All that kept her going was Rose Red.
Daylily could not see behind the veil. She could not tell how the smoke, the subtle poison, or the bone-weary journey affected the maid. Perhaps she too was crumbling. Perhaps she felt nothing at all. More than once Daylily longed for a veil to hide her own weakness. She could not let this person—this goat girl—see her break.
So Daylily went on, sometimes leading the gelding, sometimes allowing Rose Red to lead while she put a hand on Lionheart’s leg to support him in the saddle. He was terribly hot to the touch, and several times she thought he must die, the fever was so great.
But at last they saw a sight more welcome than angels: the dust of horsemen riding their way. The Baron of Middlecrescent, the moment word had reached him of the Dragon’s coming, had set out to see that his daughter was safe.
Now at last they were hidden in Middlecrescent, many long miles from the Eldest’s City and the site of all that destruction. Lionheart was tucked into a bed, where he periodically burned and froze, tossing and moaning and talking to someone unseen in his sleep. Daylily rarely left his side.
Neither did Rose Red.
When Lionheart finally came to himself, the fire was mostly gone. All that remained was a dull burn in his chest, but even that seemed to fade as he returned at last to the waking world. His vision was blurred, a haze of colors and shadows. He blinked, and it cleared some; blinked again and he saw Daylily’s face surrounded by her cloud of red hair. It looked like fire.
He sat up sharply with a gasp, then grimaced as his head whirled.
“Hush! Hush!” Daylily spoke softly and put her arm across his shoulders. They sat thus a moment, stiffly. Then gently, almost motheringly, she drew him to her, and he rested his head against her shoulder, his eyes closed, breathing in her scent.
“Where are we?”
“Middlecrescent. Do you recall nothing?”
He shook his head and breathed again deeply. She smelled of lilac soap, like his mother and courtly ladies. She smelled of one who had tried to scrub clean from a deeper, fouler stench.
Beneath the clean, there lingered yet a breath of smoke.
He pulled away from her, shaking his head again and opening his eyes. He looked up into her face. “Tell me.”
“We traveled north,” she said, her arm still about his shoulders. It felt an ineffectual weight, but he did not shake it off. “We left the House grounds and circled around the Eldest’s City. He . . . he did not stop us. My father met us on the road late the sixth day and brought us back here. Lionheart.” She put her other hand against his cheek, a tender gesture, but her hand was cold. Still, he did not pull away, for her sake if nothing else. “Lionheart, I thought you would die!” Her voice had never been so full of feeling. It scarcely sounded like Daylily.
Lionheart gulped, but his mouth and throat were so dry they hurt, and the muscles moved without effect. He wanted to ask for water. Instead when he spoke next, he said, “My parents?”
She bowed her head as though considering her words. “No one has word of the Eldest and his queen. The Eldest’s City is abandoned, and talk is that your father, mother, your cousin, and many others are imprisoned in the House. But no one knows.”
The room was stuffy and hot, although the window was open, allowing in a breeze that tugged the curtains of Lionheart’s bed and struck his face without any cooling relief. The curtains themselves were red velvet, and to his tired eyes the color seemed to blend in and out of Daylily’s hair.
Rose Red was present. He saw her across the room, sitting by the window, huddled deep inside her veils. Oddly, the sight of her filled him with comfort. She, at least, of all the people of his home, was safe. She was alive, and she was near, and she was familiar.
The silence had hung too long in the room. Daylily, looking to see where Lionheart’s gaze rested, felt the sudden need to speak again. “The Dragon,” she said, “has given commands. No one is to leave.”
Lionheart dragged his eyes back to her, though they slid around as though unwilling or unable to rest upon her face. “No one is to leave the Eldest’s House?”
“All of Southlands,” Daylily said. “Father told me this morning. Word has it that the Dragon has created barricades of occult workings across every port and road. Those who have tried to leave have . . . they have been destroyed. Burned.” She was calm as she spoke the words, a bulwark of strength in the midst of the storm. In the presence of that strength, Lionheart found himself both chilled and emboldened. Even as the residual poison in his veins sought to drag him back down, he drew himself up, determined not to be weak before this girl who could speak of her country’s doom in such cool tones.
