Dragon Rose(7)
Her words made me look at her in surprise. I had thought I was being so careful about hiding my unconventional avocation.
The smile didn’t waver. Despite her years, she still had teeth as white and straight as a twenty-year-old’s. “Your father is proud of you, proud of your talents. He shares things with me…as he should. Any road, ’tis only that you have a way of seeing things, and sometimes you see them with your heart first. Tell yourself that, child, and it won’t seem so strange.”
At the time I had been comforted, and since I hadn’t had a true dream like that for some time, I had almost forgotten my so-called gift, pushed it off to some corner of my mind where I could forget it.
But now…
I pushed back my bedclothes and stood, then went to the window and looked out over the town. A half-moon hung low in the east, its twin barely visible above the horizon. To the north all was dark, although in the town itself the streets in their orderly grids were picked out here and there by flickering torchlight. All calm, all quiet. Perhaps my dream had been only that, a dream. Never mind that I could still hear the echoes of that wailing cry in my ears, still feel the cold air freezing my very marrow. In the past my Seeing had been of things taking place the same time I saw them, and yet nothing in my world seemed to have been disturbed.
Why, then, could I not forget that image of darkness rising to swallow us all?
Lilianth came by the next morning, as she wanted me to accompany her to the shop of Willem the cloth merchant to help make the final choice of fabric for her wedding gown. I was glad enough of the diversion, even though I knew I would have to tell my friend soon enough that I could afford no fabric of my own for a new gown.
But it was good to be free from the brooding atmosphere in my house, where things had once been bright and merry. Oh, we had not been abandoned entirely—several of those who counted themselves friends of the family had made sure to purchase some pieces from us—but these small gestures could not begin to replace the income we had lost from our wealthier clients.
Even now some people stared as I passed them in the street, but I affected not to notice, and Lilianth was so caught up in her chatter about the upcoming nuptials that of course she didn’t detect any frostiness on the part of the passers-by. We spent a good hour in Willem’s shop, and although she had protested earlier that she meant for it to be a very quiet affair, her choice in fabric seemed to bely that description, for she ended up walking out with a length of marvelously supple sky-blue cloth that Willem said was a new weave of linen and silk, providing strength and sheen at the same time. It was truly lovely, I had to admit, but I blanched a little at the number of coins Lilianth counted out to the merchant in exchange for the material.
We emerged into the bright noonday sun and blinked. Certainly nothing could be more different from my black dream of the night before than the clear sky above and the reflected green of the hills all around us.
At first I didn’t even realize I had seen it. A flash of red, just a glimmer of crimson above the dark shoulders of Black’s Keep. And then I heard the murmur of the people around me grow into a roar, as Lilianth’s fingers dug into my arm and people began pointing northward. Yes, there it was, a red silk banner snapping in the breeze above the Dragon’s castle.
I swallowed, and realized my dream had been a true one after all. Not with darkness, perhaps, but nevertheless, doom had come to Lirinsholme.
“A month,” my mother said, staring at me in some despair. “One month more, and you would have been safe.”
“It’s better this way,” I said stoutly, and gave Therella’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “At least we can go as sisters, and stand together.”
My mother swallowed and shot a despairing glance at my father. He was pale but composed, although I noticed his hand shook a little as he grasped the cane he’d been using ever since his heart spasm.
“It will be all right,” he said. “There are many eligible, and they choose only one. We’ll be back for supper and laughing, knowing that the Dragon will not choose another Bride until after both girls are old enough to be safe.”
That was true enough, but it didn’t secure the safety of my two younger sisters, thirteen and eleven. Still, suffice the day’s evil, as they say, and the odds of two girls being chosen from the same household were probably about the same as being struck by lightning. Or worse, maybe, as we all knew old dazed Janson, who had been hit by a bolt in his youth and had never been the same since. On the other hand, there were no records of sisters ever having been the Dragon’s Bride.
Therella and I stood in the entry hall, having put on our best gowns. That was always the way of it—the daughters of the town would assemble in the main square, all wearing their finest, and the elders would gather on the wide balcony that topped the entrance to Lirinsholme’s town hall. The name was drawn from a large silver urn into which small pieces of paper with the candidates’ name written on them had been dropped. Maintaining the list of names was part of the elders’ duty, as was sitting up the night before the Bride was selected and writing out all the names on those scraps of paper.
It had not been a good night for any of us, of course. My sister had muttered and cried out in her sleep, and I was restless as well, shifting seemingly every quarter-hour so I could find a more comfortable position. What sleep I did manage was untouched by any dream, true or otherwise. This halfway disappointed me, for while I was not overly eager to learn my fate, at least if I’d had some inkling of what I faced on the morrow, I might have been better equipped to face it.