Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (46 page)

“I should have killed you both. I wanted to. I gave my handmaidens the command.”

“Where is Vahe, Mother?”

“But the soothsayer said I must let you live, and I listened to her words. Great destinies were bound up in your lives, she said. Both of your lives, though to one I gave all power, and the other I stripped of everything and cast into darkness.”

Oeric turned from her leering face to study the empty assembly hall. He could feel the workings of Var using its last strength to shield its master from his sight.

“One will wake the Sleeper, the soothsayer said, and be gifted with fire.”

He saw the tremble in the air around the empty throne. Vahe would have a secret chamber, buried in the heart of Palace Var where no one could reach him. But the heart of Var need not be a physical location. He put out his hand, stretching toward the throne.

“But the other will serve a power greater still,”
said the memory of the old queen. “
And the power he serves will extinguish the fire of his brother.”

“So it shall be, Mother,” Oeric said, taking another step toward the empty throne.

His hand touched an invisible door.

As soon as he felt it, it shed its veils and became visible before him. They were double doors, taller than any three men, and carved all over with roses. But he impatiently waved aside that illusion and saw instead the faces of trapped spirits carved in expressions of sorrow, frustration, and even agony. He tried the latch and found it locked. His mouth set in a grim line, and he drew himself together. Then, with an animal roar, Oeric flung himself at those great doors, heaving his shoulder against them. They shuddered but stood. He flung himself again, and a crack ran between them. A third time, and the bolt on the far side burst, and both doors swung wide.

Inside on a throne sat the King of Arpiar’s own body. Here alone did his veils still work, for Oeric saw a beautiful face, smooth golden skin, elegant but strong hands resting on the arms of the throne. A climbing rose twined about it, but the blossoms were dead.

Oeric raised his knife.

“Kill him now,”
said the memory of his mother,
“while he sits helpless. Then you will be a true King of Arpiar.”

“I will never be king,” Oeric said.

In a loud voice, he cried out his brother’s name.

Vahe raged.

His shrieking voice filled the cavern and continued to fill it to overflowing, and the red light of the moon shuddered in response.

“Kill her! Kill her, slave!” he screamed. “Don’t stand there staring. You were given to me by Life-in-Death, and I have a promise to claim! Kill the maid now. This fool is nothing.”

The unicorn stood as stone, gazing at the princess bound to Death’s throne. For her eyes were fixed upon the fallen form of the dead man.

His blood was already beginning to congeal. His face was rigid in death. But the Princess Varvare, her own voice now silenced, looked upon him, and a world of emotions broke across her face.

The unicorn spoke to her.

You love him.

She gave no answer, but it read the response in her eyes.

He hurt you.

She swallowed. Even the pain of her own wound was forgotten in that moment.

He betrayed you, even to death.

Her eyes closed, and two silver lines of tears streamed down her face.

But you love him.

“Leo,” she whispered.

Somehow, through the din of Vahe’s screams, through the thick curtain of blood-light streaming through the window above, the unicorn heard something it had not heard in many dark ages.

It heard its mother’s voice.

Beyond the Final Water falling,

My blessed songs recalling

A promise given that my children should be found.

Won’t you return to me?

It turned its fathomless eyes from the maiden to the skylight above. It saw the Lady Hymlumé, and she bled from many wounds just as she had the night her children pierced her with their horns. But she gazed on the one-horned beast with love in her shining eyes.

A silver voice sang:

You are still my child.

Won’t you return to me?

“Kill her, slave!” Vahe cried, his voice faint and far behind the music that only the unicorn heard. “Kill her! Your master commands you!”

The one-horned beast turned away. It passed down the black steps of the dais, its ears deaf to the King of Arpiar’s voice screaming, “Come back! If you walk away from your chains, you will surely die!”

It passed between the cowering folk of Rudiobus and the quivering goblins of Arpiar. It passed near the blind poet, who turned his ravaged face away. It passed a lady knight, who alone of all who watched saw it for what it was in that moment, fair and shining and white as pure starlight. And she too drew away from it, filled with fear.

It passed between all of these and approached the one at the end of the cavern.

The Bane of Corrilond watched the unicorn’s progress through her slitted eye. Dreams still filled her vision, dreams once held dear, now burning and dying and burning and dying again. She saw the beast like a bull with a fanged face and its sword-sharp horn approaching her, and it was like the death of her dreams personified. Though sleep still clouded her mind, she raised herself upright, her massive claws tearing into the rock beneath her, her fire suddenly billowing up in her throat.

The goblins and the soldiers of Rudiobus screamed as one voice and fell over one another as they scrambled away from the rising red mountain of the dragon. But she did not see them. Her burning gaze was fixed on the one-horned beast. She, who had not known fear since accepting her Father’s gift, shuddered where she sat, and her massive wings beat the stale, hot air.

Still the unicorn approached, moving with that world-destroying pace of stars.

The Bane of Corrilond flamed.

Throughout her sleep her furnace had built, and now its heat was enough to knock flat all who stood in that room. But the fire was focused on one small place, that place where the unicorn stood. It took her fire, absorbing it, but still more came, straight from that hollow where her broken heart no longer beat. She stood, bracing her powerful forelegs as the fire billowed from her.

