The melee must have started. An hour at most from now, the arrow competition would follow. Then after that, Oak would battle his first draignoch. By my calculations, I had three hours until anyone found me missing. Three hours should be plenty to reach the market, buy the change of clothes I required, and enter the Oughtnoch to release Rendicryss.
My dragon.
The word raised the hair on the back of my neck. If I could break her chains, she could fly out of the Walled City. I would have to find a way to sneak out. The ducts were an option, although I wasn’t entirely sure if they were grated. If so, I could think of no more horrible a death than drowning in the Walled City’s piss and crap.
To my dismay, the Middle was worse than the Top. Red patches expanding, troops banging on every door, entering houses. I saw soldiers carrying away weapons. Most of the dwellings were empty because of the mandatory attendance at the festivities; soldiers pushed anyone found in the houses into the street. Buffont kept his head down, plotting a jarring course to avoid running them over. Shaking fists and cries of thievery earned Middlers cracks to the head and punches to the stomach. A few were put in irons.
I didn’t need to ask anyone to know what was happening here. The king’s laws restricting weapons in the Hinterlands had moved inside the great wall. I could’ve pondered why now, what had changed, but I was too busy worrying about how to avoid being arrested. In a blue dress with Jori’s mother’s jewelry on, I would stand out like a bonfire in the Middle’s market.
Not long after, we rolled up to the square. Buffont parked the wagon behind a long line of others, next to a waist-high set of posts, demarcations for the beginnings of the market. I crawled out of the basket, peeking over the vat of potatoes, taking a good look.
Vendors readied their stalls for business after the tournament festivities. The carts were set up in a large square, leaving the center open for patrons to move about easily. Besides the fruits and vegetables, there were carts selling baked breads and cheeses, crated live pheasants, even an apothecary with healing oils and herbs. But I found what I was looking for tucked at the end of the western side, a stall selling clothing and blankets. Directly opposite, two soldiers were busy ransacking the cutlery cart.
Buffont helped me climb down. “Thank you for the lift. I’ll find my own way back, Buffont.”
“Be careful. There’s an ill wind about. So many soldiers.”
“You be careful too.”
He nodded.
I had but one idea, to walk with purpose, as if I was allowed to be here, and if soldiers appeared, run. I slid the sapphire ring off, clutching it in my fist, and padded across the market square. My stomach tensed with guilt. This was Jori’s mother’s ring. A queen of these lands, deceased mother to the only prince, and I was going to trade it for trousers and a tunic.
I crossed to the tanner’s stall and rifled through a stack of leather trousers. A tired-looking woman in a wool dress with an empire waist cinched above her very pregnant belly rose to greet me.
“Market’s not open yet.” Her eyes darted to the soldiers, then back again. “I’ve seen you on the dais in the arena.” She seized my wrist above my clenched fist, stretching my arm beyond the edge of my cloak, exposing my mark. “It is you. You healed that boy Griffin hit with his axe!”
Her loud exclamation drew the attention of the soldiers. Heads flipped. Knives clinked in crates as one dropped what he was doing and started moving in our direction.
“Hey. You! Lass, get over here. You should not be here!”
The first pair of trousers would have to do. I took them, receiving a furious glower from the woman that eased when I tossed her the sapphire ring. I grabbed a tunic on the end of the table, a red cloak hanging from a hook, and sprinted down an alleyway.
Several twists and turns later, their footsteps were almost on me. I dove into a stairwell, which led into a dank cellar that smelled of moldy cheese. I ducked, hearing them pass by.
I left the pretty blue dress and Sybil’s cloak as a gift for whoever lived in the house, and tied my hair at the base of my neck with a useful piece of rope found in Buffont’s wagon. Tucking the sapphire pendant beneath the tunic, I put on the last part of the costume, the red cloak, solidifying my transition to an adolescent boy serving in the king’s army. I raised the hood and stepped out of the cellar.
A few minutes later, I was well and truly lost. The good news was that if I continued downhill, I would eventually find the Bottom. The bad news was that if I circled too far east or too far west, I could end up far from the Oughtnoch. The best course of action was to find the Wilted Rose. I knew my way from there.
