“Useless creature,” Felix muttered, turning back to survey the palace. “Wish you could show me a way inside.”
The cat slipped out from under the juniper bush and trotted to the palace. Felix watched his slinky golden form jump to a windowsill and slip through the windowpane like magic. Felix blinked, surprised. He scrambled up and ran from the safety of his bush across the yard to the window. When he reached it, he found that one of the panes was broken. Monster sat on the other side, smiling a smug cat smile. Felix put his hand between the shards of broken glass and found that he could just reach the latch inside. He undid it, and the window swung open.
The next moment he was in the kitchen, crouched beside the big fireplace, breathing in sharp relief while Monster rubbed across his knees.
The Dragon watched the kitchen window click shut. He turned and trod on silent feet deep into the night shadows. Why alert the duke? He would find the boy in good time, and in the meanwhile, why not let the young prince hope? Hope is such a beautiful dream that dies such a hideous death.
“Death-in-Life,” the Dragon whispered to himself – and smiled.
–––––––
Dame Imraldera sat in the white room before the window, the silver sword held across her knees. She waited, watching the moon rise over the vast stretches of the Wood. She sat without blinking, still as a statue.
“He’s here! He’s come!”
Little voices whirled about her head and tiny hands touched her face and motioned behind her. Imraldera rose and turned. “My Prince?”
“I am here.” Aethelbald stepped into the room. His clothing was worn and burned, his face lined with care. “I have come for my sword.”
34
The dragon princess landed on the beach, well outside the city. Smoke billowed as thick as thunderclouds overhead, turning the ocean a stormy black. Her once beautiful city was a mass of rubble and fire, made all the more terrible by the memory of what it had been. She found herself thankful once more that she had no heart, for it would have broken in two at the sight.
On reluctant feet she crawled along the seaside up to the road, hardly noticing the difference when her body lost its grand proportions and again became that of a girl. Only when a foul-smelling wind blew, threatening to knock her off balance, did she realize and look down at herself. Her shape was human, but her hands and feet were scale covered, and she could feel scales on her neck and chest. Her fire flared cruelly at the sight of her own ugly limbs.
“No. I don’t want it anymore,” she hissed between sharp teeth.
But something inside her hissed back, How will you live without it now? What do you want instead? Food? Water? Such weakness!
The dragon girl felt the heat boiling up inside her and knew she could not stop it. It was her life now, the very foundation of her existence.
“Very well,” she murmured, and fire danced on her tongue. “Very well, but only a little more. I won’t need it soon. But for today I will burn.”
The fire grew as she neared the ruins of her city. Many of the buildings still stood, but they were darkened with ash, standing like lost orphans amid the wreckage. The destruction here was much greater than she had seen in Southlands. She felt she’d burst with fury at the injustice.
Good, the voice inside her murmured. You need your fire hot for this.
She picked her way down the smoldering streets, her dragon feet impervious to the heat and jagged edges of broken stone. She fixed her gaze on the hill above the city, where the walls of the palace still stood, and she could see the high gables and windows of her former home, ghostly gray against the smoke-darkened sky. The road up Goldstone Hill was long and deserted. Bit by bit, she picked her way to the palace gates, breathing in great gulps of dragon fumes. Each breath fed her own fire, which was by now a raging furnace in her chest.
The palace gates lay in twisted ruins on the ground. She stepped through the melted and broken metal and gazed again on the scorched grounds of her home.
Men of Shippening filled the yard, marching down the burned steps from the front door into the courtyard. On their shoulders and in their arms were her father’s treasures. More treasure, gold and silver and jewels, lay scattered about like discarded rubble. Intent on their task, none of the men noticed her standing quiet as a shadow in the ruins of the great Westgate.
She felt fire rise like bile in her throat.
“Hello, my child.”
Slowly she turned to her right and faced the tall man with a face as white as leprosy and eyes as black as death. He stood leaning with his shoulder against the wall.
“Welcome home,” he said, revealing fangs in a smile.
–––––––
Late in the morning, after a sleepless night in hiding, Felix crept through the servants’ wing, Monster twining between his feet and purring but otherwise quiet. Felix tried to kick him away, but the cat returned each time. “Fine,” Felix whispered, glaring down at the cat. “But you’ve got to be quiet, understand?”