Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (39 page)

Varvare nodded, bowing her head. And when Leo had become lost one dark night when they were children, he had called her name, and she had heard him and come to him in an instant, for she was always listening for his voice.

But he would not be listening for her. Not far away in Southlands as he was, married to Daylily and ruling his kingdom. No, he would never give a thought for his former chambermaid. Varvare gnashed her teeth in the dark.

“Curse these chains,” sighed Beana, hanging her head. “I was a fool. I shouldn’t have plunged after you so rashly. I knew the unicorn waited. I knew it would catch me. I should have known I would end up in chains!”

Varvare shivered, not wanting to remember that fateful day. Images of the strange forest surrounding her, of the distant shouts up the gorge . . . of that moment when she knew she had passed from the Near World into the Between.

Then the unicorn had stood before her, beautiful and deadly.

Come with me,
it had said.

Why should she not? It was such a glorious creature. And even if it killed her, what would it have mattered?

But just as she took the first step, a shout from behind had frozen her in her tracks. She’d turned about and seen her goat. But not her goat. Instead, she was the woman whom Rose Red had glimpsed only a handful of times in all her years. A tall, angular woman with blazing eyes and braided hair, a long knife brandished above her head.

“Fallen One!” Beana had shouted. “Let the girl go!”

The unicorn had turned its eyes, so soft and so deep upon the woman. She had shuddered under its gaze.

You could not keep her from me,
it had said.
Not for long.

“She’s not yours,” the woman had said, advancing, her teeth bared. “Release her. I command you in the name of my Master. I command you in the name of the Prince of Farthestshore!”

For a trembling moment, Varvare had felt a strange lifting of her spirit. She had felt bindings hitherto unnoticed falling away, and she had realized that she did not want to go with the unicorn. With a gasp, she had taken a single step back.

Then the unicorn had screamed.

Varvare pressed her hands to her temples, desperately wishing she could rid her mind of that sound. Even in memory, it was unbearable, enough to tear her heart in two. And Beana, fearless Beana, who had shouted in the face of the Dragon, had collapsed under the sound.

So they had been brought here, to Palace Var. Varvare had been made a princess, just as the Dragon had always told her she would be, from the time he began plaguing her childhood dreams. And Beana had been thrown in the dungeons.

Varvare grimaced, her brows knitting together. She put her hand in her pocket and withdrew something that shimmered with its own light. It was a cord, tightly woven and thin as spider web, rolled into a ball the size of an apple. “I’ve been workin’ on somethin’,” the princess said and put her hand through the bars, holding out the glowing ball of thread. “See?”

“I told you, I can’t see a thing in here.”

Varvare blinked. “It’s shinin’, Beana.”

“What is?”

The princess licked her lips and drew the gleaming ball of thread back through the bars. “I’ve made a rope. I took the king’s enchanted roses and unwove them and spun them again.”

Beana blinked unseeing in the blackness. “That’s powerful work, indeed! I had no idea you could do things like that.”

“Neither does the king.” Varvare pocketed the thread. “I’m goin’ to get you out of here.”

“What?”

“I can see behind the veils, Beana. My mo— The queen can too, I think. And I know that she can sometimes break the enchantments. I believe I can as well. I’m goin’ to release you, and we’re goin’ to escape, you, me, and the Boy—”

The lady knight surged to her feet in a terrible clash of chains. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t even try it, Rose Red, I beg you. If you can see his enchantments . . . Don’t you see that if you break these chains you will die? The moment they drop from my hands, you will perish.”

Varvare gasped and drew back from the door. Then she cursed, “Dragon’s teeth!”

“Hen’s teeth. You know better than to use such language.”

The princess struck the door with her fist, then struck it again, fury shaking her body. “We’ve got to get out, Beana! I think . . . I think King Vahe plans to kill me.”

“What? What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. But sometimes the way he looks at me, I get the feeling he’s measurin’ me for my coffin. And I don’t think he’s goin’ to wait much longer before he does it.”

Beana shook her head but was silent a long moment. She’d had plenty of time to think in that blackness, and had come to several conclusions she could not shake no matter how she tried. At last she said, “Rosie, I know what my Master has been telling you. Don’t think I don’t. Call for Lionheart.”

A long silence filled the air between. At last Varvare said, “No.”

“Please, dear girl. My Master knows what is—”

“Your Master doesn’t give a monkey’s eye for me!” Varvare snarled, and her voice was, in that moment, the voice of a goblin. “I loved him. I really did, Beana. But he doesn’t see the likes of me, ugly as I am, one of those monsters he has rejected!”

“That’s not true, and you know it,” said Beana. “Those are Vahe’s spells speaking, not you.”

But Varvare scarcely heard her. “He only cares about his great and mighty purpose,” she cried, “and someone like me can live and die, and it doesn’t make a lick of difference! I’d rather die than do what he asks me, to call for someone who forgot me, then betrayed me, and never once saw me as anythin’ but a monster. To be used for his own ends! I’d rather die, Beana. Do you hear me?”

She turned away from the cell door, her arms wrapped about herself. “Besides, he ain’t listenin’ for me. Not the way I listened for him. It was always that way between us. I know that now.”

With that, she left the cell, ignoring Beana’s voice, though she cried out after her. Varvare’s whole body shook with rage and despair, and she sat down in the black stairway leading up from the dungeons, unwilling to face the people of Var scurrying about above. Somewhere, far away, that silver voice still reached out to her.

Beloved.

“I won’t do it!”

Beloved, trust me.

“I cain’t! Not anymore.”

I will always protect you.