Four streets later, I smelled the blacksmith shop, and was lost no more. Charcoal smoke fumed, giving me direction. A narrow alley dumped me outside the building. The double doors open, no one worked. Cabinets were locked. Hammers stowed neatly beside the anvil. All would be in the arena, including the blacksmith, Hugo, that Griffin mentioned, and his friends, Thoma and Dres.
I borrowed a hammer, tucking it beneath my cloak, and continued on.
Rain started, making the steep cobblestone road slippery. I slipped three times before finding the Wilted Rose. Troop numbers thinned the farther down I traveled. From what I could tell, they were working their way from Top to Bottom, but were still trapped in the vast Middle.
Passageways narrowed, dumping into the steep descent through the Bottom. The brothels closed. The muggers sleeping with daylight. I made it to the Oughtnoch without incident.
But as I took the last step, Rendicryss was quiet. Dead quiet. The last time I was this close, she’d let me know how to find her. What if Jori had lied? What if she was in the ring?
There was no time to waste.
My heart racing, I had two choices. Hammer the metal door, which would be loud, and garner too much attention. Or try to wield the moon, which could potentially take less time, and would be silent . . . until it wasn’t.
I decided to go with the second choice.
Adrenaline coursed through me as I set the hammer down. The power chilled the back of my neck, running down my spine. The moon wasn’t visible. But it was there, behind the clouds. Waiting.
I reached up, taking what I could, drawing the moon’s energy to me, then heaved it at the door.
The explosion blew me across the road into a pile of dung.
“Ow.” Everything hurt.
Sucking down a deep breath, I forced air into my reluctant lungs, regretting the decision, nearly vomiting from the putrid stench.
A long crack in the wall steamed. I missed badly. It was a good twenty feet away, but the metal gate opened. Red cloaks poured out.
“What the hell was that? Search the entire Bottom! Go! I want whoever did this found and now!” a soldier called.
He returned to the Oughtnoch, paying no attention to me, a similarly dressed, much shorter, thinner version of himself, following after, scooping my hammer along the way. With soldiers searching the Bottom, and the others dealing with the draignoch in the tournament, the pound was empty except for the two of us, for the moment. He spun, arms stretched, probably to lock the gate. His sight above my head, he failed to see my hammer until it hit him in the stomach. He crumpled to his knees, bent over, gasping, but unable to speak. He reached for me. I whacked him over the head with the butt.
He dropped, still breathing.
The rope in my hair was long enough to bind his wrists. Days of rain left the ground soft enough for me to drag him into an open empty cell. I tried to pick up the chains used for the draignochs on the ground to wrap around his legs, but they were much too heavy. Twelve of me couldn’t lift them.
I stuffed the drawing of my mark the boy made for me into his mouth to dampen his cries if he woke. “Let Sir Raleigh find that.”
I searched him but couldn’t find a set of keys on him. Not that I expected it to be that easy.
Cell after cell housed draignochs. With daylight, I could see their extravagant colors. Lavender
, amber, azure, emerald green, and a dark shade of red. They were smaller than Rendicryss. Their wings would never give them flight. For them to be free, the wall would have to come down.
As I passed their prisons, my heart ached for them. Their strong hind legs chained together so they couldn’t move. Their necks anchored to the ground so they couldn’t stand tall. They crouched against the very back of the cells, as far from their human jailers as possible. What kind of monster did this? Where was the challenge in killing beasts tortured this way? I would choose death over a life like this. I had to imagine these draignochs would too. How could Griffin not see that?
Cheering exploded out of the arena. I was running out of time.
She cooed.
The relief was palpable. Explanation of why this creature meant so much to me escaped me, a creature I couldn’t even remember, but she did. She was everything.
“Rendicryss . . . I’m here!”
Arms wrapped around me, hoisting me off the ground. “Let go of me!” I struggled, my heel striking calf bone, eliciting a familiar growl.
Griffin.
“You smell terrible.”
