What? Shock lanced through me, freezing me in place as I gaped up at her.
Aventurine wasn’t defending her family right now.
She was trying to protect me!
I didn’t have time to be staggered or grateful or furious. For once, I didn’t even feel the urge to speak … because as the dust cleared from the air, the fairy king and his entourage stood revealed beyond the piles of rubble in the hidden corridor, where Aventurine’s big left feet were still planted.
Her right feet had landed in the next room over, a spacious, grandly decorated bedroom fit for royalty, with a canopy bed nearly as large as the Chocolate Heart’s whole kitchen. Rubble had shot into the room when half the wall had collapsed inwards, but the centre of the floor was clear, and the fairy queen stood there, glowing like an irate star, sending fierce white beams of light into the air as she glared at us with glittering, sparkling eyes.
Stories wouldn’t help us now. Only one thing could.
‘Aventurine!’ I smacked my hands hard against her massive, scaled chest, but she was too solid. I couldn’t push her. ‘Run!’ I ordered, pointing to the windows.
Her wings flared even wider with outrage, and I gritted my teeth, forcing my brain to work. ‘I mean … I need you to get me to safety!’
That did it. Her head swooped down towards me, all fifty giant teeth bared and gleaming with menace. I leaped on to her long crimson-and-silver neck and wriggled all the way down on to her hot back, digging myself in just behind her shoulder blades and between her wings, with my two irritating fairy lights still buzzing wildly beside my ears.
It wasn’t easy to find a safe handhold, even without that horrible, humming distraction. Everywhere I looked, I saw rips and tears in Aventurine’s beautiful scales where flying chunks of mortar had landed. They were all the reminder I needed of how vulnerable she was, despite her frightening appearance. It took a hundred years for a dragon’s scales to fully harden, and until then …
‘You two aren’t going anywhere!’ Queen Clothilde flung out her shining hands.
A web of sparkling silver light sprayed across the room. It tangled in Aventurine’s outstretched wings, and she roared with fury and with pain, twisting wildly in its grip.
I lunged forward to peel it off, but it was as sticky as paste and burned icy cold against my fingers, in horrible counterpoint to the heat of Aventurine’s big body. Blue-black bruises popped up against my skin everywhere I touched the wicked magic web, and a whimper of pain tore out of my chest as I worked. But I couldn’t stop trying to pull it free, because Aventurine’s vulnerable scales sizzled with steam at every spot the web touched – and as Aventurine twisted to get clear, her long neck tangled more and more in the sticky, icy web.
But her snout was still free. She opened it wide – and a jet of flame shot across the room, blasting through the web of light and heading straight for the fairy queen.
Clothilde leaped aside with a shriek of anger. Fire sparked against the closest wooden pole of her big canopy bed and spread downwards in a hissing, burning path that caught against the queen’s glittering robes before she could move fully out of reach. Ha!
As the queen bent over to frantically slap out the flames, Aventurine yanked the web free with a roar of triumph – and as I clung to her back, I glimpsed a massive hole in the web’s centre where my friend’s flame had torn directly through it.
‘That’s it,’ I breathed. ‘Fairy magic can’t withstand dragonfire!’
‘But immature dragon scales cannot withstand our magic,’ said a cold voice behind me.
The fairy king stood, panting and dishevelled, just out of reach of Aventurine’s lashing tail, with tiny chunks of plaster and mortar tangled in his long black hair and scattered across the shoulders of his robe.
It should have been funny to see the elegant king in such a state. But it wasn’t. As I watched his beautiful face glow with deadly light against his dark hair, I wanted to curl up and disappear, to keep him from ever taking notice of me again.
But it was much too late for me to blend in now.
His glittering gaze rested on my face as he began, slowly and unhurriedly, to raise his shining light-brown hands.
All the fairy gentlemen-in-waiting gathered behind him, forming a semicircle of glowing support. Karl’s eyes were wide and panicked now, his cheeks flushed and his gaze sliding away from mine, but that didn’t stop him from taking his place in the formation.
