Iron Hearted Violet (32 page)

Now! Burn it!
Violet thought wildly at the dragon.
Burn the sky. Burn its prison. Burn it now!

The dragon opened its throat, and fire poured out onto the sky, directly at the image of the Nybbas-as-Violet. The mirrored sky glowed orange, then blue, then white. The Nybbas fractured into a hundred, then a thousand, tiny replications of itself.

STOP!
the Nybbas screamed.
PLEASE STOP. I’M A PRISONER! I’M WEAK AND PATHETIC. PLEASE DON’T HURT ME.
It whined and sobbed. It sucked its snot and lisped through a litany of pleading. Violet thought she’d be sick.

Don’t stop, my beloved
, she thought desperately at the dragon.

CAN’T… BREATHE…
she felt the dragon think.
MY FIRE!
And feeling the dragon’s growing panic like a brand-new arrow—hot and bright and terribly sharp—in her abdomen, Violet fell to her knees.

You can do it. I know you can.

The sky bubbled and wobbled. Violet braced herself. But the dragon coughed, then gasped, then fell to its side, panting for breath.

“Dragon!” Violet screamed.

The mirrored edge of the world smoothed over, and the multitudes of images of the accursed Nybbas swirled together into one. The ground rumbled and shook, knocking Violet to her knees.

“What was that?” she asked.

The Nybbas sighed. And smiled.

THE FIRST STONE HAS FALLEN!
it cried.
MY FREEDOM IS AT HAND!

Slowly, by blink and by sigh, Auntie, Moth, and Nod became visible to everyone present. At first, it was a flutter at the edge of the eye. Then the flutter became a blur, and the blur became a figure, and the figure became an individual, complete with expression, intention, and cunning action. People gasped, then pointed. One very old woman said, “I knew it!”

Two guards—a brother and a sister as alike unto each other as two daisies on a single stem—fainted dead away at
the sight of Nod swaggering next to me, his spear slung across his back and his tiny blade tucked underneath his left shoulder. Wyfryn, an idiot to the end, gave a small, tight scream whenever he laid eyes on one of them, followed always by a shake of his head and a mumbled assertion to himself that he could not see what was not there. After a moment or two of
that
nonsense, Captain Marda ordered the council member gagged, his hands bound in front of his body like a prisoner.

“He’ll not waste his time in the dungeon, mind you,” the Captain called over her shoulder. “There are ditches that need digging. And they won’t dig themselves. And come to think of it, someone should go down there and release anyone who is willing to stand in defense of the country. Which reminds me.” She stopped, spun on her right foot, and marched over to Auntie, bowing low. “We have not been properly introduced, mother,” the Captain said, stretching out one hand for Auntie to step up on. “I am Marda, formerly Mistress of the Falcons, and now Captain of the Front Guard. I am sorry that I am only just now able to see you, or I would have endeavored to make your acquaintance before this moment. In any case, I have a feeling
that you might have a piece or two of useful information, and I, for one, would like to hear it.” Auntie flushed for a moment—but only a moment—before nodding curtly and clearing her throat. She had, after all, quite a bit to say.

And, flanked by the young soldiers, both the Captain and Auntie made their way to the front lines, pausing to shout orders and send the underlings running, but conferring all the while.

Within an hour’s quarter, the entire castle—nay, the entire city—was mobilized. Old women left their kitchens, and children left their nurseries, and old men taught the young every trick they’d ever learned in their soldier days. The prisons were emptied; the forges blazed; the tavern keepers loaded provisions into carts and brought them to their fellow citizens amassing outside the city walls. Deep ditches were dug, barricades built, and massive nets knotted to stymie the servants of the Nybbas. Slow them down. Keep them at bay.

We faced an enemy we would not defeat. Indeed, that we
could
not. We were laying down our lives to buy time.

As the night wore on, every man, woman, and child was outfitted, armed, and readied for battle.

The enemy was coming. We could hear their voices in the ground, in the stones, in the air, and in our very skin.

SOON.

SOON.

SOON.

NOW.

Demetrius and I stood with the men and women of the Andulan Realms—in addition to the assembled remnants of the scattered armies of the north—and watched the servants of the Nybbas approach. His arms and his back and his voice were sore. His hands were bloody and swollen—much of their skin rubbed away from a night of shoveling and hauling and stacking and hoping. He had worn three pairs of leather gloves to nothing, and his trousers were ripped at the knees, his tunic torn at the elbows and across the back.

He was utterly, utterly spent.

But it was not over. They were coming. Even now, the ground rumbled as they approached.

