Dragon Rose(49)

What would Theran say, I wondered, if I went to him and asked outright what had happened to all those young women?

What happened to them…and what will happen to me?

He would give me no answer. What was it he had said? I cannot speak of it. But that had been in reference to the curse, and not to his Brides…unless they were one and the same.

Secrets lay heavy upon the castle, and I knew I would get no answers to them. Reason enough for me to keep to myself, to stay away from Theran Blackmoor. If he could not do me the courtesy of explaining even something of my reasons for being here, then I saw no point in extending him any particular favor.

That sounded very fine and proud. Whether I would be able to do such a thing for any period of time remained to be seen.

Weariness came over me then, and I knew I might finally be able to sleep. I cleaned my brushes and put everything back in its proper place, including the portrait. Before I settled it in its corner, I held it out at arms’ length, studying the man’s face. In my dream those lips had touched mine; it seemed I could feel them still. But that had been no true dream, only a wistful fancy. If it had been true, he would be here with me now, in the flesh, and not in this flat frame, with arms that could not hold me, and a mouth that could not kiss me.

It seemed then as if I could not bear to gaze at him any longer. I hurried to put him back in his hiding place, so I would not have to torture myself with that which could never be.





“It’s clear as day,” Lilianth was saying to me as we paused at Alina’s stall to ponder the various potatoes and turnips and leeks. “You obviously care for him. So why not tell him?”

The sky above us was a clear, bright blue, but we both wore cloaks and scarves, and I could see my breath hanging on the morning air. Not summer, then, but perhaps a fine early winter day on a rare respite between storms. Beneath her cloak I thought I saw Lilianth’s belly rounded in pregnancy.

Foolish, of course. Not that dreams had to make any particular sense, but I knew even if she had been with child when she wed Adain, she would not be showing so much barely three months later.

“I can’t just come out and tell him,” I protested, picking up a string bag of golden potatoes and inspecting it carefully to see if it hid any half-rotted specimens. “That would ruin everything.”

Her blue eyes were wide and guileless, a mirror of the sky. “Why?”

“Because—because—because he’s the Dragon! It’s not as if he’s the goldsmith’s apprentice!”

“All the more reason.”

I pulled a pair of copper coins from the purse at my belt and handed them to Alina, who had not appeared to pay much attention to Lilianth’s words. Just as well; even in a dream I really didn’t want someone overhearing such a frank conversation.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, gathering up my potatoes and moving on to the next stall, where skeins of brightly dyed wool hung from the wooden crosspieces.

“Don’t I? At least I know what it is to be in love…and I see all the signs in you.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed. You moon over him constantly, worry about what he thinks of you, wish to be in his presence even though you do nothing to make such wishes a reality. It’s either love or an attack of some extremely ill humors.”

“The physicians of the Golden Palm don’t believe in humors,” I pointed out.

“They wouldn’t. Anyway, we were not talking about them, but about you. What’s the worst that could happen, if you told him the truth?”

“He might—he might laugh at me.”

“Do you really think that is what would happen?”

No, I didn’t. I knew he had enough courtesy in him for that. But I also knew he was very good at keeping his own counsel and maintaining a certain distance between us. There were times I thought he actually enjoyed being in my company, true. Yet he never confided in me, and never did anything to make me think he wanted anything close between us.

“He doesn’t want to care for me,” I told Lilianth. “Not when I’m going to die like all the rest of them.”

“How do you know that you’re going to die?”

“Because they all died.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to.”

I knew there had to be some way to point out the flaw in her logic, but somehow it escaped me at the moment. Frowning, I said, “Perhaps it’s my fate.”

“I’ve never heard you talk about fate before.”

“I never lived in a cursed castle before.”

She lifted her shoulders and gave a little chuckle, as if conceding my point. “All right, then. Look at it this way. Perhaps you are going to die. Would you not rather he knew the truth before you were gone? We always regret the things we have not done, not the ones we actually had the courage to try.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said slowly. “I’m still regretting those boiled sprouts your mother made last spring.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.”

Somehow I didn’t recall Lilianth being quite this wise in real life. But that was how dreams went, I supposed. We saw things in them as we wanted them to be, not as they really were. Why else would I have dreamt of kissing the stranger in the portrait?