The fairy king’s smile was full of satisfaction.
‘We’ve dreamed for centuries of catching a helpless, infant beast,’ he told me. ‘But we never imagined being handed such a gift unasked for. And you, spy?’ His lips curled with sudden, fierce amusement. ‘You brought her to our very doorstep. You will be remembered in our court forever.’
Forever?
I looked into his glittering dark eyes and gave up every hope that I’d had left for my own future. As dozens of glowing balls of light whirled at dizzying speed through the room, and my own particular two lights buzzed frantically against my ears, there was only one thing I could do.
‘Aventurine,’ I told my best friend, ‘burn it all down.’
Aventurine reared back on her hind legs and opened her vast mouth wide.
The fairy king and queen both threw up their hands to attack …
And the still-standing door to the outer corridor flew open with a bang that sent it crashing against the elegant striped wallpaper.
‘What in the world is going on here?’ demanded the crown princess.
It was the first time I’d ever seen Princess Katrin looking less than perfect. Her magnificent lavender dressing gown was embroidered with gold-and-silver thread, but it was wrapped around a plain nightdress. Her dark, curly hair hung in a long plait down her back. She must have scrambled with undignified speed across the palace to get here as quickly as she had – and as she stalked into the room, half a dozen royal guards marched after her, clanking with enough weaponry to fight a battle.
But Princess Katrin cast her gaze across the wreck of the room with the unshakeable assurance of a woman who knew that she owned everything she surveyed … and wasn’t at all pleased about what had been done to it.
‘This palace has stood for nearly two hundred years.’
Her gaze rested on the smashed-in wall and the piles of rubble, then shifted, without haste, to the burning bed in the far corner. The flames had already spread from the first bedpost along the upper canopy and rumpled covers, and they were burning merrily along all four bedposts now.
‘Has it occurred to anyone here,’ she asked, ‘to put out that fire before it destroys any more of my family’s ancestral home?’
Aventurine closed her mouth with a guilty snap that echoed across the room.
Even the fairy king and queen lowered their hands, although the queen’s face was twisted with rage.
It was the fairy king who spoke, his voice cutting like a blade of ice through the smoky air as servants bustled forward from behind the royal guards to attend to the flaming bed.
‘Has it occurred to your family,’ King Casimir asked, ‘to protect your guests from attack in their beds? Or were your words of peace and negotiation merely a clever ruse to deceive us so that the dragons, your allies, could finally devour us just as they devoured so many of our family members in the past?’
The crown princess seemed to gain a full inch in height as she stiffened with outrage. Her gaze flicked swiftly across the room, from the giant hole in the wall that had formed when Aventurine had crashed through it, to the bed where her servants fought against the flames … and finally to me, sitting atop Aventurine’s scaly back, with the tangled remnants of Queen Clothilde’s magic web hanging all round us.
Oh, mud.
Had she heard me telling Aventurine to burn it all down?
I sat up straighter on Aventurine, nudging her back down on to all four feet.
‘Your Highness.’ I tried for an air of dignity in my nightdress. �
��This was not an attack.’
‘Oh no?’ Her eyebrows lifted as she pointedly surveyed the wreckage. ‘A friendly meeting then?’
Queen Clothilde let out a muffled shriek. ‘Do you really expect us to stand about chatting? We were set upon in our rooms by your cousin and that monster! Will you do nothing to avenge your guests?’
Aventurine let out a low, threatening growl that made half the people in the room jump. With her lips pulled back over her long, sharp teeth, she really did look a bit like the monster they had called her … and as everyone else edged away from us, I could feel the situation slipping away from me.
If I had learned one thing in the last week, it was that ladies-in-waiting were never allowed to contradict royalty. So it turned out to be a good thing after all that I’d been sacked earlier this evening.
‘Their Majesties are … mistaken,’ I said through gritted teeth. It was the diplomatic way to say ‘they’re lying’, and everyone knew it. Even the footmen who were busy emptying buckets of water over the bed turned to stare at me.
