Chapter Forty-One The Villainess and the Dragon
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Villainess and the Dragon
The dragon had shining articulated joints, wings with silvery delicate membranes. It would have been magnificent in the air, had it ever flown.
All it needed was life.
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Rae was extremely surprised to wake. When she lost consciousness in the screaming, tumbling void that was her fall, she’d been dimly grateful that she wouldn’t feel every bone in her body break at the end.
She didn’t spend a second wondering if she were dead and this were the afterlife. That kind of behaviour was for time-wasters. Rae feigned unconsciousness, catalogued her surroundings, and set about risk assessment.
Wind combed restless fingers through her hair, blowing cold upon her face.
She felt the heat of flames from the abyss, but the heat was distant and thus must be far below.
By deduction, Rae was flying high. Someone’s arm was around her waist. A man’s arm, his touch light and impersonal.
It wasn’t Key. The way Key held her was different.
Key held her as if he wouldn’t let her go, but something about this clinical touch told Rae letting go was a distinct possibility.
Through the rush of air that had become a roar, Rae heard another noise, like the sound of hinges creaking. Like the sound of two enormous doors, opening and closing, opening and closing, again and again.
Rae peeked through one eye, catching a glint of silver.
Two enormous wings flying, bearing their weight aloft.
She was flying on the back of the metal dragon. Rae had been captured by the enemy.
A voice in her ear said, “I can tell you’re awake, Lady Rahela.”
Out of the fire, into the bitter grip of ice.
Since it was clear feigning unconsciousness wasn’t working, Rae disdained to pretend any longer. “Lucky for me the dragon was performing his nightly flight to terrorize the populace. I don’t suppose you would be so kind as to just drop me off, would you? Anywhere would do.”
The man behind her snorted lightly. “Have the Emperor’s betrothed in my grasp, and let her go? I think not, Lady Rahela. I’m taking you back to the Tagar encampment.”
She’d been recognized. In retrospect, that was Rae’s own fault for making an escape dressed in her signature outfit. She’d been panicking, but now she felt extremely calm. None of the raiders loved or hated her. She hadn’t betrayed any of them.
Nothing was personal, so her mind was clear for scheming.
“Will I be exchanged for the princess?”
Rae kept her voice casual. She didn’t know where Vasilisa might have gone, or even if she’d got out. Best if Tagar didn’t know either.
The voice behind her sounded unconvinced and unimpressed.
“Princess Vasilisa is the reason the dragon was sent to fly over the city. Once she reached the mouth of the tunnel, she sang a Starost song to call Fatalis. The notes of a Starost song are not like ordinary notes, and the count’s tiger is no ordinary animal.
The princess is now safe in the camp, watched over by Count Merac, his personal guard and his great cat.
There is no need to exchange you for her.
I don’t anticipate that she will be taken again. ”
So Vasilisa had managed a clean getaway. Excellent news. Rae might receive some gratitude from the ice crown.
Perhaps she could stay with Vasilisa, hear starfrost song, stroke the giant tiger and stop breaking her own heart.
“I helped the princess escape,” Rae claimed promptly.
She expected doubt, but she knew Vasilisa would back her story.
She didn’t expect the reply: “So what if you did? King Ivor is called ‘the Heartless’ for a reason. The king won’t care what you did for his sister in the past. Only for what use you might be to him in future.”
That left Rae with one more card to play, one that had worked before – but not without complications. At least now, Rae had a reputation as a prophet. Knowledge of the future was power in the present.
Rae combed through her memory for any nuggets that might convince the ice raiders she was useful. She needed more time and more information. “You’re telling me the king is awful.”
She tried to twist around in the driving wind and catch a glimpse of the dragon rider. Her eyes stung and her vision swam, and she saw only the bright, blank helm of the king’s personal guard.
“Aren’t most kings awful? Every king who ever ruled Tagar successfully had to be. The icelands do not tolerate weakness.”
Uncertainty set needle-sharp claws in Rae’s nerves. Knowledge was the only power she might have among the raiders.
She wracked her brains for information about Tagar that might prove useful now, rather than in the future. She was relieved to remember the blood feud.
The princess had told her, Meracs dwell in the far west, Starosts in the far east, and both these noble families command more lands and men than their ruler. The king provides a buffer between enemy lands, and keeps a fragile peace.
