“Let her go.” Aethelbald stepped from the shelter of the tunnel into the moonglow. “Your fight is with me. She is nothing to you.”
“Did you hear that?” the boy with the yellow eyes hissed. “You are nothing, you who once were a princess!” He chuckled. “But you are wrong, Prince of Farthestshore, if you think I have no grievance against her. She would betray us for you. Us! Her kinfolk who took her in and taught her, who gave her a home. She would betray us for you, a stranger. Worse, an unwanted suitor!”
She felt the dragon boy’s cold hand slide around her throat, felt the prick of unsheathing talons.
“Let her go, brother,” Aethelbald said, his voice low and menacing. “Fight me instead. I am weaponless, you see.”
“Unlike before, eh?” The yellow-eyed boy spat, and flame flashed by her face. “You think he will help you, little princess?”
She began trembling, with fear or rage she could not say.
“He offered to help me too, long ago. I was young and foolish then, frightened at first by the change worked in me by our Father. And he, my noble Prince, my master, set his servants upon my trail, and they tracked me down until I was too weary to flee. Then he came to me himself. He came to me, claiming that he wished to help me. Hounded down, exhausted, I agreed to accept his aid and made myself vulnerable before him, swallowed my flame. But you know what he did?”
He spat fire again, singeing her hair. She screamed and struggled, but his hand tightened on her throat. “Not a step closer, Aethelbald, or I’ll snap her neck in two!” the yellow-eyed boy cried. “You know what he did, little princess? He took out his sword and tried to run me through. I submitted to him, and he tried to kill me! I trusted him, and he betrayed me!”
Smoke and ash filled her mind, blinding her eyes.
“Diarmid,” Aethelbald said.
“Death-in-Life eat your eyes!” the yellow-eyed boy screamed, and hot cinders burned the girl’s neck. “That is no longer my name!”
“You should have trusted me, Diarmid,” Aethelbald said. “But trust is not found in you, I fear. Not so with her. She longs to trust.”
“He’ll force you into anything, little sister, as he tried to force me,” the yellow-eyed boy said. “He’s more manipulative than you can imagine! Don’t listen to him or – ” He cried out and fell from her back, struck in the head by a large stone. She scrambled free of him, and smoke poured from her nostrils.
Roaring, he leapt at her again, his face contorted. But Aethelbald caught him and knocked him into a sprawl. The two of them rolled in the sand, fire spilling from the boy’s mouth, catching Aethelbald’s cloak aflame. He snatched the cloak off and flung it over the boy’s head, then turned to find her.
She felt the transformation taking place. No. Not in front of him! she screamed inside, but the fire burst from her.
“Una! No!” Aethelbald caught her about the waist and pressed her to him so that she felt the beating of his heart against her cheek, and for a moment she thought the change would fade, would stop.
But, in a painful wrench, she pushed free from him, screaming, “Don’t look at me. Please! ”
Flames from the mouth of a yellow-eyed dragon struck her full in the face, and the heat of them completed the work of her own fire.
Mighty wings tore at the night air, and she raised her heavy body up onto two legs. Whirling with surprising agility for her size, she sent a burst of fire into the yellow eyes of the other dragon. It roared in laughter rather than pain and swung at her with its claws like a sparring cat. She gnashed her teeth at him and flamed again, then leapt into the sky, pushing and pulling with her wings, leaving the yellow-eyed dragon and the Prince far behind. Only a harsh voice followed her.
“Burn, sister, burn! Don’t let him quench your flame!”
33
The dragon landed heavily in the sand in a faint, and moments later it dwindled into the form of a pale girl.
Waves slowly licked up the shore, inching closer until they pulled at the girl’s hair and tried to draw it back with them. Still the girl remained motionless. If she didn’t move soon, she might drown; humans were such fragile beings.
Hands reached from the waves and took hold of the girl. Cradling her, they turned her so that her head rolled out of the water. The dragon maid moaned and her brow puckered, but she did not wake.
It didn’t matter. The hands were patient, as patient as the old sea. They held the girl’s head out of the water, and the owner of those hands thought many thoughts. Dragons were vicious creatures, or so it was supposed. Yet, looking down at that white face, one could not be afraid.
“Poor creature,” a delicate voice murmured. “Poor little thing.”
The voice began humming to itself. The humming turned into singing, gentle as the water lapping the shore.
“Twilit dimness surrounds me,
The veil slips over my eyes.
The riddle of us two together long ago
How fragile in my memory lies.”