With a high-pitched keen, the two golden lights zoomed forward to hover in front of my face, as if they were saying to their fairy masters: ‘You see? We told you not to trust her!’
I plunged onwards, even as Aventurine’s muscles bunched underneath me, clearly bracing for oncoming battle. ‘Neither of us intended any harm to your guests. But when we were attacked by the king and his guards in the corridor outside, Aventurine changed shape in self-defence. It wasn’t –’
‘Self-defence?’ The fairy queen’s eerie laugh seemed to signal that something even worse was coming. ‘You two were skulking around inside our walls like rats. Do you hope to convince anyone that you weren’t planning to attack us while we slept?’
‘We weren’t,’ I said. ‘Truly! Your Highness –’
The crown princess’s expression looked as if it had been set in stone. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘What exactly were you doing behind their walls … cousin?’
I looked into her face and the words dried up, unspoken, in my mouth: We were spying for you.
She would never publicly admit the real reason she had hired me … and tonight, she could tell the fairy royals with perfect honesty that I hadn’t even been working for her any more.
A small cough sounded at the side of the room. Alfric the goblin guard slipped through the crowd of fairy courtiers, his sudden appearance making the crown princess’s eyes widen and the fairy queen’s eyebrows shoot up with unmistakeable outrage. ‘Ahem,’ he said. ‘I believe your cousin may have mentioned a message they were carrying for Their Majesties? From the younger princess, she said.’
He was actually coming forward to help us, after working so hard not to be seen ever since he’d arrived in the fairies’ wake. I almost let out a sob of laughter at that realisation.
Of all the people in this palace, he was the one I’d least expected to have as an ally now.
I knew for certain, though, exactly what would happen if Princess Sofia were roused from her bed and asked to vouch for me in front of everyone.
I think not.
I lifted my chin and met my former employer’s gaze full on for the last time. ‘Forgive me,’ I said quietly, under the gaze of the fairy royals. ‘We were only curious – we meant no harm. There was no message.’
‘No,’ Princess Katrin said with icy clarity. ‘I thought not. Now, cousin …’ her lips twisted as she turned away, ‘… you and your curious friend are both dismissed. You may both leave this room, this palace and this city. I do not wish to see either of you in Drachenburg ever again.’
CHAPTER 19
Leave this city? My city?
I couldn’t even go back to the riverbank?
My chest felt as if it were filling with thick, poisonous lead as the crown princess turned away from me.
Six years of learning every street in Drachenburg, embedding myself so deeply in the heart of it that I could never, ever be forced out again …
Four nearly sleepless nights and days of preparation in this palace, and so many years of glorious dreams leading up to them …
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ I whispered through numb lips. I shifted over to the edge of Aventurine’s back, preparing to slide off.
But the fairy queen spoke over me. ‘I think not!’ Golden balls of light flew towards her from all four corners of the room, as if in answer to an inaudible command. They gathered around her in a shifting, growing cloud, as she continued, ‘Do you imagine a mere exile is punishment enough to satisfy us?’
Uh-oh. I’d been about to swing my legs off Aventurine’s back, but I stilled as I absorbed her words.
Aventurine radiated dangerous heat, like a furnace getting ready to explode.
My two personal golden lights retreated to hover by my hair, vibrating even faster than before. Their high, anxious hums rose to a pitch that pierced through my head like a knife.
Even the crown princess went still for one long moment as the fairy queen’s words hung in the air. Then she turned, and I sucked in my breath as I took in the expression on her face.
The royal guards stepped into place behind Princess Katrin, shoulders squaring. There were no battle mages in sight, but I would have wagered anything that they were on their way, summoned from their quarters across the palace.
If they didn’t arrive in time …
‘I beg your pardon?’ the crown princess said.
Queen Clothilde snorted. ‘Don’t try to overawe me, little girl. You may have your dim-witted father under your thumb, but I’ve been ruling my own kingdom for longer than you’ve been alive. You can’t placate me with a meaningless show! You order that vicious beast out of this palace, and she’ll go straight back to her family’s lair with everything she’s learned about us tonight. We’ll be attacked before dawn by the adults in her pack!’
