The horses disappeared from her view.
Rose Red leapt away from that window and rushed across to the study. There she peered through a window that looked toward the Eldest’s southern gardens, across the stretch of land that led at length to Swan Bridge. As she watched, she saw Lionheart and Daylily appear. They urged their horses into a gallop and thundered across the turf, Daylily’s superb red hair billowing behind her like a flag, matching the flap of Lionheart’s scarlet coat.
“You fool!” Rose Red growled aloud. “Oh, Leo, you fool. You’re goin’ to be hurt, you’re goin’ to be miserable, and what will I do for you then?” She shook her head hard, grinding her teeth. “Stupid girl, it’s goin’ to happen, as sure as I’m standin’ here. Get used to it. You’ve known since you came how it would be. You’ve known all this long year. . . .”
Rose Red turned from the window. “Get back to work now,” she muttered. “Get back to your tasks as you was meant to, and let the great ones do as they must. It’s no concern of yours.”
But she could not resist one last look out the window.
She thought she saw far up in the sky a red flame, like a falling star speeding to earth.
Beana stood on the far side of the goat pen, her ears pricked, her nose gently sniffing the breeze.
“I know you’re there,” she muttered.
But she heard nothing.
That was what worried her more than anything. For the first time since she and Rose Red had descended the mountain, the air was still, that trembling murmur from beyond the worlds vanished.
Beana paced. She knew she should be relieved, but she was not. For a year and a day, she had stood almost constant vigil to be certain the Other was never heard beyond its bounds. But this was not a battle to be won so easily; the Other would never give up.
“Trying to lull me into a false security,” Beana muttered. “That’s what you’re doing.”
No answer.
Beana paced up and down, looping the whole pen at last, faster and faster. Then, as the other goats watched, scandalized, she took a running start and leapt the fence, galloping awkwardly through the stable yard and the near gardens, out into the farther stretches of the Eldest’s park. Her fellow goats bleated and cheered in a mixture of horror and admiration before (once she was out of sight) completely forgetting her existence. No one else witnessed her bolt for freedom.
The grass was warm and soft beneath her feet, so different from the hard mountain terrain to which she was used, full of many delectable smells. But the goat did not stop to investigate these. She slowed from a gallop to a trot, eyes focused forward on her destination.
The Eldest’s grounds ended where the gorge cut across the land, sweeping sharply down into those unknown Wilderlands below.
Beana trotted to the edge of the gorge and gazed into that dark forest. The trees watched her and some beckoned gently with leaf and needle-covered hands, but she ignored these. “Bah,” she muttered, searching and sniffing and becoming ever more agitated.
Suddenly she caught a new scent. It was not the one she sought.
Slowly, unwilling to believe her senses, the goat turned her eyes upward, to the sky. “Lights above, shield us,” she whispered.
There, above her, appearing in a flash of fire, was a form she knew all too well. And with it came the stench that still haunted her nightmares, no matter how many centuries since last she’d smelled it! In that moment of recognition, Beana knew that descending terror and the memories it stirred in her heart better than she knew herself.
Don’t be afraid, sang the wood thrush.
But Beana was running now, as fast as she could for the Eldest’s House, while watching the destruction falling like lightning.
The day was overcast and rather cold for summer, with a breeze that had a sting to it.
Then the world was filled with fire.
First came the heat, an instant later the flame, and immediately afterward the sound. It was a roar that ended in a sensation of heaviness, like an enormous hand smacking down. WHOMPH! A sound as hot as the flames themselves. One could almost believe that the sound alone consumed the marble Starflower Fountain, that massive edifice two stories tall; consumed and destroyed it in a matter of seconds.
After that, came the Dragon.
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