“Put me down, then!”
“Have you lost your mind? We have to get out of here.”
“No! If you carry me out, I’ll come back tonight. I blasted that wall. Another go or two and it would come down!”
“You missed the gate badly and you nearly killed yourself in the process. I saw the whole thing!” He set me down, and I ran. His footsteps were steadfast behind me.
Her gilded cell was where it had been, on the end. This time I could see inside. Anger choked me. The Phantombronze chains binding her neck and ankles to the bars left raised bloody welts. Her red eyes were hooded. She was muzzled. That was why I couldn’t hear her.
Griffin grabbed my waist, but I got hold of the bars.
“You cannot free her. She is a wild beast, Maggie! She will kill—”
“No. No!” I strained against his hold. Rendicryss’s tail slipped through the bars, wrapping around us both.
My ears buzzed. My hands heated.
“Maggie, what’s happening to me?”
Wind howled.
Then, we were flying.
Fourteen
Griffin
Griffin fell through hot wind, dark clouds, then carved through sheets of rain. Lightning cracked. Thunder roared. He no longer felt. The only logical explanation: Rendicryss had killed him. And yet he didn’t feel dead, at least not entirely, more fighting to wake from a nightmare. Trapped in a downward spiral, a diving bird, only much, much faster. Griffin tried to scream but whimpered instead.
His vision clouded from pain that wasn’t his. A hill far below grew in size and scope until it was a mountain. Wings spread right and left, not much larger than draignochs’, yet more than long enough and wide enough to carry the small body they were attached to. Too many arrows stuck in webbed flesh, making it impossible to stay aloft. Shaking hind legs stretched, landing first, scratching to a stop on a rocky barren spot. Griffin wasn’t here at all. This was the dragon’s doing, like she’d done with Maggie the last time they entered the Oughtnoch. Rendicryss wished him to see something, he hoped. Death would be so disappointing.
Rendicryss tried to tuck her wings but stopped, mewing in great agony. She couldn’t pull the arrows out. Griffin would’ve helped her, if he could, wouldn’t he? All at once, Griffin’s chest tightened. No. This was a monster. She would kill him, and probably had already.
The rain poured down. With it came a comforting light carried on wind, the kind that Maggie captured with her hands in her room last night, as if the moon were riding an ocean wave. It bathed the dragon’s head in a warm glow.
Let them burn. The voice, feminine, was entirely unfamiliar to Griffin, but not to Rendicryss.
Fire ignited inside the dragon’s veins. The heavy rain was no match for it. The arrows lit, melting to ash in seconds. But the holes in her wings remained, and there were many.
Rendicryss whined. It sounded as if she was crying.
It was not your doing she left the forest too soon. The banshee and her son will pay for what they did to my daughter. Their story has already been written.
As has yours. She will need you. She cannot be a light in darkness for the world if she’s blind to her existence. The curse the shrew threw at her holds. You are the only one who can break it.
Rendicryss strained, trying to flap her wings, but she could not fly.
You are unfinished, little one. You must wait until you are strong enough. You must heal and grow, as must she. For now, her heart beats for us all in the world of humankind. The first of us in their lands, the bearer of great gifts that will rain down on them in the form of hope or destruction. That part is up to them. As was told to the man who would be king, only with magic by his side can he keep his kingdom.
Rendicryss craned her neck, mewing at the bloody holes in her wings, arrows shot by humankind. Her clutched jaw opened wide. She let out a rattling howl, a wolf summoning its pack.
They’re gone. The draignochs left the forest some time ago. Much too soon, unevolved, and sadly are now too far away for that to change, I fear. Perhaps one day, you, Rendicryss can help them too.
The light on the wind darted skyward, slicing through dark clouds.
Find my daughter and break the bonds of the curse so that she can use all that I have given her to fulfill her destiny.
Griffin woke with a start, crushed against Maggie, snared by the dragon’s tail. Maggie gasped in his arms. Rain poured from the skies in sheets, washing away everything except the stench coming from Maggie’s cloak.