“You’ve done a dragon-eaten job of it lately.”

I will always protect you. This doesn’t mean that you will not know pain. But I am here with you. Nothing can thwart the plans I have for you.

“I don’t care what plans you have for me! You left me here to rot, and I’m rotten to the core now. I am a goblin’s child.”

You are my child.

Varvare got to her feet, dashing the tears from her face, and hastened up the steps, two at a time.

Call for him.

“I won’t. I’ll get myself out of here.”

She went to find the Boy.

And Beana, alone in the darkness, bowed her head and whispered prayers she could only hope were heard.

The assembly hall of Var boasted windows that reached from floor to ceiling, at least three stories tall. Roses grew all over around the frames, at least as far as the Boy could see. Varvare saw things differently but didn’t bother to explain as much as she flung open a casement and let her shimmering cord drop.

The windows of the assembly hall were many stories high, but this was the only place Varvare had found in the whole palace where a daring descent would leave the intrepid beyond the walls of Vahe’s stronghold.

The cord she had woven from stolen enchantments was long enough to tie around the base of the old queen’s statue in the hall and still reach most of the way to the ground outside. The Boy stood by with his mouth open, watching her work. He could not see the cord, and it looked to him as though the beautiful veiled princess (whatever her name was) had lost her mind. “What are you doing?” he asked at last.

“I don’t know your name,” she snapped.

“I didn’t ask my name. I asked what you’re doing.” He scratched the top of his head. “Though, while we’re on the subject, what is—”

“I’m getting us out of here.”

Varvare tested her weight against her knot, and it seemed to hold. The statue of the old queen scowled down upon her, hideous in Varvare’s eyes, beautiful in the eyes of the Boy. But it held its peace, watching as the princess returned to the window and looked down. “Come here,” Varvare said, beckoning to the Boy.

He stepped to her side and looked down. “That’s a long way.”

“We’re goin’ to climb down,” Varvare said. She grabbed his hand and pressed her cord into it. “Do you feel that?”

At first he did not, but something about the look in Varvare’s beautiful eyes motivated him to try. The thin line of the cord slid through his palm, and he blinked, startled. No matter how he stared he could not see it, yet the Boy knew he held something. Something strong.

“Do you feel it?” the princess demanded again.

He nodded.

“Good. I’m goin’ to tie it round your waist and lower you down.”

“What?”

“Don’t argue with me,” she growled. “I ain’t goin’ to leave you in this awful place, or let the king keep usin’ you. You’re comin’ with me. Then once we’re safe, I’ll find someone to help me, and we’ll come back and rescue Beana.” Her eyes flashed as the Boy opened his mouth to protest. “That’s the way it’s goin’ to be. Do you hear? Or do you want to stay here with the unicorn?”

The Boy’s mind could scarcely recall where he had been five minutes previous. But the one thing that remained clear in his mind with each passing moment was the memory of the one-horned beast. It drove away the soothing sweetness of rose perfume and left him trembling.

“All right,” he whispered.

Varvare quickly secured her cord around him, looping it about his waist and over his shoulders. “When you get to the bottom,” she said, “you have to untie it and drop the rest of the way. Won’t be far, but careful you don’t twist an ankle or somethin’, because I don’t want to carry you. I don’t know how much of a start we’ll get before they realize we’re gone. You listenin’ to me?”

He wasn’t. He was staring from the window down that long drop to the grass below. At least he could not see what the princess saw, which was stone-hard dirt and jagged rocks. He would never have had the courage to try then. “Are . . . are you sure you won’t let me drop?”

“I’m stronger than I look.”

“That’s not saying a whole lot.”

With some coaxing, she got him to sit in the windowsill and dangle his feet out. And still the statue of the old queen watched, her stone eyes narrowing.

“You ready?” the princess asked.

“Um. Why don’t we—”

She put her shoulder to his back and pushed.

A bellow of
“Iubdan’s beeeeeard!”
rattled her ears, but she held on to the cord, bracing herself against the window. When the cry at last died away, she looked down and saw the terrified face of the Boy staring up at her from where he dangled not three feet down.

“You all right?” she called.

He made a sound like
“Meep!”

“I’m goin’ to start lowerin’ you now. Use your feet along the wall and help me out a bit.”

Trembling, the Boy managed to turn himself around, and slowly the princess let down the cord. He was heavier than she’d expected, but she was strong. Though her father had clothed her in veils of delicacy and dainty features, she was still a goblin girl underneath. It took some work, but at last she reached the end of the cord, and the Boy dangled no more than ten feet from the ground. She looked out over the window, trying to shout without actually shouting, which was difficult for him to hear.

“All right, Boy, drop.”

“Look at me! I’m floating!”

“Hush up and drop!”

“Who are you?”

“Hen’s teeth, Boy, I’m goin’ to give you such a shakin’ when I get down there!”

At last he understood, and she gasped a grateful prayer when relieved of his weight. Clenching her teeth, Varvare climbed onto the windowsill herself and turned around to begin her descent.

And found herself face-to-face with Queen Anahid.

Her heart stopped. For one horrible moment, she gazed into the goblin eyes of her mother. So this was the end. All her efforts were ruined, here and now, just when she thought she might have a chance.

Anahid blinked slowly, like the eclipse of moons. Then she whispered between fangs, “Hurry, child.”

That was all. The queen backed away, stepping into the shadows of the old queen’s statue, and Varvare once more knelt on the windowsill, her hands clutching her enchanted cord.

“Hey, up there!” the Boy called from below. “Careful, you might fall!”

Grinding her teeth, Varvare slid from the window and started the long climb down.