow from Aethelbald’s gentle but firm grip. “There’s your way out. Follow it quickly.”
“Not without you.”
“I can’t go,” she said, hanging her head.
“Then neither can I.”
A flame burst up in her chest and into her mouth. She forced it back as best she could. “You must go. They’ll kill you.”
“I’ll die before I leave you,” he said.
How she hated him in that moment! Hated him enough to swallow him whole – hated him for his heart, which she coveted; hated him for loving her as she could no longer love her jester-prince; hated him for not being her jester; hated him for all his stupid, noble self-sacrifice, so wasted on her.
Hated him because she knew she could never deserve his love.
“Come, then,” she hissed and hurried into the tunnel, leaving behind the cavernous village of dragons.
Just for the moment, she told herself. Just until I slip away from him. For I belong in the Village and must return.
It was night outside, she realized. No sunlight found its way through the cracks in the tunnel ceiling. Her eyes were used to the dark, though, and she did not stumble. Aethelbald’s steps hesitated here and there, but he seemed to follow her lead without question. Several times there were twists in the tunnel or it split, and she was uncertain which direction to choose. She quietly selected, using the best reasoning she could, but finally she was forced to admit, “I am not certain of the way.”
“I remember,” Aethelbald said.
She realized then that she had not been leading him at all but that he had been guiding her with gentle pressure on her arm. Of course he would know the way. He had come here to find her, hadn’t he?
She yanked her arm free from his hold. “You lead, then,” she said. “You don’t need me.”
“I don’t wish to lose you in the dark, Una,” he said, his voice soft. “Please, walk before me.”
She turned her back and went forward down the path, keeping out of his reach. This stretch of the tunnel was straight and even, and she did not need his assistance. Soon she saw light ahead, white light unlike the red flames she was accustomed to. It had been so long since she’d seen it that she almost didn’t recognize it for what it was: moonlight.
“Oh,” she breathed, and something inside her that she did not know still existed stirred. She stepped up her pace and hurried to the mouth of the tunnel, hardly noticing the crunch of Aethelbald’s boots behind her.
“Wait, Una!” he cried, but she ignored him and ran from the rocks out into the open air. The desert stretched around her in all its barren loneliness, but above – ah, above! There the sky vaulted from a light blue on the horizon up to greens and deeper blues, all the way to the deepest violet-indigos in the highest regions, where innumerable stars glittered, pure treasures unsullied by blood and greed. And the moon, its light engulfing any stars within its sphere, shone as a brilliant crown of white, more lovely than words.
Fire forgotten for a moment, the dragon girl ran forward, stretched out her arms, and spun about, her face tilted to watch the stars twirling above her.
She heard Aethelbald’s urgent voice. “Una!”
“Good girl, sister.”
Even the moonlight betrayed her.
A spindly hand grabbed her arm, and she gasped in pain and surprise. Two yellow eyes gleamed above her. “I thought she might be the princess you sought,” the dragon boy said. He forced her down and pinned her to the sand, twisting her right arm behind her and pressing a knee into her back. Her dragon claws tore uselessly at the sand.