Dragon Rose(6)

Down in the entry hall, my sister Therella and I exchanged wary glances. I had not spoken of what passed between Liat Marenson and myself, and neither had my mother said anything, but news gets around in a town the size of Lirinsholme. More than once I had seen Therella give me grudging looks, as if she blamed me for our current situation. Ridiculous, of course—it was not my fault that Liat Marenson was such a narrow-minded prig, nor that the world carried such prejudices against women engaging in trade. Or, to be more precise, women engaging in trades reserved for men. It was all very well for Alina to sell her vegetables in the market, or for the Widow Lanson to sew clothing for those who did not wish to make their own, but the potter’s trade—along with that of the tinsmith, the glass blower, the ironmonger, and all those others who made up the Craftsmen’s Guild—was the sole province of men. In their eyes, I had far overstepped my bounds and intruded where I had no right.

Finally, Therella said, “I hope you’re happy.”

“I?” I repeated. “I am happy Father is home, if that is what you mean.”

She made an impatient gesture. “I always knew it was a bad idea, you helping Father is his workroom. Now look where we are! No one has placed an order for days, and I saw Mother giving money back to the Widow Mallin. What are we going to do now?”

“Wait for Father to get better,” I replied, trying to keep the bite out of my words. Truly, I understood my sister’s fear, even if I found her blame to be entirely misplaced. But she was seventeen, old enough to want to be grown up while at the same time lacking the life experience to achieve such a state. She could not—or would not—understand that we were all victims here. It wasn’t as if I had asked to help out in the workroom. My parents had decided on the matter together, knowing the risks.

“And that will help exactly how?”

“At least then he will be able to go back to work. If people see him working—while I am far away from his workshop—then perhaps things will begin to mend. But fretting isn’t going to do anyone any good.”

She made a derisive noise but did not argue, instead turning from me and going upstairs to the room we shared. This was her own form of revenge, for our bedroom was not large, and with one of us occupying it, the other was effectively locked out.

I sighed and moved on to the little sitting room off the kitchen, where I had left some of my hated embroidery. At least no one could accuse me of painting while my hands were occupied with a needle and silk floss.





Days passed, and my father slowly mended, although he could not or would not return to his workroom. My mother seemed to turn paler and more silent with each passing day, and one night I chanced upon her as she sat at the kitchen table, a meager-looking stack of silver coins in front of her and a paper covered with figures set off to one side, as if she had pushed it away. Her head drooped, and I heard her weeping.

I stopped then, and crept away. I knew she would not want me to see her weakness.

That night I dreamed.

I saw the dark granite bulk of Black’s Keep silhouetted against the night sky. And from its highest tower I saw a black shape move off into the wind, the shadow of its wings blotting out the stars. With the night wind came a high, keening cry, like that of a diving hawk, yet a thousand times stronger, filling the cold air with the echoes of its pain. Darkness seemed to flow out from it, running up the hills and down the valleys between the Keep and the town of Lirinsholme, swallowing everything in its path, as if some god had poured ink from the heavens to paint the entire world black. And we all stood in the town square and watched the shadow approach, fear rooting us in place, until the black tide rushed up and over us, drowning us all.

Then I sat up in bed, gasping, cold sweat trickling down my back even though the night air coming in the open window was sweet and warm. I grasped the linen of my bedsheets, softened by countless washings, and made myself remember where I was. From across the chamber I heard my sister’s soft snores. I was home. I was safe.

Once I might have discounted such a thing as merely a nightmare, simply fragments of the day’s worries recast into a dream shape. But a year earlier I had dreamed of my cousin Clary giving birth to her son in the night, and when I awoke the next morning, news came to us that she had indeed borne a healthy boy that night. I might have thought nothing of it—after all, Clary’s impending childbed had been on all our minds—save that another night, only two months later, I dreamed that my Granny Menyon had fallen and broken her hip. So she had, as she’d gotten up in the darkness to fetch herself a cup of water.

I spoke of the dream to her several days later, as I was taking my turn in watching over her, and she smiled. “It’s a true Seeing, child. Nothing to fear.”

“‘Nothing to fear’?” I echoed. “But isn’t it…magic?”

I had lowered my voice on that last word, for even in these latter days magic is something mistrusted and even reviled, an unquiet relic from an age when sorcerers ruled the land. No one much believed in it anymore, at least not in the world at large. Here in Lirinsholme, however, we had the Dragon as a constant reminder that magic wasn’t quite as dead as the rest of the world seemed to think it was.

Granny Menyon only smiled again and shook her head. “Not magic…at least not the way people think of it nowadays. It’s only your heart seeing the important things, and telling your head. Nothing to fear. It’s a gift, such as the way you can make a few strokes of paint look like a forget-me-not.”