Griffin wasn’t dead. Not yet. He hugged Maggie. “That was . . .”
“You saw?” she whispered against his chest.
“Yes.”
Rendicryss’s tail slid off, curling around their feet protectively.
“I have to free her, Griffin.” Maggie drew a tiny drop of moonlight out of thin air, making her palm glow, then slammed her hand down on the Phantombronze bars. The light grew brighter, then snuffed out. “Why won’t it work?” But the bar was left changed. The orange darkened to rust, losing integrity. Eventually, Maggie would be able to free her.
Griffin’s stomach wrenched into a tight knot. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Because you’re not ready. You have to grow your power. You saw Rendicryss and heard the voice. Your mother’s voice.”
She looked at Griffin, startled and confused. “You heard her too?” She sounded relieved, then her expression soured. “First I thought the woman in the other memories Rendicryss showed me, the banshee who cursed me, was my mother, and now this woman calls me daughter? She couldn’t even show her face!”
“Maggie—”
She beat the bars. “I suppose it shouldn’t matter who my mother is. She abandoned me!” she said, way too loudly. “Whoever she was, she left me in the middle of the woods! Gleefully, no less! What kind of a person does that? And for what? Destiny? Prophecy? Conquest? So more can come? If they’re anything like she is, who wants them here?”
Rendicryss whined, likely in agreement.
Maggie looked at Griffin as if he had answers . . . and maybe he did. “Rendicryss saw your mother, as you did, and I did. Maggie, she was and simply is the moon.”
Griffin looked up, blinking through raindrops. Maggie too.
When he stared into her eyes again, he saw confusion melt to comprehension. He nodded. Griffin cupped Maggie’s cheeks, wiping the mixture of rain and tears spilling down them. “She gave you a great power. A weapon that can free Rendicryss.”
“A weapon I don’t know how to use!” She looked at Rendicryss, and her face crumpled. “We have to get her out of here!”
The ground shook. Chains on pulley wheels creaked. The gate in the arena was going up. The match was over.
“We have to go!” Griffin said, but Maggie didn’t move. “Perig and all the guards are about to descend upon us. Maggie,
please!” Griffin started to walk away. He wouldn’t force her. Not this time. She needed to decide if she was willing to trust him. He looked back and saw Rendicryss shaking her head and scraping her hind legs, moving away from Maggie’s reach. When she didn’t leave, the dragon swung her head, banging the bars.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she knows I’m right, Maggie. She wants us to go.”
Maggie gave the tiniest of nods, and they ran.
As they sprinted out the open gate, Griffin heard Perig yelling. Twenty soldiers posted outside of the Oughtnoch’s wall paid little attention to two dressed similarly to themselves, running away from the crazed gamekeeper. They probably wanted to do the like.
Griffin’s mind raced as they climbed the stairs, taking two and three at a time. Rendicryss wasn’t a monster. She was intelligent, and she loved Maggie, and was distraught at not being able to find her. “Your mother said those draignochs would’ve been like Rendicryss if they’d stayed in their forest. What do you think would happen if they returned?”
“You’re changing your mind about them?”
Griffin’s sword weighed heavier on his belt with every new step he took. “They killed my parents. They killed many.”
“So have you.”
Maggie scooted into an alcove, catching her breath. Griffin slid beside her.
“Killing them didn’t bring your parents back, Griffin. I don’t think they’d want you spending your life avenging them in this forsaken place. That’s not living, is it?”
He shook his head. He could barely speak past the lump in his throat. He took her hand and pulled her out of the alcove, back into the rain, and started climbing again. “Let’s go to the tavern and dispose of these clothes.”
“I rather prefer these clothes to the flamboyant costumes Jori puts in my room,” she huffed, keeping pace with him.
“You smell, Maggie. Badly.”
She sniffed. “Really? I’m not sure I can smell it any longer.”
“How nice for you. . . .”
Thoma was unlocking the tavern door when they arrived. His gray cloak soaked and dripping. He shook his wheat hair, glued to his head like a wet dog, in greeting.
The Color of Dragons Page 23
