The Deepest Night tsd-2

by Shana Abe

  I blanketed him in smoke. I smoothed his face, his eyelids, waited until I was drawn in past his lips and became a part of his lungs, his very breath, and his heart beat for both of us, and his blood whooshed by and I flowed with it and I knew that he lived.

  I became a girl crouched over him, ignoring the sting of the thorns. I brought my lips to his ear.

  “Mandy. Mandy.”

  His lashes fluttered. His lids did not open.

  You can’t take him. You said you wouldn’t!

  fireheart, whose time is ours: this act is not of us.

  A searchlight passed over me, carving the dark into pieces. I ducked lower.

  “Mandy.” I swallowed. “Sweetheart. Wake up.”

  His respiration puffed fragile against my cheek. He’d missed the barbed wire but the brambles had slashed into him anyway; some of the cuts were deep. I ran my hands all along him, smearing rose petals and blood.

  His right leg. It lay crooked, all wrong. I stared down at it with fright a stone in my chest, certain his leg was broken. It was the one I’d bit, too.

  One broken leg. It might not be so bad. He could survive that, couldn’t he? He’d be all right once it was set. Once we were home and it was set.

  “Wake up, Armand. Damn it, wake up!”

  The sugar-ripe perfume of the flowers began to suffocate me. The moon grinned and the dogs howled and the stars began to toll, solemn as a knell, go, go, go—

  I estimated the tower ruins to be around a hundred yards off. The dogs sounded even farther than that but were getting closer. A series of large tents covered the grounds between here and there; they were filled with soldiers and maybe prisoners, too, a harsh gabble of voices rising through the night.

  go, go, go—

  So far none of the guards had figured out exactly where we were. Chances were they didn’t really know what had happened, just that the dogs were barking like mad and something might have fallen from the sky. Most of the searchlights were spearing the heavens instead of the hillsides. Perhaps they were hunting for a mechanical dragon.

  A dragon …

  “Stay here,” I murmured, my hand over Mandy’s heart. “If you can hear me, don’t move.”

  I glanced upward. Tell him, I entreated the stars. When he comes to, tell him what I’ve done, that I need him to stay hidden.

  go! they insisted.

  I lifted as smoke, found a pair of good, strong searchlights crossed against the black like swords, and Turned to dragon within their doubled brilliance.

  Not mechanical, but amazing nonetheless. My body reflected the light in scintillating gold. My wings brushed it into shadows, lifting me, allowing me to weave in and out of their beams, to enjoy the din that arose from the ground in a great surge that drowned out even the dogs.

  Shots pinged past. I went to smoke, waited, Turned again, farther from Armand this time, drawing the men and their fire after me.

  The tent city spread below me. I dipped down, extended a talon, and sliced open the roof of the nearest one. Faces gaped skyward, raggedy men with open mouths. And then—

  The men began to shout. To cheer. They were lifting their fists to the air, jumping up and down, exuberant.

  “Huzzah!”

  The prisoners! They must have heard about the new British weapon from their guards, or the papers, or the contagion of underground gossip. But now they saw that I was real, not gossip.

  They thought I was here to save them.

  Hope lit from face to face, joyous disbelief. I saw the panic of the guards, and it fed me like nectar. My animal heart expanded, seeing them so afraid; I wanted more of that. Much more.

  I wanted, suddenly, not just to save one man. I wanted to tear this entire camp apart. I was savage with want.

  “Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  After all, I was a weapon, wasn’t I? I was a weapon of fangs and claws, of fantasy and fury. I was the accumulation of all that men feared, and despite the fact that I couldn’t breathe fire, I could still render this prison to ash. Turn it to dust, into a ruin again, instead of a place where people suffered and died, because I was sick of hiding, and I was sick of war, and I was sick of death stalking me and threatening me and filling me with dread.

  Let it come. I was ready.

  I wove higher, waited for a searchlight, dove down again. I pulled free a long span of fencing, until the barbed wire sliced apart in my claws.