The folk of Rudiobus jumped behind sleeping dragons, using the scale-covered hides to protect themselves. The blind poet grabbed the dame’s hand and dragged her with him behind a stone, shielding her with his cloak and body, though the heat scalded his skin. The princess on the throne turned away, her face writhing in pain that had nothing to do with the heat. Vahe alone stood firm and watched with eyes that saw the death of his own dream. For his vow could no longer be fulfilled.

The flame stopped. The Bane of Corrilond swallowed the remaining flickers and sparks, and stared down at that place where once the unicorn had stood.

All that remained was a gleaming white horn.

Vahe screamed and tore his hair, cutting the Boy’s stolen face with his fingernails. Then he whirled about and retrieved one of the two knives he had thrown at the cat, brandished it, and took a single stride toward his bound daughter.

A voice he knew all too well rang in his head.

Vahe. Brother. Come to me.

His face went ashen. “Gargron!” he spat.

The next moment, he had flown the cavern, fled the Village, his spirit racing back across the spaces of the worlds.

The nameless Boy, blood streaming down his cheeks, stood with a knife in hand, staring a moment into the wide eyes of the princess. Then he moaned and collapsed, and the knife clattered where it fell.

6

T
he mist is thick and white, like ghostly hair coiling around him.

Lionheart walks on the shores of a river, and it is wide and black, more like an ocean, he thinks. But it flows swiftly with rushing white water, and he is afraid to try to cross it.

So this is the Realm Unseen.

Looking up, he can see the Gardens of Hymlumé, and believes he sees the faces of her shining children among the fiery blossoms. But it is all far off, and the roar of the river is much more present. He wonders if he will meet anyone else along these shores.

“So it wasn’t enough, was it?”

The voice is one he knows too well.

He turns and sees a tall, spectral figure approaching through the mist that flows so thickly up from the river’s edge. His cloak is black, as black as his hair, as black as his eyes. But his face is the white of Death.

“You!” Lionheart gasps and backs away. River water rushes over his ankles and threatens to drag him down. He plants his feet. There can be no more retreating that way. “You are dead!”

“I am, yes,” says the Dragon. His smile is terrible, revealing long black fangs behind his white lips. “As are you.”

The tug of the river is powerful, and Lionheart almost falls. “I don’t belong to you!”

“Oh, don’t you?” The Dragon’s smile grows. “It wasn’t enough, was it, little Lionheart? All your guilt. All your noble resolve. You gave your life for the girl you betrayed, but you did not succeed in rescuing her.”

“I . . . I stopped the beast.”

“Only for the moment.” He comes nearer, the shadow of his cloak drawing a blackness around them that is deeper than nightfall. “Did you really think, pathetic mortal, that you could earn atonement? Did you really think that your own sacrificed life could begin to repay the evil you have worked?” Fire flickers in the recesses of his eyes.

Lionheart turns and runs into the river.

The current catches him like hands on his legs and drags him under, and the water is cold as it closes over his head. He wants to scream but cannot, for the air is knocked out of him as he is pulled, struggling, down and down. But the Dragon’s laugh penetrates even there, filling his head as water fills Lionheart’s eyes, his nose, his lungs.

Then, though darkness overwhelms him and water blinds him, he sees a hand. Desperate, he reaches out and takes hold.

The next moment he is on the shore again, gagging and spitting black water. Someone holds him and thumps his back until he has coughed everything from his lungs. He sits for what seems a long while, shivering, gasping. Then he turns.

And meets the Prince’s gaze.

“No,” Lionheart whispers, crumpling into a heap, his hands clutching the back of his head. The mist is cold. He’d not thought he would feel anything in the Realm Unseen, but he is frozen straight through to his bones. “No, don’t look at me.”

“Lionheart,” says the Prince, “will you come with me now?”

“I’m worthless,” Lionheart says. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t redeem my honor.”

“You never can,” the Prince replies. He takes Lionheart by the shoulders and forces him to sit up, to face him. “But do you think my grace insufficient to forgive you?”

Lionheart cannot bear to meet those eyes, but neither can he look away. Water drips down the stubble on his face and meets in a stream from his chin. The Prince gazes at him with eyes that see to the very truth of his soul, every unacknowledged cowardice, every sin glossed over with excuses. But in the Prince’s eyes is no condemnation but rather an offer.

“Come with me now, Lionheart.” His voice is firm, but it is a gentle request, not a command. He remains kneeling in the mud of the riverbed, not caring that he dirties his fine clothes, and his hands hold Lionheart by the shoulders.

Still shivering, hunched over with shame, Lionheart nods. “I will come with you,” he whispers.

The Prince rises and pulls Lionheart to his feet. He presses something into Lionheart’s hand. When he looks, the dead man finds he that he holds once more the bent and burned sword. He frowns and turns again to the Prince, a question in his eyes.

“Follow me,” says the Prince. He starts walking back up the river.

“Wait!” Lionheart cries, desperate. “You know what happened last time! You know what I did! I am a worm before that monster. I cannot face him, not again! I cannot fight the Dragon!”

The memory of his failure engulfs him, and it is more horrible to face now than ever before. He thinks he will collapse; the weight of the broken sword is too much to bear.

But the Prince stands beside him and puts an arm across his shoulders. “We’ll face him together this time,” he says, slowly turning Lionheart to one side.

To look into the Dragon’s burning face.