The pale girl’s face softened, and her dragon hands relaxed. The sun sank behind the water, and the dragon girl’s shadow grew longer and longer behind her. At last she moaned, stirred, and her eyes blinked open. Her body tensed and her gaze darted about, but the next moment she calmed again. “Is someone there?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I cannot see you.”
“No.”
“Are you real?”
“Very real.”
“But I cannot see you!”
“Not with those eyes.”
A long silence followed. The gentle hands stroked hair back from the dragon girl’s forehead, and the girl breathed deeply.
“You sang my song,” the girl said after a long silence.
“It was written on your face, in the scales on your hand.”
“Are you Faerie?”
“Some call me that.”
“You aren’t human,” the dragon girl said.
“Neither are you.”
The girl sighed. “Not anymore.” Her mouth trembled, but she composed herself. “Have you a name?”
“Yes.”
“May I know it?”
“You’ll not be able to pronounce it with your tongue.”
“May I hear it anyway?”
The voice sang a quick succession of notes, soft and fast as a thrush’s song, but more wild and wet and deep. Unlike a human voice, this voice sang multiple notes at once, sweet chords and harmonies as well as melodies.
The pale girl closed her eyes and sighed. “That is a beautiful name.”
“And your name?”
The girl shook her head. “I’ve lost mine.”
“What was it, then?”
“Una, Princess of Parumvir. But that was before . . .” She held up her dragon hands, clenched them into fists.
“I am sorry.”
“No,” the dragon girl said. “No, it is just as well. This is what has been inside all along. It is just as well it came out. This way I can deceive no one. They all know what I am – even . . .”
“Yes?”
The pale girl sat up, and the gentle hands let her go. “Even the one who loves me. Even he has seen me for what I am.” Her voice was low and heavy but tearless. “He’ll not love me now.”
Another long silence fell between them. The dragon girl turned this way and that. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
The sun painted the clouds above vivid orange against a purpling sky. The dragon girl looked up and watched the colors change and listened to the silence and the water.
“Una?” the voice spoke at last.
“Yes?”
“Who is this one who loves you? Tell me more of him.”
The pale girl tucked her dragon hands under her wet robe. “He is a prince, a true prince,” she said. “Kinder than anyone I have ever met . . . merciful and kind.” She bowed her head, and her long, dripping hair covered her face. “Why am I speaking this way? Why am I saying any of this? It is foolishness. It is all foolishness now – so very late! If I had realized, if I’d had eyes to see, perhaps it would be different. I was such a fool. I thought I loved Leonard passionately; I thought I longed for his return.”
She put a hand to her eyes, wishing tears would come, though they would not. “But it was not Leonard’s voice I heard. All along, when the Dragon’s darkness was all around me, when I thought I would melt for the heat of my own flames, it wasn’t Leonard’s voice I heard. Not once. It was the Prince of Farthestshore. It was for Aethelbald I waited. If I could have seen it just a little sooner, perhaps things could have been different, but now . . .”
She cursed bitterly between sharp teeth and pounded her fist in the sand. “It’s all just foolishness, and you are probably just some foolish dream of mine as well! Just as I dreamed Gervais cared for me, just as I dreamed my father could protect me, just as I dreamed Leonard would return, would be true – but it was all false!” She wrapped her arms over her head, pulling her hair with sharp claws.
“Una.”
The girl shook her head and squeezed her arms tighter.
“Una.”
“What?”
“I like the name. Your language is so harsh and sharp on my tongue that I rarely speak it. But Una is soft.”
The waves pulling back to the sea drew the voice away even as it asked, “Do you wish to be Una again?”
“Oh, it is too late,” the girl moaned. “I am trapped with this fire inside me. My heart is gone! It is too late for me now.”
The sea was pulling faster now. The voice came from a distance.
“The dragon must die,” it said.
The girl looked up, her eyes darting about. “What?” she called. “I cannot hear you. What did you say?”
“The dragon must die if you are to live. That is your only hope.”
The voice lingered above the water, then disappeared.
“Wait!” The girl leapt to her feet and rushed to the edge of the waves.
The sun reddened the water to lava, and the sky darkened like smoke.
“Wait, please!”