Veiled Rose (52 page)

“I swore I would never call upon you again.”

An answer came across distances unimaginable and sang close to her ear in a voice of birdsong.

Yet I am always waiting for you, child.

“I ask nothing for myself, only for my daughter. She does not deserve the fate the king has purposed for her.”

What would you have me do?

“Show me where I can take her. Show me where she may be safe.”

Walk my Path,
sang the silver voice.

There in the darkness of Arpiar, a way opened at the queen’s feet. The one Path that the unicorn could not follow. Anahid stepped into it, full of both gratitude and shame, for she had vowed never to walk this way again. But she had no other choice. She followed the Path to the gate, pushed the bars aside, and stepped into the plains beyond.

The unicorn did not see her. She passed beneath its gaze, her heart beating like a war drum against the bundle on her breast, but the unicorn was blind to her passage.

Queen Anahid strode from Palace Var without a backward glance, her daughter held tight in her arms. As she went, the silver voice sang in her ear, and she found herself responding to the familiar, half-forgotten words:

Beyond the Final Water falling

The Songs of Spheres recalling

Won’t you return to me?

She followed the song across the hinterlands of Arpiar, speeding along the Path so quickly that she must have covered leagues in a stride. She came to a footbridge, just a few planks spanning from nowhere to nowhere. But when she crossed it, she stepped over the boundaries from her world into the Wood Between.

The unicorn felt the breach on the borders of Arpiar. It raised its head, and the bugle call of its warning shattered the stillness of the night. Anahid, even as she stood beneath the leafy canopy of the Wood, heard that sound across the worlds. She moaned with fear.

Do not be afraid. Follow me.

“It will find me!”

I will guide you. Follow me.

“Only for my daughter!” the queen cried. “Only for my daughter.”

Her feet, in dainty slippers, sped along the Path as it wound through the Wood. She could feel the unicorn pursuing, though it could not see her. But the nearness of its presence filled Anahid with such dread, she nearly dropped her burden and fled. But no! Though she had come so far, she was still too close to Arpiar.

“Please,” she whispered. The silence of the Wood oppressed her. “Please, show me somewhere safe.”

Follow,
sang the silver voice, and she raced after that sound. Her feet burned with each step. How long had it been since she’d followed this Path? Not since she was merely Maid Anahid, a lowly creature unworthy of a king’s notice. She had not known then and did not know now where it would lead. She only knew the unicorn could not catch her.

It may have been days; it may have been minutes; for all she knew, it may have been centuries. But the Path ended at last, and once more the forest grew up around her. The queen stood with her heart in her throat, straining her senses for any sign of the unicorn. Panting from her exertion, she struggled to draw a deep breath and almost gagged.

“The Near World,” she said. “I smell mortality everywhere. How can my daughter be safe here?”

Follow me,
sang the silver voice.

“Will you not accept her into your Haven?”

Follow me.

She saw no choice but to obey. The trees thinned and ended not many yards distant, and though the undergrowth was difficult to navigate in the darkness, she broke through the forest at last. The ground was rocky and inclined steeply uphill, but after a few minutes’ climb she could take stock of her surroundings. She stood at the bottom of a deep gorge filled from one end to the other with forest, twisting on around a bend beyond her sight. A trail that looked as though it had not been traveled in generations led up from the gorge to the high country above. And over her head, in fantastic, impossible beauty, arched a bridge, spanning the gorge, gleaming white in the moonlight. She recognized its Faerie craftsmanship and wondered that the world of mortal men should boast so beautiful a creation.

The climb up the trail was difficult, and the queen was near the end of her strength when at last she emerged upon the high country. This was not a land she knew, but it was far from Arpiar. She smelled roses, free blossoms unsullied by her husband’s hand. And the moon that glowed above was no illusion. By its glow, she could discern the contours of an enormous garden or park. A king’s grounds, she thought. A fit home for her daughter.

The unicorn sang from the Wilderlands below.

Anahid screamed at the sound and started to run but tripped on the uneven soil and staggered to her knees. The baby wailed.

“Why have you brought me to this place?” the queen demanded, though she did not speak aloud. “We are unprotected in the Near World. Even my husband’s enchantments must fade. It will find her for sure!”

The Fallen One may not enter the Near World. It must remain in the Wood Between.

The unicorn sang again. But it did not call for the queen, so she could not understand the words. Her daughter ceased crying, and when Anahid looked at her, she was surprised to find two wide eyes blinking up at her. “Don’t listen,” she said, trying to cover the baby’s ears.

She cannot hear its voice. Her ears are full of my song.

Anahid breathed in relief and got to her feet. She moved unsteadily across the terrain until she came to a rosebush, not far from the great bridge. Kneeling, the Queen of Arpiar placed her bundle there and stopped a moment to gaze into her child’s face, watching it wrinkle and relax and wrinkle again as though uncertain whether or not to be afraid.

Sorrowfully, she watched the change spread across the little face as the enchantments of Arpiar frayed and fell away. She closed her eyes and placed a hand upon her daughter’s heart.

