The claws grasped her forearms and she gritted her teeth. But the talons didn't sink into her flesh, they raised her from the ground. Her arms felt as if they would be pulled from their sockets, reawakening the pain that had just begun to subside. Alys opened her eyes and saw that she was already dangling high, high up above the trees. She screamed in terror at the thought that he would drop her and she would plummet long moments before hitting the ground, or that he wouldn't drop her at all but was carrying her to his lair. She screamed again and again, too frightened to close her eyes against the stinging wind and the lurching countryside.
And then he did let her go.
The rushing air tore the scream from her throat, but she didn't fall for long. And the ground she hit was soft, bouncy. A haystack, she realized from the smell of it, and the prickliness, before the fog of terror cleared from her eyes.
She lay there flat on her stomach waiting, waiting, her heart beating so loudly she could hear nothing else.
A half-lifetime later she finally raised her head, saw that she was alone. "Where are you?" she screamed into the night. "What are you doing to me?"
The night didn't answer.
She lowered her face into the crook of her arm and rocked back and forth. Despite everything that had happened—because of everything that had happened—she drifted off to sleep.
Something dropped beside her.
She gasped, sitting up.
It was a rough-spun peasant dress and a sturdy pair of shoes that she had felt land next to her. The dragon, once again human-shaped, was crouched beside her, this time wearing clothes—a peasant's shirt and breeches. He nodded his head to where she had been lying. "I thought you were crying."
"No," she said. "I don't cry, ever."
His face showed nothing.
"Where'd you get these?"
He gestured off into the pink-edged dark. "Farmhouse."
"You didn't ... kill the people? Did you?"
He paused, with that expression of his that said he was weighing his answer. "They'd run off. Abandoned the place."
She sighed in relief. "Really?"
He shrugged, with a condescending smile. "Perhaps. You better get out of your wet clothes."
"Turn around," she commanded.
He did, but she could see his shoulders shaking once more with silent laughter.
Chapter 4
ALYS FINISHED LACING the bodice of her borrowed dress and looked up to find the young man who was a dragon unabashedly regarding her. No telling, from that bland expression, if he'd turned a moment before she had, or if he'd been watching all along. Warmth flooded her cheeks, from anger and embarrassment. The suspicion that he could see her blush, even in the dim predawn light, made her angrier yet and even more embarrassed. He sat too close to her, but perched on the top of the haystack, she had nowhere to go. She lowered her gaze to avoid his face. Except for the color of the eyes, everything was just too right.
And nothing was right at all.
She concentrated on her anger, to give her voice the bite it needed. "That's very rude, you know."
For a long moment he said nothing, as though in the interim he'd forgotten how to speak. Finally he said, "What is?"
"Watching me get dressed. People don't do that."
"Don't they?" he asked with just enough balance between polite inquiry and irony to show that he knew the truth of it.
"Nice people don't." He looked momentarily startled, as though taken aback that she could have ever confused him with someone who could be nice. His expression shifted to amusement. Before he could start laughing outright, Alys said, "And I don't like the way you sit so close to me, either." She regretted the words immediately for they gave him yet another advantage over her.
So she wasn't completely surprised when he seized her arm. But she wasn't expecting him to tug. Together they skittered and wobbled down the side of the haystack, sending flurries of hay flying till she landed in a heap, half on top of him, though she'd been sliding down haystacks for as far back into her childhood as she could remember.
Once she managed to figure out which end was up, Alys jerked her arm to break the dragon-youth's grip. He held on just long enough so that, when he did let go, she tipped over. She fell flat on her back, and more hay showered on her. Furious, she leaped to her feet and ineffectually brushed at the hay that was in her hair and clothes. Unsure how much of her discomfort was actually premeditated on his part, she snapped, "Thank you."
Still sitting at the foot of the haystack, he looked up at her but said nothing.
Surely it couldn't be that easy. "For everything," she added.
Still nothing.
So Alys turned and took a step away.
And a second.
And a third.
She braced herself for him to grab her from behind, knowing that he could move with uncanny speed and silence. She took another step, her shoulders involuntarily hunched in anticipation, cringing from the thought that he could transform himself as silently as he could move, and that it might not be with hands that he'd choose to catch hold of her.
She managed one more step.
When she turned, he was sitting as before, watching her. Her voice quivered. "Why are you doing this?"
He put on an expression that was a bit too much of wide-eyed innocence.
"What do you want from me?" she demanded.
Still he gave her nothing, as though waiting for her to choose the direction the conversation must take.
She returned to the haystack and sank down beside him. "I don't trust you."
Finally he reacted: He laughed, soft and throaty. "All for the best."
Trying to undermine her confidence, was he? In an attempt to appear equally mysterious and dangerous, she said, "And you shouldn't trust me."
He arched his eyebrows.
Alys worked to keep her chin level. "Just so we both know."
He inclined his head solemnly, though she suspected he didn't take her seriously. "Just so we both know," he repeated, his voice, as ever, telling her nothing.
"What do you want?"
