Dragon's Keep (17 page)

"Come, Rollo," I said. "We've
found the hunters." With a
swift kick
from me Rollo bolted forward. We raced into the mist,
the woods taking
shape as we passed.
Faster, faster.
Then Rollo
slipped. The earth fell away as we hurtled over the edge of a ravine. I was
thrown from Rollo's back. My ankle broke with a loud crack as I hit the steep
side of the hill. I screamed with pain as I tumbled through fallen branches and
thick bracken and came to a muddy halt at the bottom of the gorge.

I cradled my ankle, which was already
swelling around the break. My arms and legs were scratched and bruised and
blood filled my mouth where I'd bit my lip, but it was nothing to the ankle
pain. I looked through the mist. "Rollo?" No sight of him.
"Come, boy!" I licked my bloody lip, panting against the pain, and
dizzily watched the forest floor tipping up to meet the sky as if all were on a
tilted platter.

"Rollo?"

A crow screeched in the pine trees above and
I felt for my charm pouch.
Gone.
I had no wolf's bane
or sorrel to protect me from the evils of the forest. The sound of crunching
leaves came from behind. I turned and shouted, "Rollo? Good boy!
Good—" My heart clutched. There was a stirring and a panting in the
bushes, but it wasn't Rollo or the hunting dogs.

Out of the fog, gray on gray, they padded
closer; ghostly things that made hardly a sound. Their scouting could have been
a rustling in the leaves, their coats a thicker fog. But their eyes shone like
flecks of moon on a dark sea and I saw they were not ghosts, but things of
flesh, fur, tongue, and teeth. And I sensed their hunger.

I scarcely breathed as
the wolves circled me. I counted eight
close
by
though the mist could have hidden more.

Clinging to the stump, I tried to rise, but
my ankle gave way and I tumbled sideways just as the great wolf pounced, his
jaws tearing into my arm. I howled, punched, kicked, groveled, and bit his
foreleg. More wolves circled, snarling and snapping. Blood filled my mouth and
nose. Then suddenly my attacker yelped. He stiffened and tumbled onto his side
in the mud.

I turned and retched. Sucking in my breath, I
saw what seemed to be a bird hovering above the wolf. Wiping dirt and
blood from my eyes, I looked again and beheld a
feathered arrow
deep in the wolf's chest.

Kye came crashing down the ravine and slid to
a halt above the dead wolf. He lifted his head and howled wild as an animal.

The wolves scattered, but an elder wolf with
great shoulders raced up to my savior and attacked. Kye grunted as he wrestled
with the beast. The gray wolf had Kye's shoulder
in his jowls, but Kye drew his knife. He stabbed and stabbed as I tried with
all my
strength to pull toward the fight. And when the blood-soaked
knife slipped from Kye's hand, he battled raw, blood flowing down his face.

I was downed and
bleeding, pulling hard toward Kye's knife
and
weeping from the wanting of it. The knife was wedged beneath a fern, still a
body's length away. Then with a shout, Kye pushed the wolf from him and was
atop his kill. Smelling their
brother's
blood, the wolves fled into the forest. Twigs cracked be
neath their paws, green bracken rustled in their
wake as they ran,
until the woods all about grew silent.

Kye rolled the wolf's
body over with his boot. Sure the beast
was
dead,
he turned and came to me. "Here,
dearest," he said. "We must stop the bleeding." He stooped,
bloody-cheeked and breathless. When he took off his shirt I saw the red gash
across his shoulder, the blood weeping from the wound.

"Your face,"
I said.
"Your shoulder."

"It's not deep," he said, tearing
his shirt in strips. "Show me your arm."

I held out my blood-soaked arm. My ankle
pained me more, but my skirts hid the broken bone from him.

As Kye touched my wound his face hovered so
near to mine, I could smell his skin. My lips trembled. Even in my pain I
wanted him to lift my chin and kiss me. But Kye
saw my wounds
more than my wish. He squinted as he ripped my sleeve.
Seeing the teeth marks and deep gashes down my arm, he pulled off my left glove
to view my wounds further.

The glove dropped with the soft sound of a
dead leaf.

The woods went still all around us as Kye
looked at my bloody hand and my naked claw.

I wanted to hide my
curse behind my back, but Kye had seen
it,
and his face hardened.

I'd have rather been the wolves' supper than
have seen that
sickened look upon my
beloved's face. Still, he clenched his jaw,
bound my wounds, and wrapped
me with his torn shirt.

At last Kye stood and limped about, gathering
his bow and arrows, and wiping wolf's blood from his knife. I could not speak.
Like a harlot shamed by love and gathering her coin, I slipped the golden glove
back on to hide the hideous thing,

though
the gold cloth shrouded nothing now. Kye had seen I
was a monster.

While I covered myself, Kye gazed into the
mist. Then seeing I was covered, he stooped and took me in his arms. He gathered
me like kindling, with no more love than a man would have for branches.

Through the parting mist, I saw Mother on the
ridge above.
And she saw it all.
The dead wolves.
Kye shirtless, bleeding.
Me
crumpled
in his arms. And her scream was like the cry of a kestrel
before it
swoops to kill.

_{Twine Unraveled}

carried me
wrapped in my cloak up the ravine, and as we reached
the trail Father rode up on his steed. "Rosie!" he
called,
and Kye lifted me to him.

"Take her to the castle," said
Mother. Father cradled me, holding tight my bleeding wounds, and as we turned
toward home the hunters searched for Rollo. He was halfway down the
ravine, lying with his foreleg broken, and as we
rode away Father
ordered Rollo slain.

"No!" I screamed, but Father kept
riding, saying, "Hush, Rosie. It's for the best."

