Chapter Seven #2
A bear was led into the tiltyard. The same size as the lion, but there were no exposed ribs beneath her brown fur. One of her canines was a broken stub. The king clapped his hands and laughed like a child as she was chained to the post.
Roland clamped his helmet over his head.
When the trumpets sounded again, the bear surged onto two feet. She snarled and spat, then slammed back onto all fours to charge at Jasper.
The Jupiter shrank back. “Get away, go on—hungry lady, aren’t you? Come here, hungry lady.” He pointed to the sack by the keeper, and suddenly slabs of meat were pouring out, multiplied by the hundreds, and he snatched the spine of a fish, dangling the carcass before the bear.
For a minute or two, I thought Jasper had won. He’d managed—with no shortage of Jupiter luck—to coax the bear toward his cage, waving the fish in the air and tiptoeing backward.
Then, across the yard, Roland cast off his helmet. His hair pointed in every direction. Sweat dripped from his brow.
The bear tore herself away from the dangling carrion.
She sniffed the air, backing away from Jasper, and suddenly, in one violent movement, careened toward Roland. The crowd gasped, and Cecily lost all sense of decorum and screamed. I dug my nails into my palm.
But the bear’s jaws paused inches from Roland’s neck. She was only sniffing him, tracing his scent into one of his ears, then into his breastplate. She nuzzled his neck and nipped playfully at his gauntlets.
I thought he’d lost his grip on her mind when she backed away and returned to the other side of the tiltyard, but she merely stuck her head into the keeper’s bag, scooped a fish into her mouth and laid it before Roland as an offering.
“Thank you,” said Roland, accepting the gift and flashing a smile up at the king.
He’d tamed her completely—she was brimming with love.
The bear nudged him with her nose to follow him, and he nudged back, herding her toward the cage.
The crowd was booing. Fists and voices raised in protest. “Not fair!” Jasper cried from the other end.
“All is fair when you fight with love,” Roland taunted as he gently shut the cage on the bear. Immediately he sagged with relief. Inside the bars, the bear looked just as starved as before; now that Roland’s influence had abated, she was casting about for food again.
What a terrible contest this was.
I looked to the opposite stands. The king shook with laughter, a grape raised above his tongue by Cecily, and I saw quiet evil in his pale eyes.
It was not evil as I’d imagined it as a girl: an invading army at the gates.
This was one man already inside the gates, whose cruelty was encouraged by his entire court.
Roland’s eyes were trained on the royal awning too. He waited for the king’s acknowledgment, even as courtiers swarmed him like they did for Oliver, as he shook a hand through his hair and grinned. But Richard denied Roland entirely.
Wyatt dispersed the crowd, encouraging them to filter back into the stands. Roland stripped off his armor, tossing each piece to Edward. Beneath the plates, a billowing white shirt clung to the sweat on his chest.
He settled nearby in the first row, legs spread wide, hands clasped between his knees.
“The king announces Bianca Mortlake, formerly of the Stafford family, and Miranda Hayward of the Guildford family,” said Wyatt.
Miranda. That was her name.
She sat in the shade of a canopy with the Guildfords, and when she pushed her cloak back, her pointed chin was raised.
She wore a gable hood and a plain, carmine gown with no fine filigree or brocade.
A Mars pendant was cinched tight around her throat.
In the daylight, I could now see a faint but jagged scar running across her face from brow to cupid’s bow.
I rose trembling, smoothing the folds of my gown.
Another beast was led into the yard, this time for me.
I’d never seen such a creature before, and had no name for it. The reptile had blade-sized teeth, four squat legs, jade scales as hard as leather. Whatever size she had been before Prospero made her even larger, I didn’t want to know. She was twenty-five feet long. At least.
I won’t hurt you, I thought toward the strange creature, sending a flare of calm toward her as she was untied from the post. I promise.
Across the way, Miranda’s hellish eyes narrowed as she surveyed me and the creature.
It took only seconds for the trumpet to sound, for Miranda to grapple for my mind, constricting my thoughts like air inside a windpipe, forcing them in only one direction.
I leapt toward the creature against my will, suddenly furious, seething at it for no logical reason at all. She whipped her tail in warning.
I charged again, and her teeth snapped inches away from my face. No—I was in danger. This was Miranda’s influence. My pulse was a war drum, so loud I thought I might never know peace.