He paused, perhaps considering what he could say that she would believe, perhaps working on regaining his sincere look. "To help you."
"To help me...?" If he had hoped to find something she would believe, he had failed. "That's very kind of you," she said bitterly, for she no longer believed in kindness. "And you're willing to do this ... why? Because you're fond of helping others?"
"I'm fond of revenge," the dragon answered.
Alys sat back on her heels, considering. She had a fleeting image of her father clutching his chest, sinking, ever sinking, to the floor of Gower's storeroom. Revenge. Never once had the word actually formed in her mind, but now that the dragon had said it, she recognized the thought that had been with her all day. She remembered what she'd said, about roasting the village, babies and all. "You'd burn their fields, demolish their houses, devour the survivors?"
"Yours for the asking," the dragon said. He gave her his chilliest smile and advised, "Don't ask."
So there was a catch. "Why?"
"Revenge," the dragon said, "is sweetest when it's slow enough that the one doing it can see the results, and the one to whom it's done knows from where it comes."
She thought of Gower, and his wife, Una, and their daughter, Etta. And she thought of Inquisitor Atherton, and she nodded.
"Do you want my help?" the dragon asked.
She knew exactly what he was doing, forcing her to put it into words, to admit to it, to take responsibility for it. "Yes," she said, savoring the sound of the word.
There was a flicker of something across his face, something too fast, or too far removed from any human emotion, for her to recognize. Again she was left with the feeling of having just passed—or failed—some test. His voice gave no indication which. "Who do you most want to see suffer?"
"Gower," she said, almost before he'd finished the question. And again, more calmly, "Gower."<
br />
"Then, of course," said the dragon, "we'll have to do him last."
So she told him all of it. The lies spoken. The lies implied. Her father's death.
The dragon-youth listened to everything, never asking questions, never bringing her back to the main point when her story wandered to Father Joseph sprinkling holy water on the fields every spring or to her mother who'd died two days after Alys was born.
I'II tell him everything, Alys thought, and when I'm done, he'll tell me what to do.
But when she was done, the dragon only said, "We will go indoors now, since your human body is more fragile than mine." He was on his feet before she saw him start to move, as though he'd only been waiting for the sound of her voice to stop. As though he hadn't been listening to the words.
And was the reference to her fragile body a subtle threat, she wondered, masquerading as concern? Or concern, perhaps, masquerading as threat? She wasn't comfortable with either idea. Nor with the thought of being confined with him, trapped by walls.
Not that she was in any less danger out here.
Now would be a good time to run, to break away from him and hide. Without checking to see if she followed, he was already headed for the farmhouse to which this haystack no doubt belonged. But ... was he that confident that she would come, or was it just that he didn't care one way or the other? He had made no move to stop her before, after pulling her down the haystack. Didn't it make any difference? Was it all the same to him?
And her situation was certainly no better now than it had been on the hillside when she had first gotten loose from her bonds, before she had ever seen him. She had nowhere to run then, and she had nowhere to run now. Except that now she had told him her life story, and he had indicated—hadn't he?—that he would help.
He'd entered the cottage with never a backward look for her. He must have lit a fire earlier while getting the clothes, for cheery firelight spilled out of the doorway. She could make out that this side of the cottage—the front—was singed, and the door hung loose on one twisted hinge. Beyond, what had to have been the barn was a burned-out shell. If there had been anybody still alive in either building, surely they'd have been up by now, and out here to inquire about the presence of strangers in their haystack.
Of course, the fact that there was nobody alive didn't mean there was nobody in the cottage.
At the last moment Alys balked yet again, unwilling to confront proof that the dragon had lied to her in this. But if she had a chance—if she had a chance—it wasn't out here. Slowly she entered.
There were no bodies after all. Or at least none lying out in the open. In the light from the fire in the hearth, Alys could see that the contents of the cottage were strewn about, but it was impossible to tell whether that was from the owners trying to decide what to take in a hurry as they fled, or from looters, or from the dragon searching for clothes and not knowing enough of humans to guess where they'd be kept. Presumably a dragon would have no trouble lighting a fire.
Somehow he was behind her, close enough that when he spoke his breath stirred the hair that had come loose against her neck. "If you want," he offered, "I could fetch you something to eat."
She jumped and whirled to face him. "No," she answered so quickly that he smiled.
Annoyed, she turned her back on him and began searching for food. "See," she meant the set of her shoulders to tell him, "I'm not afraid of you." And when was he going to do something or say something about all that she had told him? She found a sack with three wrinkled apples left over from last autumn; and, though it was almost time for this year's crop, they looked like the most delicious things she'd ever seen.
"Do you—" She started to turn around, saw that he was just removing his shirt, and hastily kept on turning. She bit her lip, her heart pounding. "What are you doing?" she asked in a panic.
He didn't answer and didn't answer, and still she wouldn't look. Then she heard a sound that could only be a huge mass of talons and scales and tail settling down on the packed-dirt floor. She turned and found the dragon curled up like a cat, his tail around him and his chin resting on his paws, never mind that he took up almost the entire room.
"What if the owners come back?" she asked.
