Iron Hearted Violet (8 page)

The dragon!

Demetrius didn’t move. The beast was terribly far away, but the boy’s eyes were keen and his gaze sharp.

And
oh
, it was beautiful! Demetrius felt his breath catch and his heart pound and his eyes well up. Its black scales gleamed in the morning light as it thoughtfully chewed its flowers. Even from his vantage point, the boy could see that the beast had been lamed. Its left wing drooped oddly to one side, and it seemed to be favoring its left haunch. It bit another mouthful and, still chewing, tilted its great head upward and fixed its stare right at Demetrius. The boy was so startled, he nearly fell out of the tree.

And then a strange thing happened.

Though dragon and boy were separated by a several-hour-long scramble through the woods, Demetrius felt as though there was no space between them at all. That they were boy-nose to dragon-nose. He could smell the sulfur on the beast’s breath and had to squint at the bright glitter of the dragon’s diamond eye. Its other eye was gone—whether by illness or accident or cruelty, the boy did not know.

Beautiful!
the boy thought.
So, so beautiful.

And then—so close that he might have thought it himself—came the voice of the dragon, ringing inside Demetrius’s skull.

OF COURSE.

Demetrius didn’t move. Neither did the dragon.

YOU NEED TO GO HOME, BOY
, the dragon’s voice sounded in his head.

“No,” Demetrius whispered out loud. “We’re here to see you. We’re here to find you and learn from you and help you. Surely you understand this.”

I’VE HAD MY SHARE OF HUMAN “HELP,” THANK YOU
VERY MUCH
, came the dragon’s voice.
AND DESPITE MY GRIEVANCES WITH YOUR WEAK-WILLED RACE, I WILL OFFER THIS BIT OF ADVICE: YOU NEED TO GO HOME TO YOUR ACCURSED CASTLE. RIGHT NOW. EVEN AS WE STAND HERE, A TERRIBLE EVIL GROWS IN POWER AND INFLUENCE, AND IT MAY NOT YET BE TOO LATE. BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, NOT ANYMORE. I AM OLD AND TIRED, AND I WOULD PREFER YOU LEAVE ME OUT OF IT. GO HOME. NOW.

And with that, the dragon turned away, giving the boy a view of its shining rump, and after taking a few more mouthfuls of flowers, the creature disappeared into the forest.

Demetrius climbed down and walked through the forest to the camp, wondering all the while.

“Why would the dragon call our castle cursed?” he asked out loud. The trees didn’t answer.

“Our castle has always been good. There’s never been any kind of evil.” The horses munched on their breakfast and said nothing. Though in the back of his brain—
That room! That painting!
He shivered and fussed.

Finally, Demetrius brought his story to the King.

But alas, any message the dragon communicated—or
the fact that the dragon communicated at all—was lost to Randall’s exuberance.

“The dragon!” he exclaimed, upsetting his breakfast bowl and grabbing the boy in his arms, spinning him around and around. “I knew it was wise to bring you along, you marvelous, ruddy,
brilliant
boy!” The King kissed the boy loudly on both cheeks and set a very dazed Demetrius on the ground. “Everyone!” he shouted. “To your horses!”

“But—” Demetrius said.

“Dragons are very tricky and terribly clever,” the King said to everyone. “It will likely try to convince us to abandon our mission. Be sure to close your minds to its influence, and let us be off!”

Good advice, Demetrius reasoned. But still he couldn’t shake that ancient, craggy voice echoing in his head as he gathered his supplies and saddled the horses, and followed the party at a gallop.

TOO LATE, TOO LATE, TOO LATE.

Moth searched for Violet in the hidden passageways in the castle’s walls, but in vain. Perhaps his memory of the layout had failed, or the corridors had rearranged themselves (again!), or something was simply redirecting his path. (“Moth knows what you are. I
seen
you,” he muttered to the quiet darkness as an invisible
nothing
slithered away.) He returned home in a foul mood.

Violet couldn’t find the right corridor, either. But she could
feel
that hidden library, with its strange, indecipherable
book. She could feel it breathing. And that same itchy, bubbly curiosity grew and grew under her skin.

Though soon Violet had bigger worries.

That night the Queen’s belly seized, and her laboring began all too soon. The infant died before it reached the air. Another son. Another loss.

The Queen continued to bleed. And the bleeding devolved into fever.

“It’s manageable,” the harried physicians said as they rushed in and out of the room, their faces tight and set. Violet tried to believe their words. She didn’t want to leave her mother’s side, and stayed as long as she was allowed—waiting, red-eyed, in the corridors during the times when the physicians tried to shoo her away.