“Brace yourselves,” Marda shouted.

“Brace yourselves,” cried the people.

“Courage,” whispered Demetrius. And oh! That boy! In truth, he hardly looked like a boy to me any longer. He had the strength of a man now, and the courage of ten men. Demetrius turned to me. “Courage, Cassian,” he said, and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

And my heart leaped.

And my fists gripped my cudgel.

And I was ready.

A great, golden, seething mass moved as one across the fields. It was slow, methodical, and relentless. In its wake, everything green was ground down to the root, everything woody pulverized to pulp, everything stone smoothed into sand.

The broad ditch, which seemed so insurmountable the night before, looked now no deeper than a scratch. The piles of dead wood and living wood and broken furniture and cast-off lumber, and the torn-off pieces of people’s homes, the hand-knotted net from torn-up linens—these seemed no more intimidating than a candle’s wick.

We are lost
, I thought.

The great mass grew nearer. The torchbearers approached the wood piles.

“Wait!” Captain Marda shouted.

A sound grew from the assembled crowd. A guttural, gamy, growly sound. It was quiet at first, but it began to grow. Men, women, and children picked up their weapons—clubs and sticks and sacks. Nothing that could cut. Only implements to beat the things back. The torchbearers held their flames close to the piles of wood.

“Wait,” Captain Marda said.

The sound bubbled into a rumble and widened into a roar. Despite his ragged voice and his tender throat, Demetrius found that his head was tipped back, his lungs powerfully ripping his voice out of his chest and hurling it into the air. His swollen hands clutched a club in one hand and his sack in the other. His injuries—though real, and though
painful
—disappeared. He was ready.

The mass grew closer.

“Burn it!” Captain Marda shouted. “Let it burn.”

Demetrius noticed that the Captain looked behind her as she said this. He turned. On the castle’s battlements, he saw three more torches. And three more piles of—what
was that? Bedding? Rags? He couldn’t see. But he
could
see who held the torches—Auntie, Nod, and Moth.

“NO!” shouted Demetrius, but no one heard him.

The torchbearers threw their torches onto the piles of wood. The fire lit and spread. Behind them, in the castle, the three Hidden Folk did the same. “We’re not supposed to do that!” Demetrius shouted. He dropped his club and sprinted through the chaos toward the fire.

Marda grabbed his shoulder and, with a quick jerk, lifted the boy into the air and spun him around. “Let it be, soldier,” she shouted.

“You don’t understand,” Demetrius shouted through the din. “The god said—”

“I’m more inclined to believe that old woman than any slumbering oaf. We are outside of what the Old Gods understood, and we are on our own. All that’s left for us to do is fight.” And with that, she patted Demetrius on the back and ran to the front lines.

The mass of lizards widened and arced around the city walls. The flames on the wood blazed hot and high as the servants of the Nybbas plunged headlong into the ditch. As Demetrius feared, it did not stop them for long. The ditch filled with lizards, and the lizards tumbled over one another
and pressed against one another, until there was so much lizard and so little slope to contend with. The coming hordes simply walked across the mass of their brethren.

“GET AWAY FROM THERE!” Demetrius shouted toward the castle. Auntie, Nod, and Moth waved at him from the battlements. They waved and waved and waved.

The ground shook again.

“Dragon,” Violet called, pulling herself back up. “Burn again, beloved! It was working.”

NO!
The Nybbas-as-Violet dropped to its knees (
My knees!
Violet thought) and pressed its hands together.
PLEASE DON’T HURT ME.

The dragon reared and opened its throat, but a distant voice stopped it cold.

“Violet!”

Both Violet and the dragon turned toward the sound of
the coming voice.
It can’t be
, they thought together. The Nybbas, wearing Violet’s face, looked up, wiping away its crocodile tears.

Violet—the
real
Violet—froze. “Father,” she whispered.

And indeed, coming over a small rise, his horse thundering and snorting as it ran, was the King. His eyes were not on Violet on the ground. He pulled his horse to a stop, dismounted, and walked toward the sky. His eyes—round they were, and glassy, and
glittering
—were on the wicked god with his daughter’s face. He did not notice his child—his true child—blood-soaked and injured and walking unsteadily toward him with her arms outstretched. He looked instead up at the
image
of Violet in the mirrored edge of the world, hideously enlarged, though shrinking now to normal size.

“Father,” Violet said again. But her father ignored her. Instead, he pushed right past his own daughter and pressed his palms against the surface of the mirrored sky. The Nybbas—all smiles, all happy tears—pressed back.