The dragon, who'd already closed his eyes, reopened them and looked at her, unblinking.
"What if the people from Saint Toby's return to make sure I'm dead?"
From outside she could hear the first twitterings of birds rousing themselves for day, though it was still dark out. The dragon closed his eyes again, ignoring her.
"I've told you everything about me," she cried, "all my secret dreams, everything I ever hoped for, all my fears and inner thoughts. I hate it when you act as though I'm not here."
He looked up at her with a flash of annoyance but still said nothing.
Alys opened her mouth, but then closed it as things became clearer. "You can't talk when you're not in human form, can you?" She sighed. "You should have said so before."
The dragon jumped to his feet, transforming so quickly that he had lunged and grabbed her arm before she realized that it was his hand and not a claw that held her. "Of course I can talk when I'm not in human form." His fingers dug into her arm. "I can talk the language of whatever beast I'm in the shape of: When I'm a horse, I talk horse. When I'm a hawk, I talk hawk. When I'm a human, I talk human"
Wincing from the pain and the intensity, Alys objected, "Humans aren't beasts."
"THEY ARE TO DRAGONS, "he shouted. "And only a human would be arrogant enough to argue about it."
"Arrogant?" Alys was too angry to be concerned about him standing there naked, holding her close. "Arrogant? You're calling me 'arrogant'?"
The dragon put his face close to hers. His voice suddenly soft and dangerous, he warned, "Be careful you don't become more trouble than you're worth."
As far as she could tell, she was already more trouble than she was worth. She tugged to snatch her arm away and realized he'd only let go of her before because he'd been good and ready to let go; if it was a contest of strength, he wouldn't even be aware of the force she exerted against him. Her anger cooled to an icy lump in her chest. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
There was nothing in his face to indicate what he thought of that, whether he was dis gusted by her fear or if, like Inquisitor Atherton, he took pleasure in it.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, softer yet.
He took a step back from her, giving himself room to return into dragon shape, and she decided that meant he wasn't going to kill her after all.
"Wait." As soon as she said it, she realized that he could kill her just as well in either shape. Still, maybe she should act as though she assumed the best, just in case he hadn't made up his mind. She said, "If we're going to be working together, I can't very well call you, 'Hey, you, dragon.'"
He narrowed his purple eyes at her and must have weighed considerations about which she wasn't even aware. "You may call me Selendrile," he said with just the slightest hint of sibilance. A moment later he'd resumed dragon shape and once again settled on the floor.
"Selendrile," she repeated, tasting the sound of it. "I'm Alys."
The dragon opened his eyes just long enough to look bored, then went to sleep.
Chapter 5
BY THE TIME Alys woke up, it was dark again. There was still, or again, a fire in the hearth. The dragon—Selendrile—was awake and in human form and crouched beside her, close enough to touch. She flinched, thinking he'd been about to shake her awake and that if she didn't look alert fast enough he might yet. But then she realized he was too still; she hadn't caught him between motions after all. He was simply there watching her, with that appraising expression that made him look as though he'd been either trying to read her mind or speculating how she'd taste.
She scrambled to her feet. He stayed where he was, only tipping his head back slightly to continue watching her. "Don't do that," she demanded, recalling—even as she said it—having heard the younge
r children at Saint Toby's say much the same thing, in much the same tone. "Stop looking at me."
He looked neither amused nor annoyed. Nor about to comply.
She swept past him so she wouldn't have to admit to either of them that her words had no effect on what he did or did not do. Her stomach felt as though it were twisted in a knot, she was so hungry; and despite the fact that she had searched earlier and found only the three apples, scouring the cottage for food would take her mind off both Selendrile and the thought of how long it had been since her last meal.
She paused in midstride, seeing a large wooden bowl on the table, filled almost to the top with a thick stew. She suddenly realized that the warm smell of it—potatoes and chicken and barley—filled the small cottage, and her stomach clenched even tighter as her mouth began to water. "What's this?" she asked softly.
"It's called stew," the dragon said. "Assorted grains and vegetables and some meat, heated to the point where no one can tell which is which."
Alys turned to see if he was being sarcastic or if he really thought he was telling her something she didn't know. She couldn't be sure. "I meant, where'd it come from?"
Selendrile gave a slight tip to his head. "I got it from a farmhouse on the outskirts of town."
"Got it?" she asked.
"Stole it," he corrected readily enough. "I didn't know how long your human form could go without nourishment. You seemed to be too weak to rouse yourself and I thought you might be dying."
Again the not-so-subtle hint that she could never keep up with him. His speculation on her mortality was spoken in the same tone he'd used to describe the contents of the stew.
"I was just tired," Alys said, annoyed, and somewhat chilled despite the fire. "I hadn't slept at all last night. Don't dragons sleep?" She knew they did; she'd seen him at it. Except that apparently he'd kept at it for a much shorter time than she had. He'd waited for her long enough to consider the possibility that she wouldn't get up, to fetch nourishment, bring it back here, and be crouched for who-knew-how-long staring at her until she'd opened her eyes.