She did not go away; Violet, after all, was a girl of her own ideas.

“My mother needs stories,” she said, her voice stout and resolute. “This is not a request.” And, finally, the physicians had no choice but to obey, though they grumbled about it in private.

Whether the Queen was alert or asleep, Violet sat by her side and told her story after story until her mouth was as dry as sand. She told stories when she should have been
eating and stories when she should have been sleeping. She spun stories as though her life depended on it. Or her mother’s life. Or every life.

She told her mother about a storyteller who dreamed the world.

She told her mother about a heart that burned, a heart that was lost, a heart fashioned from gold and glittering jewels so sharp they cut the eye.

And she wondered just what would make a story forbidden. And she wondered at the power a single story could wield.

And far away, at the world’s edge, a creature shifted and wriggled and tugged at its bonds.

ALMOST
, hissed the Nybbas.

While the Queen lingered in bed, her fever raging, her heart pounding, her life growing thin and weak as dry grass, King Randall and Demetrius and the rest of the party pursued the Onyx dragon. It was a beautiful creature, though quite old. Its skin was as luminous and deep as the night sky, with a spangle of glinting flecks like stars scattered across its back. Its one eye was a bright jewel set beneath its brow. Its wings had been clipped—a poor, ragged job by someone who cared little for the creature’s well-being—and one had been broken at some point in
its long life, and healed badly. It could leap and it could glide, but it could not fly.

That it had survived this long stumbling half blind through the woods was something of a miracle.

Even more amazing, the creature was clever and quick and devilishly difficult to apprehend, despite its handicaps. King Randall and his hunters pursued the beast day and night, hemming it in, blocking its escape. The trackers led the charge on the ground while five swift falcons pursued from the air. Snares were laid, decoys hidden, traps set, and yet still the dragon slid through the narrowest gaps like a snake, needing no rest, nor food, nor water—and would not for some time. Dragons, after all, can go many months without food or drink, and while they prefer a sedentary life rich with naps, they do possess a surprising stamina.

Soon the hunters began to tire. They were a thin, ragged bunch.

And all the while, Demetrius could hear the dragon’s voice in his head:
GO BACK NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
, the voice whispered urgently.
YOU STILL MAY SAVE HER.

But who
her
was exactly, the dragon did not specify. No one else seemed troubled by the dragon’s voice, and whether they were simply able to ignore it or the dragon was talking
only to
him
, Demetrius did not know. In any case, he had a job to do, and he was going to do it to the best of his ability. He bit his tongue to keep from collapsing and crooned to the horses to keep his spirits high.

They gave chase to the dragon for nine days, beginning in the forested hills of the kingdom’s northern edge and moving straight north to where the land became steep, jagged, and treacherous.

In the midst of their hunt, they disturbed an ancient-looking crow that had been squatting on a clutch of eggs. The eggs had long ago gone bad, and when they spilled onto the ground and were trodden upon, they let up a dusty cloud of foul odors that clung to the hunters’ noses for hours. The crow hovered near their faces for a moment, cawing angrily, before launching in a huff toward the sky.

So intent on their quarry, the King and his hunters didn’t think for a moment where the crow was flying
toward
. If they had known, perhaps the archer would have nocked her bow and loosed an arrow into the bird’s heart. Instead, the crow soared over the ragged lip of the ridge into the snowy slopes ruled by the Mountain King. There, she whispered the news to the court magician, who whispered
the news to the Captain of the Guard, who whispered the news to the Mountain King himself.

The Mountain King nodded grimly and set a plan in motion. Twelve horsemen swung leg to saddle and thundered over the drawbridge to apprehend what they believed to be a war party from the Andulan Realms. Meanwhile, in the forges under the castle, the blacksmiths and sword makers worked both day and night, building arms for every man, woman, and child in the kingdom.

“If it’s war they want,” the Mountain King said again and again, “then good. The Lowland King will weep for his lost kingdom, and his wife and daughter will spend their lives in the bowels of my castle, scrubbing chamber pots. The time has come to make low the Lowland King.”

Violet needed her father.

She
needed
him. But he was off on some crazy adventure, leaving her alone. And she felt
oh so
alone. The physicians had insisted that Violet allow them to do their jobs without her incessant meddling, and so she wandered. Having nothing better to do, Violet decided to sneak into her father’s study. Read his books. Go through his papers. She wanted to look for… something. She knew not what. Clues, maybe?