Miranda’s eyes flashed. I cried out and fell into the dirt. My leg had been torn open to the bone. I gritted my teeth and tried to stand, but it wouldn’t hold my weight.
Her eyes shifted again: My arm opened up. She sliced again. My collarbone. Again. My hip. Again. Vaguely, I understood the crowd was laughing. I attempted to drag myself to my feet, to raise my hand in forfeit, but only stumbled.
I’d felt such pain before. In Cosmo’s head, only minutes earlier. When I’d learned of Prospero’s death. Hal’s death. It ripped clean through me and stole all thought.
The creature was somewhere on the other end of the tiltyard, shuffling toward the keeper’s bag of meat. I couldn’t hear the crowd anymore. There was only Miranda, and my body. What was it for except to receive pain? What was it for except for torment?
I had thought by studying, I might stand a chance.
But she was exactly what Prospero had said: a walking sword.
She had ignored the true task and gone after me instead, reveling in the opportunity to showcase her magic.
What better moment did the Guildfords have than a rare tournament to unsheathe such a blade?
Her face swam above me. I saw the extension of her arm before she slapped my cheek with all of her might.
“So weak,” she hissed. “No fight in you, is there?”
Her cruel words returned me to the past. She was my birth father. She was Miranda. There was no difference.
She kicked my stomach hard, and I curled in on myself, grunting in agony.
The dirt crunched beneath her boots as she circled me. My eyes were covered in my own drying blood, but I could still hear her. I could hear the floorboards creaking in the inn where I was born. Could hear them groan as my father leaned over and called me worthless.
Miranda’s mouth was close to my ear. She breathed excitedly. Luxuriating in prolonging my misery. “Weak minded,” she said. “Weak little body.”
Then, she retreated mid-hiss. Inside her, I felt a conflicting presence. Another magician.
Roland was in her mind, too. It was almost as if he touched my hand there, in Miranda’s head, and told me to hold on.
I had seconds of reprieve as they grappled.
Miranda had soon thrown him out and kicked my stomach again.
I gasped and bit my tongue, tasting copper.
Then, I heard her breathing over me. How strained she sounded.
She’d spent herself too quickly. Her magic was brash, as clumsy as an alehouse brawl. Had she ever been properly trained?
She must have looked down at me and thought I was finished, because she backed away, focusing now on herding the reptile.
In the distance, the creature shrieked. It didn’t sound like her magic was penetrating its armored scales—she was cursing in frustration, the crowd was booing, and it had begun to rain, little whips that stung my skin and pounded hard against the earth.
I lay in the mud and listened to their battle. It raged on and on. I prayed the creature wasn’t hurt every time I heard her deep bellow. But she was thick-skinned. Impenetrable to a sword.
Who had said those words, long ago? It may have been me. I sank in and out of memory with every gasping breath I took. I saw a white dragon, flying high above an army in a tapestry. If only I had—
Scales.
The transformation ripped through my gown, my spine sprouting white spikes, plates of armored, opal scales sliding over brutalized skin.
My veins ran hot; my voice became a tinder for flame.
The courtiers gasped as I grew and grew, towering over the stands.
I whipped my dragon head back and forth, the talon of my wing ripping through the royal canopy.
The king fell from his chair, Cecily thrown across him. The other courtiers were frantic: screaming and shoving one another as they fought to exit the stands.
Miranda stood gaping at me. My curses resounded as roars, but somewhere in the crowd, Oliver laughed, understanding exactly what I’d said.
Miranda rallied then, hurling her magic at me, cut after cut, but she couldn’t touch me. Not anymore. I snarled into her furious, pinched face, gathered fire in my throat. She leapt away just in time. Half of the tiltyard burst into flames.
A slash of my tail knocked over her cage entirely, and her with it. She was thrown into the mud, and I extended my wing to block the courtiers from fleeing the stands. I wanted them to see this. My triumph.
Down below, the reptile’s cold eyes assessed me. How would I lead her into my own cage? If I took her into my own jaws, would I crush her?
Remembering Roland’s and Oliver’s strategies, I shifted again, my body compressing and softening into a white doe. This was a hunt, after all, and I was already injured. I limped forward, tail swishing from side to side.
She couldn’t resist. She was hungry and desperate from years in the king’s menagerie, and here I was, a ready meal, already leaking blood. As I pranced away, I slipped into her mind to make her even more crazed than she already was, and she lunged only a moment too late.