  Another tent ripped open, more men spilling out, roaring encouragement. The guards around them yelling and pushing, trying to regain control.

  Another tent. Another.

  We played that game until I had all the soldiers in sight beneath me, pointing their guns at me. Little bursts of light popped from their barrels like embers in a fireplace, but tat-tat-tat fast, because they were no longer using their rifles, but machine guns.

  go, go, go, go!

  Heat punctured my wing—my good wing—ripping swiftly into pain.

  All my bravado evaporated. Instantly I was me again, only Eleanore, in trouble far over her head. I Turned to smoke and the pain dulled, but I’d been shot. Again.

  I retreated through an unglazed window atop the nearest tower, slinking into darkness. I Turned to girl against the wall and mashed my hands against my mouth, because even though I no longer had wings, the wound was crippling, bowing me in half, and there was a scream in my throat that I knew I could not afford to release.

  Tears filled my eyes. I bent my head into my palms and pressed them away.

  My face prickled hot, but the rest of me was cold as the rock wall at my back; my skin began to creep. The scent of meat and decay filled my nose.

  It was only then that I knew that I wasn’t alone.

  I lifted my head.

  There was a man in here, flat on a cot. Just one man; the rest of the chamber was barren. He was swathed in bandages that had seeped through with gore, holding himself very stiff and still, just like the mummy soldiers back at Tranquility who only moved once they recognized that no matter how immobile they tried to be, the agony was still going to come.

  I looked at the man. The faint gleam of his eyes confirmed that he was looking back at me. Neither of us spoke.

  Beyond the slit of the window, the stars sparked. The moon threw us light the color of bone.

  It was Aubrey. Exactly like Armand back in that bell tower, I felt him, the dragon locked inside him, faded as an echo. Somewhere beneath this mess of blood and linen was Lord Aubrey Louis, Marquess of Sherborne, ace fighter pilot, his father’s obsession and his brother’s salvation.

  Sssss. Sssss.

  His breath wheezed in and out like he was struggling to breathe through a tube, a horrible, scratchy thin sound. The bandaged chest jerked up and down. The fingers of his left hand were curled against the blanket at his waist, and all his nails were black.

  I lost myself then. Only for a moment. An awful mixture of rage and bitterness rose up inside me in a blind wave, obliterating all of my careful control, all at once, and I began to tremble.

  We’d come all this way. We’d risked so much.

  For nothing.

  There was no way in hell this man was going to be able to ride my back home. I’d be surprised if he could even sit up.

  Jesse, goddamn you, why? Why?

  I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, digging my nails into my palms to stop the shaking. I waited for the wave to recede. When I was able to open my eyes again, Aubrey attempted to speak.

  “El …”

  He ran out of air. Moonlight made a slick, cool sheen over the wreck of his face. He drew in a slower breath.

  “ … leanore,” he finished. “At last.”

  And he smiled at me.

  Chapter 31

  The night had shattered. A clamor shuddered up through the stone walls sheltering us, fed by gunfire and cries far below. I gave a final glance to the moon, then went to my knees beside Aubrey, combing my hair over my chest.

  “You knew I was coming,” I said.<
br />
  “Yes.” A small rush of a word, imbued with every sort of meaning: faith, trust, wholehearted relief.

  “The stars,” I said.

  “The … boy.”

  “The boy in the stars. Jesse. He sings to you.”

  A bare nod.

  I cocked my head, genuinely curious. “And you didn’t think you were going barmy? Or maybe trapped in a nightmare?”

  The sound he made this time was more like a laugh. The fingers with the blackened nails twitched.

  “Worse … than this?”

  Good point.

  “Is Jesse, perchance, singing to you now? Telling you what we should do next?”

  His brows drew together, his lips pulled into a grimace. I took that as a no.