“Bridges have been set afire,” she said. “They are not ruined completely; people say that because they are of Faerie make they can’t be destroyed. But since the last messengers came, they have been set afire, and they burn so hot that no one can cross them anymore. We are prisoners, cut off from one another. We are at his mercy.”
“Get up, little prince.”
He grimaced as the words shot across his memory. He pushed away Daylily’s hands. “Rose Red,” he said, and the girl by the window leapt to her feet. “Rose Red, bring me clothes, boots, a cloak.”
She hastened to do his bidding, and Daylily stood back from his bedside. “Lionheart,” she said, “you have been sick with fever, and we despaired of your life. You are not yet ready to—”
“Get up and journey into the world.”
The fiery voice in his memory drowned out Daylily’s words. Rose Red returned with the requested items and handed them to him. He sat there, looking from her to Daylily and back again. “Please,” he said, “a moment of privacy?”
“What are you proposing, Lionheart?” Daylily’s face sank into a deep frown.
“I send you to your exile.”
“I must go.”
“Go where?”
“Journey into the world.”
“He told me I must journey into the world. I . . . I believe I must go, must seek help for us.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just told you? Those who have tried to cross have all died. Burned, Lionheart!”
“If he told me to go, then surely he must allow me to cross the borders.”
“We will meet again, Prince Lionheart.”
Lionheart squared his shoulders and drew as deep a breath as his damaged lungs would permit. “This is my duty, Daylily. He has commanded me to go, and I shall do so. I will cross the borders, and I will learn how to defeat this monster. And when I know, I will return.”
“Perhaps you’ll find your throne after all?”
“Now, are you going to let me get dressed, or shall I scandalize you both with the sight of my nightshirt?”
Though the Baron of Middlecrescent protested more vehemently than did his daughter, Lionheart was still Prince of Southlands. He was outfitted to ride before the day was out. The baron refused to give Lionheart his blessing, but at least he rode with wishes for good luck.
Middlecrescent and Daylily agreed to ride with Lionheart as far as the nearest bridge, where they both secretly believed the prince would be forced to stop. It was engulfed in a blaze of heat, though the bridge itself did not burn. Sometimes, the baron thought, young men who refuse to hear the advice of their elders simply need to find out for themselves the hard way. So be it.
Before mounting, Lionheart asked for Rose Red to be brought to him. The servant girl approached her prince, trembling, and went down on her knees before him as though to receive a benediction.
“Rosie,” he said, surprised, “why do you kneel? You’ve never been so formal before me!”
“My prince,” she said so softly that it was difficult to hear. “My good master, I must ask a boon of you.”
Lionheart smiled a little, though his heart was heavy. In Rose Red’s bowed figure he saw the comfort of familiarity. He found himself longing suddenly for the friendship that had once existed between them.
&
nbsp; His voice was heavy when he spoke. “You have always been loyal to me, Rosie. More than a servant, as you well know. How can I refuse anything you ask?”
With her head still low, she said, “I ask only that you give me a cart and a goat to pull it. And I ask that you would command this good baron, your servant, to let me return to the Eldest’s House.”
Lionheart blinked, and the baron, standing near, after taking a moment to decipher what he thought he had heard, swore under his breath. “Rose Red,” Lionheart said, “you should not return to the House.”
“But if my master’s family is indeed still held inside, they must be told of your plan. They must have something to hope for, or they’ll . . . they’ll die.”
Lionheart thought of the dragon fumes to which he had nearly succumbed, the awful, heavy despair as he had watched the dearest-held dreams of his life slain before his eyes again and again. And he thought of his parents and Foxbrush and the others imprisoned with them, surrounded night and day by that poison. Could they have survived even this long?
