But the woman spared no glance for him. Her eyes pierced Rose Red’s. “The Name, child! Call upon the Name!”
With a voice that was hardly her own, Rose Red cried out:
“ESHKHAN! ESHKHAN, come to me!”
Protection surrounded her. It had always been there, but she had been unable to perceive it in the fire. Like silver water, like music rushing over her in a shield greater than stone, stronger than iron, the wood thrush sang:
Walk before me, child.
The Dragon shrieked. His wings beat the smoke and flames of the burning hall until they billowed to the sky.
But the birdsong surrounded her:
You are not abandoned.
“What have you done?” the Dragon roared. “What have you done?”
There was terror in his voice, more horrible than his fire. Rose Red crouched down with her arms over her head, unable to tear her gaze from the sight. He shrieked again, and the sound brought down the last standing pillars of the hall. Then he looked right at her, opened wide his mouth, and bellowed a great plume of fire.
But someone stood between her and the flame.
Her Prince. The Friend she’d once thought imaginary, now powerful and beautiful, unarmed before the Dragon’s fury. Neither human nor Faerie, he was something altogether unique. Something wonderful and dreadful and worshipful. Rose Red covered her eyes, but her ears still heard.
“It is not my time!” The Dragon raged in the face of the Prince. “Your Beloved will be mine!”
The voice that spoke was as the silver voice of the thrush.
“Not this child,” said the Prince. “You will not have her.”
“I won the game! I won, and I must have my due!”
Flames spewed, roaring over the throne, the pedestal, the Prince, and Rose Red, in consuming death. But the Prince did not move. He stood over her and took the blast. The fire could not touch him, and his face was calm in the inferno.
“Away from this place now, Dragon,” he said. “Release your hold and fly. What you seek is not here; you will never claim this child.”
The Dragon bellowed volcanic ash. There was a crack as though worlds split one from another, and Rose Red felt her gut lurch, as if plunging in a terrible dream. She screamed.
Her Prince held her.
Her Imaginary Friend whom she had always known, who was more real than all else in this life. She had known him from the time she slept in her cradle and the wood thrush sang over her.
Exhausted, she rested in his arms, and he rocked her like a baby, the way the man she called father once had done. And the Prince sang softly the song she knew so well:
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
When all around you is the vastness of night,
Won’t you return to me?”
She listened and felt the healing of his words upon her burned face and hands. When at last the song ended, Rose Red opened her eyes.
The Village of Dragons was gone. So was the Eldest’s Hall. Rose Red rested in a place beyond them all, and while her eyes were unable to perceive a definite picture of this place, her other senses told her that it was beautiful beyond knowledge. She breathed a sigh and rested her head against the Prince’s shoulder.
“Brave one,” he said, “that battle is over.”
“The . . . the Dragon?”
“He has released his hold on the Eldest’s House and fled Southlands for the northern countries. He’ll not return.”
“How do you know?”
“You are not the one he seeks.”
She studied his face. “Not your Beloved?” she whispered.
He smiled at her then. Her veil was still gone, she realized, and for a moment she shuddered and wanted to hide. But he smoothed a hand over her cheek and met her gaze. “You are beloved,” he said. “You are my child.”
She closed her eyes and felt two tears escaping. The relief of belonging, of being so loved, was too great in that moment to be borne. Then at last she managed to ask, “What of the one the Dragon seeks? The princess he mistook me for?”
The Prince shook his head, and sadness filled his face. “That one, I fear, has yet to suffer his work.”
“But you will save her too?”
He nodded. “I will not leave her to his work.”
Rose Red smiled, weary but peaceful. “All is well now, ain’t it?”
The Prince gently stroked her cheek again. She then knew that she was wearing her real face, the face with which she was born. The knowledge saddened her but relieved her as well.
“All is well for the present,” the Prince said. “But your story is not yet over. My child, you have much suffering ahead of you.”
She gulped and licked her dry lips. Her heart hurt at his words. “You’ll not protect me anymore?”