  I sighed. “Listen. Here’s the rub. I can’t hear him. I’ve come here with Armand—yes, he’s below. Don’t try to move yet. I’ve come with Armand, and he’s alive but injured, and you’re alive but injured, and”—I tugged at my hair, frustrated—”damn it all, so am I. So I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now. This place is crawling with soldiers, and I stirred up something out there, but I’m not sure what, if it’s enough to sneak you out or not, and now … now …”

  I ran out of things to say. The bleak cold of the floor was seeping into me, congealing me, skin to muscle to joints.

  “Heard … you’re something.”

  I looked at Aubrey. The grimace had relaxed back into a smile. His hair was blond; his eyes were gray. His lashes were long and thick, just like his brother’s.

  “Scales,” he said. “Wings. Helen of the skies. Like to … see that.”

  A Helen of the skies. Like Helen of Troy, whose beauty had moved armies. But all I could move was me.

  I shook my head, forcing myself to return his smile. What I really wanted to do was curl up and cry because I was chilled and leaden and at a loss for any clever way to go on. I might try to drag him down the stairs to the bottom of the tower, but there were probably more guards between here and there. I could try to Turn to dragon to get him out, but the window was too small for anything but smoke to fit through. And even if I did succeed at any of that, there was still the matter of maneuvering Aubrey onto my back and getting both of us safely out range of the gunfire. And the aeroplanes. And maybe even zeppelins; nothing would surprise me at this point. For all I knew, the Germans had already constructed their own mechanical dragon and we’d have to dodge that as well.

  The riot sounds outside were growing louder and louder, and I was worried about Armand, even though he wasn’t technically inside the prison, because what if the dogs or the guards found him anyway, while he was still unconscious? What if—

  “I’m a pilot, you know,” Aubrey rasped.

  “I know,” I answered, distracted.

  “Know the hazards. Good hands.”

  I studied him, trying to understand.

  “I can hold on,” he said. “Let’s … clear out.”

  And all at once, I understood that there was only one way out. There had really only ever been one way.

  I leaned very near to him, letting him look square into my eyes.

  “Our circumstances are about to become much more precarious. Don’t let go of me no matter what, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  I came to my feet, turned a circle to measure the chamber, then Turned into a dragon crouching over him, pressing him down into the cot but not—please, please—squashing him.

  The tower was too small for me. I’d been counting on that.

  I arched my back against the ceiling. I felt the stones shift. I heard the mortar grinding, and the tower resisted me like a monster holding in its last meal.

  Yet I was monster, too.

  I arched higher, pushing, pushing. My face was smashed against one wall and my tail against its opposite; I pushed harder, squeezing my eyes closed, holding my breath against the powdery grit of the air.

  The ceiling began to come apart. Little fissures at first and then—with a mighty crack!—the entire roof exploded, and I was standing up into the night, still arched like a cat, my head free, my tail thrashing away at the walls. Stones began to rain the earth below us, provoking fresh shouts.

  My wings opened before I remembered my wound, but I couldn’t let it control me now. I’d give in to the pain later. Right now I needed to fly.

  I’d been seen, of course. I was difficult to miss. The machine guns were aimed at me once more, and I swiftly flattened, covering Aubrey again.

  I twisted my neck around to find him. He was cradled against my belly, staring up at me, eyes wide. But he met my gaze and nodded.

  Gently, gently, as gently as I could, I wrapped my front talons around his body. Without lifting him yet from the cot I held him in place and stretched my head upward, peering out over the rim of the wall. I was going to have to do this next part exceptionally quickly.

  A few more bullets whizzed by, pocking the stones to my right. It was a mess down there, exactly as chaotic as I’d hoped, with soldiers in all manner of uniforms running in all directions, tackling each other, fighting. The strict order of the camp had disintegrated. I saw bodies motionless on the ground, raggedy men with arms and legs askew. I saw severed loops of barbed wire stabbing the air, figures vanishing into the darkness of the hills.

  And, just beneath my tower, standing on one leg near the brambles: a man without a uniform. Without clothing at all. He looked up at me and my own joy pulsed through me (he’s alive, he’s here, he’s alive!) and then Armand lowered his head and touched his hand to his mouth, rather like when he’d blown me that kiss as he’d fallen.

