Chapter Twenty-Three #3
Miranda offered the barest of nods. She crawled toward me, grasped the hem of my gown, twisting it in her hands. “It is—” A rough swallow. “—an honor.”
“Enough, Roland,” I said.
Roland released her mind, then spat in the dirt. Miranda’s eyes were furious red slits, and when she’d regained control over herself, she laughed madly, her teeth painted red. She must have bitten her tongue.
There was a heavy note of shame in Roland—he’d broken his vow to never to wield such power again. And in Miranda, a humiliation I remembered well. When I had been ensnared by a Venus, I had felt just as foolish, and just as weak.
She hurled slice after slice of magic toward me.
I parried clumsily with my sword. I was as untrained in combat as she was in magic use.
When she nicked a vein on my arm, I watched the blood trickle to the ground, reminding myself that even if I was torn, I could be mended.
She’d soon exhaust herself. Even now, she was—
An internal rip, so different from the warm caress of Marguerite’s power, cleaved through my body.
My heart wrenched in my chest, my teeth bared into a feral snarl.
Roland’s head swung around. His hands fisted, and we both lunged at each other without realizing what we were doing, his knife to my neck, my sword to his.
There was only a sudden, blazing intent to hurt him, his handsome face so irritating—
I warred with myself, struggling to hold the blade back.
Roland’s magic slammed Miranda onto her knees. The hostility in the air dissipated, as if drawn back inside of her.
When Roland’s knife dropped, I lowered my own blade. Miranda stiffened, her arms pressed against her sides as if tied in ropes. “If I had my full strength, if I was not outnumbered,” she spat at Roland, “I could tear your love to shreds. Forever.”
Roland spun his knife around his knuckles. “No, I don’t think you could. Your effort here was valiant. But.” He nodded to me. “Not enough. That’s a nice little revenge fantasy you have, to best Bianca. It keeps you up at night, doesn’t it? You must be very tired.”
“Exhausted,” I agreed.
Her eyes shuttered and she fell to the ground.
Roland immediately sagged, resting his brow against my shoulder. “How long—” He caught his breath. “How long will she sleep for?”
“Not long. I’m spread too thin. I’ll have to release some minds to transform.” I was breathing hard, too, all my muscles screaming. But I shouldn’t have allowed myself even a moment of reprieve.
An arrow skimmed my ear, lodging in the freshly dug earth behind us.
Roland lunged forward, shielding me with his body. “There are bowmen in the rampart towers.”
“Damn it. I thought I had them all. Jump on my back. Now.”
“Jump on your—” His question died in his throat; I was already writhing, becoming a creature of fangs and scales, claws tearing through my gown.
Roland staggered, wide-eyed, as most of the minds in the courtyard slipped from under my thumb.
The screaming and wailing subsided, but the ravens took up their croaking again.
Roland grunted in pain as he climbed my leg, using opal scales as footholds. Snaking my dragon head around, I held his gaze until he’d taken firm hold of one of my spikes.
“Not a mouse any longer, are you?” he muttered.
I gathered fire in my throat as a shower of arrows rained down. “Left!” Roland shouted.
The northwest tower burst into flames. Through the smoke, I could see the billowing figures of new guards racing toward us.
Of more and more figures rising dazed from the ground, gathering their weapons.
As my strength waned, most had begun lifting their heads.
So I leapt into the sky, staggering under Roland’s weight.
More arrows flew; my scales punched them away like fists. I slashed my tail, warning the men below as we climbed higher. Using the rampart wall, I launched us up, up, to the wavering edge of the Saturn boundary, beating my wings frantically.
Suddenly, a searing pain. Roland shouted my name. An arrow tore through the thin membrane of my wing.
For a moment, we were suspended, weightless, before we crashed to the ground. A gravestone crumbled to dust beneath me.
I breathed out another wall of fire, barricading the graveyard. Then I staggered naked into the chapel, a woman again. My arm was twisted horribly, the arrow wound leaking blood. Miranda’s nearby cut was shallow but biting.