Rae knew more than that.
“My gods have told me about the blood feud,” she said. “Two families at each other’s throats, with an actual system where the heads of both families must duel. One goes to the grave, and the other to the king’s right hand, and that’s how you appoint a prime minister.”
“We call them seneschals,” said the dragon rider. “But yes.”
“And it’s not just the ritual duels,” Rae said. “The two families and their followers seize on any excuse for a fight. The war with us is useful to you, isn’t it?”
“Up to a point,” said the dragon rider. “That doesn’t mean we want the war to go on forever.”
“So I’m to be kept prisoner, until you raiders decide to exchange me for peace and a ransom, or behead me to punish the Emperor if he will not make the exchange?”
She didn’t want to be exchanged. She was also not allured by the prospect of beheading.
“Let us hope your Emperor doesn’t make any more moves with his undead army. It would be a shame if you were beaten for his trespass, or if we had to return you to him… piece by piece.”
By now, Rae had learned to swallow fear down like a pill, dry and fast, then smile and pretend she never faced it. “That’s a horrifyingly creepy thing to say. And not something you would say to a noblewoman, if you were just a humble guard. Watch the arrogance, King Ivor.”
Wind rushed into the space between words. The dragon rider at her back seemed to hesitate for the first time.
“Yes,” he said at last. “I am Ivor, ruler as far as the sun chases the ice, conciliator between unyielding stone and ceaseless wind. King of Tagar. Nobody flies my dragon but me.”
She twisted around in the dragon’s saddle. He bowed his neck, drawing the helm from his head. So for the first time, suspended in the sky on his shining dragon, Rae beheld Ivor the Heartless.
King Ivor was a young man, which she had expected: he was Vasilisa’s twin.
He looked nothing like his sister. His sharply defined features were set in lines of impatience with the whole world.
For all his smooth-faced youth, his hair was grey, polished pewter with no light or dark strands left to indicate what colour it had once been.
It was cut very short, shorter than men wore their hair in Eyam, but with two long, thin braids at the front which streamed in the wind like silver ribbons.
The king’s helm had a crown of ice upon it. So if the king could wear a different helm, he would be incognito. Rae had worked that out right away.
Rae winked. “Obviously, the gods told me that right away. I wanted your guard down. It was a scheme to get you talking and it worked.”
“Very clever, Lady Rahela,” said Ivor. “As you’re my prisoner, and I’m controlling the dragon, I believe I’m still ahead.”
“Prove it,” Rae challenged.
She tried to sound more confident than she felt.
“All right,” Ivor agreed pleasantly. “I don’t think the gods told you anything, Lady Rahela. I think you read all you know in a book about another world. In a book about this world, in fact. And I don’t think you are the only one from that other world.”
The glittering river and brilliantly coloured roofs of Themesvar swirled into sight beneath the dragon, and were lost.
Rae felt extremely dizzy. “What makes you say that?”
“Books are written in our world, too,” said Ivor.
“I’m a man of science. I studied at the Ivory Tower, and found a book there describing scientific marvels that do not exist in our world.
I fused that knowledge and magic together to make my dragon.
But the man who wrote that book is long dead.
And you, Lady Rahela, are not dead yet.”
“Thanks for those reassuring words.”
Rae wondered if she should claim to be a scientific genius. That seemed too easy for a man of science to disprove.
“I was hoping your knowledge of the future might prove of some use to me,” said Ivor.
“Answer me this, and earn your freedom. Do you know how to end the blood feud? We have searched for a solution for centuries of bloodshed. We were once two lands, one ruled by wild strength and divine beasts, the other by remorseless light and compelling enchantment. Centuries ago magic dwindled and ice swept across our lands. Without combining our strength we would not have survived, but neither the Starosts of the east nor the Meracs of the west have ever forgotten they were once kings, and neither will tolerate the other’s authority.
Long ago, the royal family had a shield against Merac and Starost magic, but the shield is lost. So the authority is mine, and shaken every time the feud breaks out.
And it will break out over any conflict. ”
Rae considered the problem. “What’s the current conflict?”
“The Starost and Merac counts competed to marry the princess once. The Starost and Merac maidens compete to marry the king now.”
“You poor man,” Rae cooed. “Is there too much choice at the babe buffet?”