  But as his hand dropped away, a dab of yellow light followed. A dab of what looked like, I swear, fire.

  It landed in the rose bushes, and before I could blink, they were aflame.

  He blended with their smoke, moved around the corner, and did the same thing.

  More flames. Fire licking the walls, spreading from plant to plant. Billowing thick smoke twisting up at me, obscuring the ground so completely that all I could see now was the patch of stars and sky straight above.

  Armand had provided us cover.

  I lifted Aubrey, clutching him like a doll to my chest. Then I took off, heading up into the cool blue starlight.

  I flapped away from the camp, away from the town, away from all those prisoners snatching back their fortunes and their lives to become part of the Prussian woods. They were far from home, all of them, and as I struggled to leave them behind us my heart echoed the knell of the stars. I thought for all those men, Go, go, go.

  Go forward and never look back. Find a better fate.

  Aubrey dangled from my dragon fists. Armand was smoke at my side. We couldn’t continue long like this. It was too hard on Aubrey, and I didn’t trust that I wouldn’t lose Armand again, and anyway, my wing was killing me.

  I found a meadow far from any lights. I set us down in sweet tall grasses. Armand Turned as soon as his brother was on the ground, leaning over him with his broken leg stretched out.

  “Hello,” said Armand in a happy voice. “You look wretched.”

  “Have you seen … yourself?”

  I sat in the grass with my knees tucked under my chin, watching them.

  I’d never really been ashamed before about my nudity from the Turns. Discomfited, yes. Ill at ease. But practically the only people who’d ever seen me like this were Jesse and Armand, and somehow, with them, it was almost as if it didn’t matter. As if the magic we shared made it nearly normal.

  But now there was Aubrey in our mix, and I felt—aware. I wished for a dress, and settled for blades of grass.

  At least it was still dark. The moon had set; the stars had gathered into different constellations.

  Jesse was gone.

  “How long have you been able to do that?” I asked, and both of them turned their heads.

  I gestured to Armand. “Blow fire like that?”

  “Oh.” He ruffled a hand through
his hair. “When you spotted me? About ten minutes, I’d guess.”

  “You did … what?”

  “He blew fire,” I explained. “He breathed it, like in fairy tales. It was bloody amazing.”

  “Well …” Mandy actually looked embarrassed. “I found out by accident. I woke up and you were gone, and I wanted to call for you and knew I couldn’t, and it just—it burned in me. Don’t know how else to describe it. I felt a burn in my chest, and then my throat, and I meant to cough. But instead …”

  He began to laugh. I did, too. Right then, in that quiet meadow where everything smelled of grass and smoke and fresh blood, it seemed very, very funny. I laughed so hard I started to cry, so I pushed my face into my knees and let the tears come, dripping down my legs.

  Armand limped to sit beside me. I felt his hand stroking my hair. He didn’t say anything, just kept stroking.

  A bird began to sing far out in the coppices. It sounded like a nightingale. It paused, waiting, until it was answered by another. They caroled like that, back and forth, as piercing and passionate as the emotions careening through me.

  Eventually my tears transformed into hiccoughs. My nose was running. My knees were sticky and wet.

  “Don’t worry,” Mandy whispered. “I’m sure you can breathe fire, too.”

  “Oh, God, I hope not,” I said around my hiccoughs. My life was abnormal enough as it was.

  I looked up, wiping my nose along my arm.

  “Doesn’t that hurt? Your leg?”

  He glanced down at it with an air of surprise, as if he’d forgotten all about it.

  “Er … rather.”

  “I think we should return to the hunting lodge. We can do something about it there. We’ll wrap Aubrey in that blanket.” It had made the journey with him, caught in my claws. “Both of you ride my back.”

  “Hunting … lodge?” Aubrey asked.

  “There are beds there, and clothing. Food in the village close by.”

  “Sounds like … paradise.”

  I had to agree. It did.

  Chapter 32

  Three dragons survived this world, not merely two.