“With all the love I have to give,” she murmured, “though that is little enough.” Then she closed her eyes and raised both her hands toward the moon, cupping them as though to offer or receive a benediction. “I cry you mercy, Lord, and beg your protections upon my child! Shield her within this land from my husband’s gaze. So long as she dwells in this high country, let her escape the spells of Arpiar.”

A flutter drew her attention, and she saw a bird with a white speckled breast land in the rosebush above the child. Its wings disturbed the roses so that they dropped great red petals upon the baby’s face, the most delicate of veils.

Your child is safe in my protection, now and always.

“Do you promise?” said the queen.

I promise. I claim her as one of mine.

“Then I shall return to Arpiar glad.”

You may stay, child. You are not bound to that world.

“I will return,” she said.

Another voice disturbed the night, an old voice as rough as the earth, rugged with mortality. “Oi! Who’s there?”

Anahid leapt to her feet, cast one last look at her daughter, then fled into the night. At the edge of the gorge, she turned, her enormous eyes watching from the darkness. She saw a stocky mortal man, a gardener perhaps, with gray beginning to dominate his beard, step off the Faerie bridge. He went to the rosebush and knelt. Anahid held her breath. She heard the sharp intake of breath, then the man exclaim, “Well now, ain’t you a sight, wee little one! How’d you end up out here on so dark a night?”

I claim her as one of mine,
sang the wood thrush to Anahid.

She watched the gardener lift her child, then bowed her head, unwilling to see more. The next moment, the queen vanished down the trail, swallowed up by the Wilderlands below.

The unicorn met her there.

T
HE
P
RINCE OF
S
OUTHLANDS WAS BEWITCHED.

Rumor of his bewitchment had been spreading like a plague through the kingdom ever since he was sixteen years old: how the prince had returned from a summer in the mountains, bringing with him a little demon child and installing her as a servant in his father’s house.

Cheap chitchat, to be sure. But fun fare with which to scare the children on a cold winter’s night. “Watch out that you put your muddy boots away where they belong, or the prince’s demon will come fetch you!”

At first, nobody believed it. Nobody, that is, except the servants of the Eldest’s House, who worked with the girl in question.

“She gives me the shivers!” said Mistress Deerfoot to Cook. “With those veils of hers, she looks like a ghost. What do you think she hides behind them?”

“Her devil’s horns, of course. And her fangs.”

“Go on!” Mistress Deerfoot slapped Cook’s shoulder (for she was rather keen on him). “Do be serious!”

Cook shrugged and said no more, for the demon herself passed by just then, carrying a bucket of water. That bucket was large, with an iron handle, and when full probably weighed nearly as much as the girl herself. Her skinny arms did not look as though they could support such a load, yet she moved without apparent strain. Her face was so heavily veiled in linen that not even the gleam of her eyes showed.

She did not pause to look at Cook or Deerfoot but hastened on her way without a word or glance. When she vanished up a servants’ stair, Deerfoot let out a breath she had not realized she held. “Coo-ee! Unnatural strength that one has. What can the prince be thinking to keep one like her around here?”

“He’s bewitched,” muttered Cook. Which was the only natural explanation.

So the demon girl remained at the Eldest’s House. And it was she, said the people of Southlands, who called the Dragon down upon them.

Prince Lionheart stood before his mirror glass, gazing into a face he did not recognize. It was not the face of an ensorcelled man, he thought, despite the rumors he knew people whispered behind his back. It was the face of a man who would be king. A man who would be Eldest of Southlands.

It was the face of a man who had breathed deeply of dragon smoke.

The stench of those poisons lingered throughout Southlands, though in the months since the Dragon’s departure it had faded to a mere breath. In the Eldest’s House it remained the most prominent. And on dark nights when the moon was new, one smelled it strongest of all.

But life must go on. Five years of imprisonment under that monster had taken its toll on the people of the kingdom, but they must struggle forward somehow. And Prince Lionheart would struggle with them.

He adjusted his collar and selected a fibula shaped like a seated panther to pin to his shoulder. He never allowed his bevy of attendants to help him dress, rarely even permitted them into his chambers. He’d been five years on his own, five years in exile while the Dragon held his kingdom captive. During that time, he’d learned to button his own garments, and Lionheart would not have attendants bungling about him now.

Besides, their questioning faces unnerved them. Every last one of them, when they met his eyes, silently asked the same question:

“Did you fight the Dragon?”

His fingers slipped, and the point of the fibula drove into his thumb. “Iubdan’s beard!” he cursed, chewing at the wound to stop the blood. The pin fell to the stone floor at his feet. Still cursing, Lionheart knelt to pick it up. He paused a moment to inspect it, for it was of intricate work and solid gold. The seated panther was the symbol of Southland’s heir. When he became Eldest, he would replace it with a rampant panther.

“Did you fight the Dragon?”

He closed his hand around the brooch. “I did what I had to do,” he said. “I had no other choice. I did what I thought best.”

Of course you did.

This voice in his head might have been his own. But it was colder and deeper, and it was no memory.

Of course you did, my sweet darling. And now, with the Dragon gone, you will have your dream.