He went down on one knee and took hold of Rose Red’s hands. She tried to pull back, but he held them even so. “Such a favor is too great,” he said, speaking in a whisper so that the others nearby might not hear. “I would never ask it of you. No one should be burdened with such a task.”
“But you ain’t askin’ me, Leo,” she said. Through the slit in her veil, her eyes sought his. He thought he glimpsed them shining, though it was difficult to see through the folds of fabric. “You ain’t askin’ me. I’m askin’ you.”
He shook his head, squeezing her hands between his. Then suddenly he lifted her gloved hands and kissed them. And the baron and his daughter and the attendants standing nearby gasped and didn’t know which way to look. Lionheart did not notice their whispers, or if he noticed, he did not care.
“Rose Red,” he said, “was there ever a better person than you? Bless you a thousand times! Yes, I will give the order. You shall have your cart and your goat and, if the Lights Above are kind, you will go to my family. Somehow, I think that if anyone could get past that monster, you could. Here.” He took a ring from his finger, a gold ring carved with his seal, a seated panther. “Use this so that everyone will know you act as my servant. But tell me, while we’re at this boon-granting business, is there nothing you wish for yourself?”
Her voice was so low and soft by nature that Lionheart could not discern that it struggled to speak through tears. “My only other wish, my good master,” she said, “is that you would be safe, that you would return to us whole, and soon. Also that”—and here she could hardly believe her own daring, but once begun, she had to finish— “perhaps now and then you would remember your servant.”
“Dearest girl,” he said, “I will remember you, and I will take comfort in knowing my parents have you yet.”
With those words, he kissed her hands again, then got to his feet, leaving her where she knelt, and went to his horse. He mounted stiffly, breathing hard, for he was not yet fully recovered. But his face was determined. Let all Southlands know that, scalawag though he may be, once Prince Lionheart had set his mind on something, neither time nor tides could turn him back.
He rode from Middlecrescent Manor flanked by the baron and his daughter. When they came to the northernmost bridge of the baron’s land, arching across the trench-like valley below to the far tableland, they were all three surprised to see that it was not burning as they had been told, though the smell of smoke lingered in the air.
“Nothing for it, then,” Lionheart said. “Good-bye, baron, Daylily. Wish me luck. I will return, if all goes well, before the year is out.”
He urged his horse forward and would have ridden across the bridge without another word. But before he had gotten far, Daylily caught up with him. “Lionheart,” she said, “wait.”
He pulled up, and she rode up beside him. Then, to his great surprise, she leaned forward in her saddle, caught him behind the head, and kissed him, awkwardly but soundly, on the mouth.
“There,” she said when she pulled back. “Remember me too, Leo. And come back to me.”
He gaped. His head for a moment cleared of dragon fire and whirled with another fiery but much more pleasant sensation. Then, his face breaking into a grin, Lionheart spurred his horse onto the bridge and, without another look back, rode from Middlecrescent.
5
ROSE RED SAT ON THE STEPS of the baron’s house and waited, her hands folded around the prince’s ring. All who looked upon her through the windows were frightened, though they couldn’t say why. In those dark times, with dragon smoke spreading ever more thickly across the sky, the sight of that veiled figure, still as a statue upon the doorstep, was like something from a nightmare.
“Didn’t they say the prince was bewitched by a sorceress in the mountains?” someone whispered.
“Silly talk, that!” someone else snapped, not taking wary eyes from the girl.
Rose Red, oblivious to the talk, waited, watching the road down which Lionheart, the baron, and Lady Daylily had disappeared.
The baron and his daughter returned, and Rose Red breathed a sigh. This meant Lionheart had indeed crossed the bridge and gone on his way. Whether or not she was relieved, she could not say. She rose as the baron approached, curtsying when he drew his horse up before her and dismounted.
Like Daylily’s, the baron’s eyes were large for his face; but unlike Daylily’s, his were not beautiful. They penetrated like cold daggers. Rose Red, in the moment those eyes bore down on her, was thankful for her veil.