Aventurine snarled, ‘My family wouldn’t waste their breath on you!’
The queen sneered back at her. ‘As if I’d ever believe a word you said, animal!’
‘There will be no attack.’ The crown princess’s gritted teeth sounded through her words. ‘Our allies had no interest in this visit. They offered, in fact, to keep a safe distance throughout all of your time here so as not to alarm you –’
‘A safe distance?!’ Queen Clothilde waved at Aventurine, dislodging fairy lights from the cloud around her with every movement. She swung her arm in a sweeping gesture to indicate the broken wall and the soaking-wet bed whose flames had finally been put out. ‘Does any of this look safe to you, young lady?’
‘Princess Katrin.’ King Casimir crossed the room with slow, deliberate strides as golden balls of light flew in dizzying circles round his robes.
The only lights not gathered around their masters now were the two just by me, and their humming grew more and more ear-piercing – almost as if they were in pain themselves – as they clung closer and closer to my neck, resisting the royals’ call.
The fairy king’s lips curved into a smile that filled me with dread. ‘My dear,’ he said gently to the crown princess, ‘you must know you have no real choice. You will turn over the beast and her companion to us. There is no other decision you can possibly make. Why prolong this awkward moment any longer?’
‘Our allies –’ she began.
Queen Clothilde spat out her words. ‘Your allies are beasts.’
‘Your allies,’ said King Casimir, ‘are here in this room with you.’ He held out his hands, gracefully indicating the fairy courtiers who stood behind him. ‘Oh, we may have danced about the matter in our earlier negotiations, but you’re a clever girl, Katrin. You must have guessed by now that you’ll have to choose between us. And who, exactly, will you choose to present to your people as favoured partners? Those fire-breathing monsters who terrify everyone – and who aren’t even here to stand by your side now? Or …’
He snapped his fingers, and more jewellery cascaded through the air behind him, clattering on to the floor in a priceless
shower of gold and rubies and sapphires.
‘… Choose us,’ he finished softly. ‘We can make all of your courtiers and citizens so much happier through our alliance, and bring your kingdom wealth beyond your wildest dreams.’
No, no, no!
My breath was coming in deep, rapid gasps.
For one flashing moment, I was back in that market hall in the fifteenth district, surrounded by angry, frightened traders. ‘Who knows how long until they start eating us?’
I couldn’t read the crown princess’s expression, but I didn’t need to. If I knew how much her people feared Aventurine’s family, so did she.
So if I didn’t come up with something fast …
‘Your Majesties!’ My voice came out as a near squeak, but I forced it to lower as I summoned a desperate smile for the fairy royals, breaking through the silent battle of wills that hung in the air. ‘There’s no need for any threats or unpleasantness! Aventurine and I will happily agree to be confined in the king’s prison here in Drachenburg for the rest of your visit, to reassure you.’
Aventurine swung her head around to glare at me, letting out a disgusted puff of smoke from her big nostrils, but I narrowed my eyes at her as I said, ‘We’ll both let ourselves be locked up without a fight. Then you won’t have anything to fear from the other dragons – we won’t be able to report to them! – and you can safely enjoy the rest of your visit without –’
‘Pah.’ Queen Clothilde rolled her eyes. ‘As if any human prison could hold that creature. No, there is only one possible solution.’ She smiled at the crown princess, her eyes sparkling with a thousand lights. ‘You’ll simply have to turn our attackers over to us, as a mark of your goodwill and the seal upon our new alliance. We will look after them ourselves, for all of our sakes. And then we will negotiate our own agreement with the dragons for their safe return.’
Aventurine’s murderous growl rumbled through the room. This time, I couldn’t blame her.
I liked Aventurine’s family, massive and fire-breathing though they might be. They’d always treated me kindly, as Aventurine’s friend – and arrogant and territorial as they were, it would never even enter their hard heads to break an alliance they’d sworn to for any reason. They were too honourable for that.
The Girl with the Dragon Heart Page 13
