“Imraldera!” Eanrin, shaking himself free of the curse’s aftereffects, sprang forward, putting his arms around her and trying to draw her to him. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He struggled to make his voice soothing, but his body quaked with fear of her and the curse she bore. She fought him weakly at first, then fell against him, quivering with noiseless sobs.
“Is it the city?” Eanrin suggested, stroking her hair and rocking her gently. “It is a wicked place. It gets to you, I know. I feel it too.”
Her shudders eased, but her face, when she finally gazed up at him, was stricken. He did not see that they sat in the Place of the Teeth.
It is only an illusion, she told herself. If she put her hands to the ground, she felt, not the smooth sacrificial stone, but the edges of broken cobbles, the dust and ash of the city’s destruction. And she smelled the burning stench of Etalpalli. Her vision alone was manipulated, making her see what was not there.
She gagged and might have been sick had her stomach not been empty.
Eanrin could smell the enchantment. Etalpalli reeked of dragon smoke and dragon death, but this was a dragon’s enchantment, similar to the glamour placed over his eyes on the shores of Gorm-Uisce. Only this time it was directed at Imraldera, so he could not see it; and unlike that time by the shore, he could sniff it out.
He took Imraldera’s face in his hands. “Princess, my dear,” he said, “I know you’re seeing something. I don’t know what it is, but obviously it is none too pleasant for you. You know it is false, don’t you?”
She nodded, staring desperately into his eyes. It could not be real . . . but oh, at the same time, how real it was!
Eanrin glanced about quickly, then focused on Imraldera, holding her gaze. “This is a place of power. Perhaps the center of Etalpalli. It’s good you’ve brought us here!” That was a lie. As far as he could tell, the center of the labyrinth held no more answers than its edges. But the poor girl needed some encouragement. “You did well, Imraldera. Much better than I could have expected from a mortal maid! Now just keep looking at me, and the enchantment will wear off. You will see we are on the same dirty old street in the same dirty old city.”
A tear trailed down her cheek. She must look at him. She must not see the stones like teeth rising beyond his shoulders. Her dark skin took on a ghastly hue.
“Dragon’s teeth!” Eanrin drew her to his chest, laying her ear against his heart. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Rest and close your eyes.” He felt each breath she took trembling through her body. Pressing his cheek against her tangled, dirty hair, he shut his own eyes and sang.
It was a song so old, he’d forgotten when he first heard it. Perhaps he had composed it himself, back in the days of his forgotten youth, when first he had learned that life was not all joy—the first great step one must take if one is to grow, but a step he seldom paused to remember. Why should he, whose life extended forever before his feet, pause to consider pain?
But when he was young, he had known.
“‘Lilla lay, lilla lay,’ softly she sighs,
The fair willow maiden with silver-gray eyes.
But over her sighing, the white birch maid laughs:
‘Lilla lay, lilla lay, sorrows won’t last!’
“So listen, sweet child. Oh, lilla lay, ly!
To the voice of the birch tree who laughs to the sky.
For today may be gray, and the rain may be falling,
But lilla lay, lilly, a new day is dawning.”
He rocked the girl and felt her body relax as the mellow tones of his lullaby worked their own enchantment. She slept, and it was, he smelled, a sleep without dreams.
Glomar stood over them, his weight shifted off his bad leg. “That was . . . very pretty, Eanrin,” he said, his voice gruff. He sniffed and wiped his nose. “It was like something . . . I don’t know. Something I heard a thousand years ago, perhaps. When I was young. I didn’t know you could sing like that.”
“Shhhh,” said the poet with a sharp glare. “Don’t wake her. Let the glamour wear away.”
But he dashed a stray tear from his face before the badger might see. No wonder he had forgotten this song! And as soon as he could get rid of this maid, he would make every effort to forget her as well. He was a fool to allow himself to care.
The longer he cared, the longer he risked that which he feared most.
Gleamdren sulked. She was good at sulking, whether she knew it or not. Her face fell naturally into all the right grooves, letting anyone with eyes know exactly what she thought, which was that the world was not behaving as it ought.
What was this fascination with mortal women? First, Rudiobus falling for the glamourized dragon (which, granted, only looked mortal) and now this! The Eanrin she knew wouldn’t be caught dead speaking to a mortal girl. He certainly wouldn’t drag one along on a noble quest! Was he going to start writing poetry in her honor too? Insufferable man.