Ivor said dryly, “One Starost maiden has poisoned two rivals already. I put off selecting a bride due to ill health, but an heir is needed. However I choose, bloodshed is certain. Do you know how I can end the feud?”
“The feud will end,” said Rae. “But not until after you and Count Merac are dead. Sorry to disappoint.”
She would have lied, but she couldn’t work out a way to end the feud other than the way it had ended in the books, through most of the combatants being dead. There was enough blood on Rae’s hands.
“Ah,” said Ivor. “Well, it was worth asking. Nice to meet you, Lady Rahela. My sister seems fond of you, so I hope I don’t have to behead you in the morning. But if I must, I will.”
The Waiting Wastes came into view. Even the raiders’ camp was divided, one half sombre grey, the other bedecked in bright furs and flags.
“Wait! I know the answer to your current problem.”
“What is it?”
“The thing is…” Rae chewed her lip. “It’s more something I can show you than tell you.”
Ivor gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Good effort, Lady Rahela.”
The dragon swooped, stars sparkling along its iridescent scales and turning its wingspan into a mirror-bright stretch of silver. She savoured the last moments of her dragon ride, until the great metal beast landed in the raider encampment.
“Guards,” Ivor called out as he dismounted, “I have the Beauty Dipped In Blood. Seize—”
He gestured to Rae, obviously thinking that she would need to be pulled off the dragon by main force and clapped in chains.
Rae slid down the side of the dragon, gauzy skirt snagging on the metal scales and attracting raider attention as she showed some leg. Torhell, Count Merac, sitting on a tree trunk with his great cat sprawled at his feet, lifted his shaggy head.
Rae seized the moment granted her by surprise. She seized Ivor the Heartless by his chainmail shirt. Fingers digging into the links, she pulled him to her and kissed the king on his startled mouth.
When he was still frozen by this indignity, Rae spun to face the raiders assembled before them.
“Have you heard rumours that I’m a spy for Tagar? Well, it’s true! Your king wooed me with romantic letters. I could not resist him and betrayed my country for his sake. Now he has carried me away, and we will be married in summer.”
She beamed. Behind her, Ivor choked.
“You’re to wed the mystical seer with the enormous bosom?” Torhell sounded amused. “Congratulations, my king.”
There was an unexpected stir of agreement from the raiders.
Vasilisa had said the forces were Merac men, and Prime Minister Pio had told her how the raiders burned, looted and took captives.
This king of science, refusing marriages and – if Rae was reading Ivor correctly – refusing to wench and drink with his men, must seem strange to his raider subjects.
Now their king had taken a captive. He’d flown home with their enemy’s bride.
Rae hung fondly on Ivor’s arm, waving at the crowd. Several heavily armed men in furs gave a cautious cheer. She caught sight of an ally, coming towards her.
“Lady Rahela,” said Vasilisa, face set stone-hard with grief but hands clinging to Rae’s arm, “I am so happy you will be my sister. They say Ivor has no heart, but he only needed a special lady to win it.”
Ivor made a sound, half frustration and half animal in a trap. “A special lady indeed.”
Rae turned and kissed Ivor, in order to whisper rapidly against his cheek, “I know your secret, Ivor.”
She knew nothing. She was taking a wild guess based on current information. Rae prayed she was right.
“You poisoned yourself, so you could fake illness, and avoid choosing a bride. Until your sister suddenly found out about the poison, and you needed to throw the blame on Eyam. I was the one who told Vasilisa, and I did you a favour. If you kept taking poison, the toxins would have built up and killed you. I’m doing you another favour now.
What would your raiders think if they knew you dragged them across the sea for a lie?
I won’t tell, if you play along. In return, I’ll play the part of a captive bride, a symbol of triumph over your enemy.
The raiders will respect that. You won’t ever need to take poison again.
Nobody will expect you to choose a wife from the feuding families now. ”
The dragon sighed and laid itself upon the grass with a creak of metallic joints, curling into a shining circle around the side of the encampment.
“You are deranged,” hissed Ivor.
Rae winked. “I know. All this, and I’m cute too. Tell me, my betrothed. Do we have a bargain?”
In full view of the raiders, the Ice King kissed her hand. Rae felt his frozen snarl against her skin.
“Very well, Lady Rahela,” murmured Ivor the Heartless. “Be my new poison.”