King's Dragon

Was it true he had no beard at all, like a woman? Impulsively, she raised a hand to touch his face. She almost flinched away, thinking of Hugh’s unshaven face, but Sanglant’s skin was nothing like: his was toughened by exposure to the weather, chafed by the chin strap of his helmet, and cool.



And beardless. He might have shaved an hour ago, his skin was so smooth.



Her heart was beating hard. Hugh’s shade was furious, but he was far away at this moment, very far away.



“Sanglant,” she whispered, wondering if she would have the courage to—



To what?



He took her hand in his—though his were encased in gloves sewn of soft leather—and drew it away from his face. “Down that road I dare not walk,” he said quietly but firmly. He let her hand go.



Numb, she let it fall to her side.



“I beg your pardon,” he added, as if he meant it.



Ai, Lady. She was annoyed and embarrassed and such a jumble of other emotions she could not disentangle them one from the other. Sanglant was a notorious womanizer; everyone said so. Why was he rejecting her?



Sanglant shifted restlessly. This was her punishment. She could almost hear Hugh laughing, that soft arrogant sound. You are mine, Liath. You aren’t meant for anyone else. Tears stung her eyes. This was her lesson: that she must remain locked within her tower. She must not—could not—succumb to temptation. It would never be allowed. She was already hopelessly stained.



“I must go,” he said abruptly. The hoarseness in his voice made her think, for a wild moment, that he was sorry to be leaving; but his voice always sounded like that. He stood, mail shifting. “We’re preparing for a sally out of the walls if we see any sign of Count Hildegard or her people.”



“Why did you say that, last night?” Anger helped her fight against tears, anger at Sanglant’s rejection of her, at Hugh for his unrelenting grip on her, at Wolfhere for his half-truths, at Da for dying. “Why?”



“What did I say?”



“You haven’t forgotten.”



He made a sharp gesture, and she understood abruptly that he had not forgotten and that he spoke as much with his physical being as he did with words. “Make no marriage, Liath,” he said harshly. “Be bound, as I am, by the fate others have determined for you. That way you will remain safe.” But he mocked himself as much as he spoke to her.



“Will I remain safe? And from what? What are you safe from, Sanglant?” He smiled derisively.



How could she see him smile? It was far too dark.



But it was not dark, not entirely. His face and front were illuminated by a soft white light, like muted starlight. The black dragon winked and stirred in that light as Sanglant moved, looking beyond her into the vaults.



His eyes widened in shock. He lifted a hand, stood there, poised, frozen, and utterly astonished.



Liath turned. Just behind her, so close she felt the displacement of air, Sanglant knelt.



She stood beside the tombs as if she had just stepped out of the earth itself. She wore a long linen shift of a cut Liath had never seen except in mausoleums and reliefs carved into stone. Her face was as pale as the moon, marked by eyes as blue as the depths of fire. Her long hair, gilded with that same touch of unearthly light, looked like spun gold, hanging to her knees. Her feet were bare. They did not quite touch the floor of the crypt. In each hand she held a knife, and those knives shone as if their blades were made of burning glass.



And she bled, from her hands, from her feet, from her chest where a knife stood out, its blade thrust deep to take her heart’s blood. Blood slipped in trails like the runnels of tears down her shift from that wound, and she wept tears of blood.



But she gazed on Liath and Sanglant with the calm serenity of one who is past pain and suffering. And she beckoned to them.



Hesitant, hand clutching through cloth and wood the Circle of Unity she wore as a necklace, Liath took slow steps forward. Sanglant followed. She heard him murmuring a prayer under his breath.



She spoke no word, merely retreated farther into the night vault of the crypt, into the warren of chambers where the deacons and lay-brothers and sisters, servants of the biscop, were buried, least known and least honored.



There lay a plain gravestone, flat against the earth. It bore no markings, no inscription; a gray-flecked fungus obscured half its face, grown in a pattern that might have revealed a new mystery had there been better light. But the light that limned the saint—for how could she be anything but a saint?—was enough to see the hollow that opened up behind the simple gravestone, a sinkhole that transmuted into stairs, leading down and farther down yet into total blackness.