25. Ava #2
To sit on the high-seat throne.
She sought the roots where barrows breathe,
Where blind things whisper doom;
She fed the dark her oath-bound blood
In that forbidden gloom.
Ava could see it in her mind, the forbidden barrow, the desperate mother longing for a child. Her own heart cried out a wish that this mother would find her child somewhere. But that haunting melody stirred a premonition inside her that suggested it wouldn’t be that easy.
When iron winds split sky and stone
And labor wracked her form,
The cradle smoked with scale and fang—
A rootwyrm prince was born.
Scaled was the babe and white his eye,
Like a barrow-worm his body coiled,
And the midwife fled the birthing room
Across the frozen whale-road.
The king he swore by sword and ring,
By war-flame forged of sky,
“Cast out this wyrm, this serpent child,
And let the wyrmkind die!”
One of the children gasped in horror, pressing her hands over her mouth at this very unparental king.
But the queen she wrapped him in scarlet silk
From the loom-hall’s crimson dye,
And would not yield the scale-born child
Nor neglect his hungry cry.
He grew in girth, he grew in length,
He wound through hall and stair,
And the hearth fires hissed like shade-wolves
When his shadow crossed their glare.
“Bring me a bride,” the rootwyrm spoke,
His voice like gravel and flame.
“For I am prince of blood and crown,
And I will have my claim.”
One bride they brought in linen white—
He swallowed her with a sigh.
Another came with golden hair—
She did not live to cry.
“Wait, wait!” Roar interrupted, lifting his hand. “He ate them?”
Ava and the others shifted and exchanged looks, some of the older girls smothering their smiles with their hands. This ballad of Finnr’s wasn’t exactly rated for children, with the dark magic and the—Ava cast a glance at Roar’s mother—the bride eating. Even her skin crawled at the thought.
“Aye, lad,” Finnr whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Things born in darkness seek the darkness.”
“Wow! How many does he eat?” the lad asked eagerly, and his mother shot him a foul look he didn’t seem to notice.
“Shall I finish the song,” Finnr demanded in mock outrage, “or would you prefer me to just tell you?”
“Finish the song!” the girls chorused, and Roar nodded his agreement.
At last, there came a shepherd’s child
With ashwood in her hand.
She did not weep nor pale with dread
Before the scale-crowned command.
She bade him shed each shining skin
As serpents do in spring,
And for each hide that split and fell,
She let the lamb-ward swing.
Now the girls grinned, and Roar swung an imaginary staff as if he were the one striking the blows.
He roared, he thrashed, he split the stone,
He cursed her mortal breath—
But she did not drop her ash-rod staff
Though she faced the door of death.
Nine times he shed his winding hide,
Nine skins upon the floor—
The fallen mail from a battle-wyrm
As none had seen before.
No scale remained, no serpent’s tail,
No venom in his vein—
Only a prince with human eyes
And the memory of his pain.
Sighs rippled around the room, most of them disappointed. But Finnr wasn’t done yet, his eyes twinkling as he parted his lips to sing the final stanzas of his ballad.
But sometimes when the moon was thin
And frost crept through the beams,
His shadow bent against the wall
In shapes not born of dreams.
So sing of queens who bargain deep
With powers in the gloom,
For curses cling like winter bark—
And follow bloodlines home.
“Well, that’s the worst song I’ve ever heard,” Ylsi said hotly, sitting back with flaming cheeks. “The prince should have gotten what he deserved. Not…not…well, rescuing!”
Some of the younger children giggled behind their dark gray hands, but Ava’s chest grew tight, and the older girls exchanged hard, pained glances. The little ones didn’t understand why this particular detail had struck Ylsi so hard.
They didn’t understand what it meant to be a powerless bride.
Ava hesitated a moment before reaching out to lay a hand on the girl’s knee. “Perhaps he did get what he deserved in the end. The song suggested all did not end well. Perhaps he suffered more later as he learned about his humanity and then lost it.”
Ylsi frowned at her, but her expression shifted as she at least considered Ava’s words.
“I don’t suppose you could have picked something a little cheerier,” Siri muttered to her husband.
Finnr’s cheeks turned pink, and he shrugged. “Alas, there are no cheery tales about the Rootwyrm Prince. He’s a naughty chap who does naughty things and gets walloped and skinned alive.”
A chorus of ewwwws went around the room that devolved into giggles. And Finnr, winking, returned to his post, apparently feeling that he had done his work well.
Ava caught Brynja’s eye, unsure if she should laugh or be disgusted with the man and his moody ballads. But Brynja was smirking.
Apparently, this wasn’t abnormal.
“I still think I’d rather face the rootwyrms than the shadow,” the girl who had inspired the ballad announced with a sulky frown.
“At least you won’t face it alone,” Ava said gently. “We’ll face it together. And I will help you.”
The girls’ gazes swiveled to her, and Ava swallowed the lump in the back of her throat, hoping she looked confident and not as worried as she felt.
“I’ll help you,” she repeated more firmly. “My magic isn’t much, but I’ll use every bit of my flame to protect you from this creature. We’ll fight it together, however we can.”
“And you’re still the dragon queen, aren’t you?” Roar asked, jiggling up and down on his bare toes. “So, if that thing comes in here, you’ll turn into a dragon and bite its tentacles off, right?”
Ava coughed and glanced at Brynja. “I’m not sure about that, but I’ll use every weapon at my disposal to fight this thing.”
She hadn’t told Brynja what Dragon had revealed to her before he left. About the empty, gaping hole in her chest. The loneliness clawing at her mind. He’d only been in her head for a short time, but she had already come to depend on him. The depth of that dependence left her feeling vulnerable.
And she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Because when he had walked away…when the connection between them snapped…
Ava had never known such pain. It surely would have been better to never know Jerrid and Dragon than to know them and lose them. Just as she had loved and lost her parents. As she might love and lose her brother. And all the girls here.
Was it better to love and lose or to keep her heart walled off? Stay unattached?
Ava folded her hands in her lap and stared down at her interlaced fingers while Roar began to regale the children with a rousing reenactment of Ava battling Talos in the forest. He kicked and spun and tumbled around the room, kicking and falling on top of anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wake of his warpath.
Shouts of outrage and laughter filled the room.
A smile wanted to tug at her lips, but she held it back. She feared it was already too late for her—she was already attached to these girls, these children.
The weight of responsibility pressed down on her, suffocating her. Unable to stand it, she rose to her feet and slipped from the room. Outside in the corridor, she pressed her back against the wall and leaned her head against the cold stone, closing her eyes and trying to still her breathing.
Dragon, are you there? she pleaded desperately.
But of course, only silence answered her plea. He was long gone, well on his way to Eroth.
“You all right, lass?” Finnr called from his post outside the storage room.
Ava forced her eyes open and padded down the hall so that he wouldn’t have to shout. “I’m fine. Just tired. And…a little nervous. It’s going to be a long night.”
Finnr’s gaze flicked down the corridor toward the stairs leading to the barred entrance. “Aye, it will be that. But I’ve pulled wilder rabbits out of my hat. We’ll get through the night just fine.”
“Rabbits out of your hat?” Ava echoed, confused about what he meant. Was this some strange human expression she had yet to learn about?
“Aye,” the man said, a twinkle in his pale eyes. “I know a bit of magic myself, lass. I can pull rabbits from hats. And…what’s this?”
He flicked a hand toward her ear. She jerked away instinctively, then laughed when he held a coin in front of her face.
“I can also pull coins from the ears of pretty lasses. The prettier the lass, the heftier the coin.”