Nothing would change my father's mind as we
wended home, and though I tugged on his cloak, begging for my horse's life, the
huntsmen gathered round Rollo and skulled him with a stone.

In the coming days I was bedded in my solar,
my wounds wrapped and my ankle strapped to a splint. The ankle had swollen
broad as a pig's jowl and the flesh was plum colored

where
it was not green. My body ached. Whenever I was awake
1 felt as if I'd been dragged over sharp stones.

Sir Magnus gave me boneset and bid me chew elder
twigs. Mother came twice a day to lay boiled serpent's tongue on my bruises,
which eased the pain but little. Leaning over my bed and petting my brow, she
dripped her prized poppy tincture on my tongue. The potion tasted mild and
sweet and brought on sleep. In my drugged dream I saw Kye kill the wolves
again— saw him tear his shirt and kneel, saying, "Here, dearest." But
then I'd watch Kye's expression sicken when he saw my hideous claw.

Once I awoke
sweat-drenched to find my mother laying serpent's
tongue across my arm. Noting the kindness in her
countenance just then, I asked a question. "Kye's wounds," I
murmured. "Do they heal?"

Mother nodded.
"Lord Godrick's son will heal. You must not
think of him."

"But the wolves ..." I said.
"I would have died if he—"

"Hush, Rosalind, and
rest."

Leaning over my leaf-wrapped shoulder, Mother
said, "Tell me, dear. When Kye tore his shirt to wrap your wounds . . .
did
he strip away . . ." She took a
heavy breath. "Did he remove your
glove?"

A sudden heat rose up my throat as if I'd
swallowed coals.

"No," I choked.

"Good, then," said Mother, bending
to kiss my forehead.

"No one could love you as I do,
Rosie." She brushed my hair from my damp cheek. "Why do you
weep?"

"The pain," I said, and it was
true, but it was not of my wounds I spoke. Mother dosed me a second time with
honeyed poppy. I sucked down the sweetness of it, grateful for the shroud of
sleep.

The next day I awoke to
the coolness of a man's hand against
my
head and, turning, murmured, "Kye."

I opened my eyes to find
my father sitting on my bed. "Rosie?
Poppet?" he said, leaning over me. "Are you
feeling better?"

Before I could answer he held out a small
bouquet of blue
bells and bleeding hearts.
I sat up slowly and took the little posy.

"I leave for France tomorrow," said Father. "Let me take you
to the walled garden and see you in the blossoms before I go."

I was still weak, but
tired of the stale air in my solar. "Would
you carry me down?"

Father stamped his foot, playing like a
horse. "I would, milady."

I laughed. I'd not made
the king prance about since I was six.
"I
have a wish," I said, pulling back my hair.

"Granted."

"I've not yet thanked my savior, Kye. If
you would ask him to come to the garden—"

"Ask another wish, poppet."

"Why? Is it wrong that I should—
"

"Lord Godrick's ship has sailed. Kye is
gone."

My heart was already cracked, but this one
word,
gone,
was the stone that broke it. I dropped the flowers on the
coverlet.

"When?"
I choked.

"This morning."
Father went to my window. "I can see his vessel
yet."

"Lift me." My head spun as I swung
my legs over the bed. Fath er carried me to my window seat and slid a second
chair closer to prop my splinted foot. I laid my flowers on the sill.

"I cannot go as far as the garden."
I gulped.

"Shall I call Sir
Magnus?"

"No!"

Father flinched.

"
Just.
. .
leave me by the window here."

"The sun will heal you." Father
kissed me on the head and called, "I'll order you some broth," as he
went out the door.

The sails of Lord Godrick's ship were white
as winter geese against the blue sea. It was too far out to spy any folk on
deck, but at the prow I knew Kye stood, his black hair blowing back. With every
gust of wind my love was sailing farther from me.

Kye had turned his back on me. His eyes were
forward now
to France, to England, and to war. He would wash away all mem
ory
of me, and never tell another soul he'd fallen for a twisted girl.

That I'd heard him call me
dearest was
but a teasing light in a world meant for the dark. I'd never know the taste of
his lips on mine or hold his children to my breast.

In that moment as I watched through my glassy
window, it was not death I wished for, but more and greater still, that Rosa
lind Evaine Pendragon was but a dream that never
woke to flesh,
never found face or form.
That I had
never been born.

The next morn I was taken by carriage to the
harbor. Sir Kim
ball carried my chair down
to the dock, where I awaited Father's
farewell. In the sea mist I sat
splinted, my wolf-wounds swathed in bandages, the sea around all whispering.
Mother came ghostlike up the dock, stood beside my chair, and bid me smile. I
could not forge one. All the pageantry with which we were sending my father to
war did not mask the sorrow of his going.

The water lapping on the posts and the gulls
circling over brought back the day the dragon died. I remembered how Kye had
stood beside me on this dock and watched the she-dragon's body dragged to
shore.

"Sad," he'd
said. Before he even knew me he'd let me in his
mind's chamber, for no other person on Wilde Island would have
understood his sadness for the slain creature.
Kye and I had been
bound together in the dragon's death.

After the last barrel of cider was loaded
onto Father's ship, trumpets sounded and the farewells began. Father came up
the dock and handed me a silver box.

"Open it," he said.

A golden cross lay
inside, nearly the size of my palm. It bore
five
rubies: one on each point and one large stone in the middle, all shining like
droplets of bright blood.

"Put it on, Rosie," he said, and I
hung it round my neck. Then sweetly he bent to kiss my cheek.

"Don't go," I said, taking his
sleeve. "I don't have to marry Henry."

"Ha!" laughed Father. "You
think saying this will stop me