Cook shrugged and said no more, for the demon herself passed by just then, carrying a bucket of water. That bucket was large, with an iron handle, and when full probably weighed nearly as much as the girl herself. Her skinny arms did not look as though they could support such a load, yet she moved without apparent strain. Her face was so heavily veiled in linen that not even the gleam of her eyes showed.
She did not pause to look at Cook or Deerfoot but hastened on her way without a word or glance. When she vanished up a servants’ stair, Deerfoot let out a breath she had not realized she held. “Coo-ee! Unnatural strength that one has. What can the prince be thinking to keep one like her around here?”
“He’s bewitched,” muttered Cook. Which was the only natural explanation.
So the demon girl remained at the Eldest’s House. And it was she, said the people of Southlands, who called the Dragon down upon them.
Prince Lionheart stood before his mirror glass, gazing into a face he did not recognize. It was not the face of an ensorcelled man, he thought, despite the rumors he knew people whispered behind his back. It was the face of a man who would be king. A man who would be Eldest of Southlands.
It was the face of a man who had breathed deeply of dragon smoke.
The stench of those poisons lingered throughout Southlands, though in the months since the Dragon’s departure it had faded to a mere breath. In the Eldest’s House it remained the most prominent. And on dark nights when the moon was new, one smelled it strongest of all.
But life must go on. Five years of imprisonment under that monster had taken its toll on the people of the kingdom, but they must struggle forward somehow. And Prince Lionheart would struggle with them.
He adjusted his collar and selected a fibula shaped like a seated panther to pin to his shoulder. He never allowed his bevy of attendants to help him dress, rarely even permitted them into his chambers. He’d been five years on his own, five years in exile while the Dragon held his kingdom captive. During that time, he’d learned to button his own garments, and Lionheart would not have attendants bungling about him now.
Besides, their questioning faces unnerved them. Every last one of them, when they met his eyes, silently asked the same question:
“Did you fight the Dragon?”
His fingers slipped, and the point of the fibula drove into his thumb. “Iubdan’s beard!” he cursed, chewing at the wound to stop the blood. The pin fell to the stone floor at his feet. Still cursing, Lionheart knelt to pick it up. He paused a moment to inspect it, for it was of intricate work and solid gold. The seated panther was the symbol of Southland’s heir. When he became Eldest, he would replace it with a rampant panther.
“Did you fight the Dragon?”
He closed his hand around the brooch. “I did what I had to do,” he said. “I had no other choice. I did what I thought best.”
Of course you did.
This voice in his head might have been his own. But it was colder and deeper, and it was no memory.
Of course you did, my sweet darling. And now, with the Dragon gone, you will have your dream.
“My dream,” muttered Lionheart as he looked into the mirror once more and fixed the fibula in its place.
He must make his way downstairs now to the half-constructed hall where a banquet was to be held that night. The scaffolds were pulled down for the week, and the signs of construction hidden behind streamers and paper lanterns. The Dragon had destroyed the Eldest’s Hall before he left Southlands, but rebuilding was well underway. And though the winter wind blew cold through the gaps in the walls and roof, the banquet must, for tradition’s sake, be held there, for this was the prince’s wedding week.
A shadow passed over the sun.
Lady Daylily sat in her chambers, gazing at her face in a glass that revealed a young woman who was no longer as beautiful as she had once been. Not that her beauty was far faded. But the poison that yet lingered in her lungs pinched her features, sallowed her complexion, and left her once vibrant eyes filmed over as with dull ash. She was still lovely, to be sure. But she would never again be what she had been.
Her attendants bustled about her, laying out her gown, smoothing the long headdress as they pinned it to her hair, selecting furs to drape over her shoulders to protect her in the drafty Eldest’s Hall. Daylily must be as elegant as human hands could make her this evening.
After all, the prince’s wedding week was hers as well.
“Out.”
The woman pinning the headdress into Daylily’s curls paused. “My lady?”
“Out. Now.” Daylily turned on her seat. Her face was a mask, revealing nothing. “All of you. I would be alone for a moment.”
“My lady,” said Dame Fairlight, her chief attendant, “the banquet—”
“I believe I have made myself clear.”
The women exchanged glances, then, one by one, set aside their tasks and slipped from the room, closing the door behind them. Daylily sat like a stone some minutes before moving softly to her window. There she sat, gazing out across the Eldest’s grounds.