Roland, despite his own injuries, lifted me into his arms and cradled me.
We coughed up smoke. Our eyes teared from it.
Together, we took in the ruin of the chapel, the ceiling caved in above the nave and patches of sky visible, the debris piled on tilted pews.
Roland set me carefully on the ground in the beam of a stained glass window.
He snapped a twig, had me bite down on the wood as he tore a strip of cloth from his shirt, tying it tight around my arm.
“There we go, Mouse.” His anguished eyes tracked over my body.
“What else hurts? Anything?” With a tug, his shirt was off his back.
He wrapped me up in it, pulling me into his lap.
Shouts in the distance. The thunder of horses, and the rattle of the portcullis lifting in the gatehouse to the south, the only way for men to ride in and out of the Tomb.
“Must be nearly dawn. The Guildford birds are chirping,” muttered Roland. He cradled my head to his chest.
Through the crack of a shattered pane, we watched as the horses charged along the riverbank and through the gatehouse, skirting the mouth of the pit. Heralds carried the red Guildford standard, Charles at the front of the retinue. “What in the Planets happened here? Bring the boy.”
Edward was hauled to his feet.
Charles Guildford questioned Edward from his horse, pointing to the flaming northwest tower and the graveyard: Why were there fires? Why was there such wretched screaming? Where was Miranda?
Miranda cringed up to them. Gave her excuses, her assurances she’d fought me before I tried to fly off with the lord chancellor. She pointed to the chapel. “They fell. They are lying somewhere beyond the fire.”
Charles dropped from his horse. He gripped Edward’s jerkin, hoisting him off the ground. “How did this happen?”
He choked out, “She was terrifying. She made me feel such horrible—” A shudder.
Charles scoffed and released him. Guildford men began their prowl across the courtyard as more guards streamed down from the rampart towers, shouting about a white dragon. A mythic beast.
We were out of time. Roland knew it as well as I did. The fire sequestering us in here was burning lower, the stone too wet to catch.
“Mouse,” he breathed, taking my face between his hands. “Thank you for coming for me.”
I brushed the split in his lip, knowing what he was going to do. He was going to ask me to leave him behind. I couldn’t fly him out now.
“Your arm is broken, and I’m too weak to heal it,” he said. “I was brought here to die. But you weren’t. You can pass through the barrier.” He nudged my nose with his. “Go.”
I shook my head fervently.
“How about a trade?”
“Not another one of your trades.”
“Listen.” He ducked to meet my eyes. “You came here to save my life. I’d redeem myself now. Let me save yours.” He pressed his lips to mine. A warm brush of his mouth, not nearly enough. “Please, Mouse. Do this for me.”
“No,” I said through my teeth.
“Are you so stubborn you’ll die for it?”
I pleaded with my eyes. His thumb skimmed down my cheekbone, parted the seam of my mouth, and just as the Moon slid out from behind a cloud, he angled his head. Kissed me gently. Against my lips, he murmured my name.
Moonlight filtered through the gaping ceiling and pooled at our feet.
With a sudden gasp, I broke away from him, tumbling down into memory.
The past twisted together strangely. I saw a little girl, scabbed knees tucked into her chin, twisting a white braid between her fingers and plotting how to escape her life.
“What might I be capable of, if I were the one struck by lightning?” she whispered to herself.
My eyes shot open.
I weaved my good hand through the spill of light.
It was the same as always: small and so pale, I could see the veins beneath my skin.
Yet somehow, I was emboldened. Changed. There had always been a limitation on my power.
Before, it had been held in a vessel. Now its physical form was ripped away.
Now, it wanted to burst forth in every direction.
She is the closest celestial body in the sky. Her face always shifting. There is an entire side to her we’ll never see, and I suspect the same is true for you.
My blood hummed. The Moon showed me all of her faces, even the ones meant to stay in the dark.
This was what Prospero had been searching for.
This was exaltation.