“Get out,” the baron said.
Rose Red drew a short breath. “I was promised a goat and a cart—”
“Guards.” The baron’s voice did not rise, and his eyes did not leave her.
Two guards approached and grabbed Rose Red by the arms. “Father!” Daylily cried, dismounting in a rush of skirts, but had no chance to say more. For Rose Red, after an instant’s surprise, screamed and, with strength the guardsmen did not expect, hurled first one and then the other from her. They staggered back, surprised, and Rose Red turned upon the baron.
“I was promised a goat and a cart,” she declared and held up Prince Lionheart’s signet ring. “You heard the prince yourself, and you saw him give me his ring. Now do as he wished!”
The baron’s mouth hardened into a thin line, his gaze fixed on her. “You will not order me about on my own land, witch,” he said. “I am not under your spell.”
Terror filled her, and Rose Red stepped back, turning from the baron to the guardsmen and back again. “The prince—” she began.
“He is as good as dead.” The baron spoke smoothly, without emotion. His focus shifted briefly to the ring in her hand. “That will do you no good now.”
Rose Red stood frozen. Then she clutched the ring tight to her chest, slumping into herself. The baron motioned, and the guards stepped forward again; this time when they grabbed her, she made no protest.
“Father,” Daylily said in a voice as cold as the baron’s own, “you cannot gainsay Prince Lionheart’s wishes. The Eldest could be dead, for all we know, and Lionheart, your sovereign. You dare not disobey him.”
The baron gave his daughter a mirthless smile. “Lionheart will not leave the country alive, my sweet child. He’s a fool to try, and he will not return.” He reached out and patted her cheek. Daylily stood woodenly, as though enduring some offense. The baron continued, “There is no king in Southlands now, save the Dragon. And when he eventually tires of us and leaves, there will be no king at all. Then we shall see where we are.”
Daylily said nothing. Rose Red stared at her from behind her veil, desperate to read her thoughts. “M’lady,” she said, trying to draw her gaze. “M’lady, help me.”
But it was the baron, not his daughter, who turned at the sound of her voice. His face suddenly became vicious, and he snarled to his guards, “Take her from here and . . . get rid of her.”
“Father—”
“Not a word from you, child.”
“Listen to me!” Daylily’s voice was sharp, a voice that would kill if it could. “I was there at the Eldest’s House when . . . when he came. I heard what he said to the prince and to this girl. I assure you, Father, if you harm her, your new ‘king’ will make you pay. Depend upon it.”
Her heart thudding so hard in her chest that she could scarcely think, Rose Red watched Middlecrescent and his daughter stare at each other like wildcats vying for dominance. At last, without breaking Daylily’s gaze, the baron spoke. “Guards, get the creature off my land. See that she leaves Middlecrescent. Alive.”
They hauled Rose Red off her feet in their haste to obey. She was bound at the wrists, placed on a horse—which was terrifying in itself, for she had never ridden before in her life—and escorted across Middlecrescent by several armed men. They passed towns and villages as silent as graveyards as the people, like so many ghosts, sequestered themselves into the recesses of their homes, hoping to escape the ever-growing stench of dragon smoke as it crept across the land. Farms were abandoned, flocks and fields left untended. Nowhere was there clean air to breathe. Rose Red watched the guardsmen gradually succumb to the poison, their faces losing color, their eyes losing light.
As the day neared its end, they had not yet reached the edge of Middlecrescent. But the men hauled her from her horse. They were under orders, so they did not kill her, but there was no gentleness in them. When she stumbled to the ground, they aimed kicks at her back, and Rose Red curled up in a ball and took the blows. She did not feel them. Those steel-toed boots would have broken the ribs of anyone else, but they could not physically harm her. Instead, humiliation slapped her with every strike.
“I think we’ve made our point,” one of them said at last, backing up and signaling for his fellows to do the same. “Follow the road before you and leave the baron’s land. If you remain anywhere within his boundaries, you will not find us merciful.”