Dragon Rose(45)

A wave of despair hit me then, blacker than the night in which I had found myself. I pulled in a dragging breath, trying to keep the tears at bay, but it was no good. He was gone, had never been there at all. The first sob out of my throat seemed to pierce the very air itself, and then I was weeping, the tears on my cheeks the only warmth in the chamber.

How real he had seemed, but I knew now he was only fancy, something I had conjured to provide some comfort, here in this place where I was so very alone. Never mind Sar’s little kindnesses or Melynne’s chatter—I was not here for them, but for the Dragon Lord, and whatever he had expected of me, it was clear I had fallen far, far short.

Although I knew it was foolish to get out of bed, I somehow couldn’t remain there. A candlestick and a little wooden box of matches sat on the table next to my bed, and I seized a match and lit the candle. It gave enough light for me to reach under my worktable and pull out the portrait.

Ah, yes, so very, very close. The laugh lines around his eyes were more pronounced in person, and his mouth just a tiny bit wider, but nevertheless the likeness was remarkable. One would have thought I’d had him sit for me.

Then I shook my head, realizing how mad that all sounded. How could I refer to seeing him in a dream as “seeing him in person”? One was no more real than the other. Perhaps the dream felt more real, simply because he moved about and spoke…and kissed me…but he still lived only in my mind. He was a specter, a ghost, a combination of qualities my mind had assembled as its ideal man. And in my mind was the only place where he would ever exist.

My hands shook as I poured myself a cup of water. If my mother were here, no doubt she would blame all of this on a surfeit of cheese. At that thought I almost smiled. What I wouldn’t have done to have her with me, to have her soothe and scold and tell me I was being silly and that it would all be better in the morning.

But she was down in Lirinsholme, snug in her own bed with my father snoring softly beside her, and I had no one to come and push away the darkness. The tears returned, even though they had begun to lessen, and this time I had no more will to fight them. I only returned to my bed and buried my face in the pillows, so that my sobs might be known to no one but me.





“Rhianne.”

I made some sort of incoherent sound and pulled the covers more closely over my head.

“My lady.”

Since it was Sar, I knew she would not go away, but that didn’t mean I had to give her any encouragement. “I don’t feel well.”

“Ah,” she said, and I could have sworn I heard satisfaction in her voice, even muffled as it was by the heavy coverlet and blankets. “I told his lordship no good would come of eating all that cheese. I don’t care what they might do in Purth, but—”

“That’s it,” I said from behind the blanket. “Definitely the cheese. I think I would like to go back to sleep.”

“Of course, my lady.” The sound of her footsteps on the wooden floor was clear enough, even buried in linen and wool as I was.

Then I froze, still burrowed into the bedclothes. Had I, in my abandonment of despair last night, left the portrait of the stranger sitting out in plain sight? I honestly could not recall, and of course I could not get up to check, not with Sar standing right there.

Hardly daring to breathe, I lay in my bed, listening as she set down what sounded like a fresh pitcher of water next to the bed, followed by the hollow clank of a pewter plate being placed next to it.

“I’ve left you a roll and butter, in case you feel like eating later,” she told me.

“Mm-hmm,” was all I could manage, but apparently that was enough for her. Her footsteps moved away, and the door closed behind her with a solid thunk.

I forced myself to lie in bed for a minute or two more, just in case she had forgotten something and decided to come back into my bedroom. However, I heard nothing except the anxious beating of my own heart, and so I judged it safe enough to emerge.

After pushing back the bedclothes, I climbed out of bed and surveyed the chamber with some trepidation. The portrait was nowhere in sight. What had I done with the blasted thing? I hoped I wasn’t so far gone the night before that I had shoved the still-damp canvas between other paintings, where I might damage its surface. But no, it wasn’t in the stack of canvases in the alcove, and neither was it stashed beneath my worktable.

Somewhat flummoxed, I stood and planted my hands on my hips and gave the room another careful inspection. Had my dream presented some truth I hadn’t wanted to recognize? Had the impossible happened, and the stranger in the portrait somehow taken on life and walked away?

Put so baldly, even in the privacy of my own thoughts, the notion seemed ludicrous. Then again, I supposed a person might think a man being turned into a dragon was a ludicrous notion, and yet here I was, living in that very dragon’s castle.

“Damn,” I said aloud.

I racked my brains, but I could recall nothing very clearly of the moments before I went to bed, save that I was feeling nauseated, yet not enough so to be physically ill. Had I even touched the portrait? I couldn’t remember.

In desperation, I dropped to my hands and knees to search under the bed. A pair of blue-green eyes gazed back at me, and I gave a little gasp before realizing it was only the stranger’s painted eyes meeting mine, due to the angle at which the canvas lay.

“You have been a very naughty boy,” I remarked, and grasped the painting by the edges so I could extricate it without touching the painted section and thereby risk damaging it.