She looked up as I came running in: my cheeks still red and my clothing disheveled, panting like I’d come from a race. “Nieshka!” she said, dropping the sewing as she stood up. She took a step and reached for my hands, but hesitated: she had learned to be afraid of her own strength. “Are you—did he—”

“No!” I said, and I didn’t know if I was glad or sorry. The only magic in me now was mine, and I sat down on the bed with an unhappy thump.

Chapter 12

I wasn’t granted any time to contemplate the situation. That very night, only a little past midnight, Kasia jerked up next to me and I nearly fell out of the bed. The Dragon was standing in the doorway of the room, his face unreadably stiff, a light glowing in his hand; he wore his nightshift and a dressing-gown. “There are soldiers on the road,” he said. “Get dressed.” He turned and left without another word.

We both scrambled up and into our clothes and went pell-mell down the stairs to the great hall. The Dragon was at the window, dressed now. I could see the riders in the distance, a large company: two lanterns on long poles in the lead, one more in the back, light glinting off harness and mail, and two outriders leading a string of spare horses behind them. They were carrying two banners at the front, a small round globe of white magic before each one: a green three-headed beast like a dragon, on white, Prince Marek’s crest, and behind it a crest of a red falcon with its talons outstretched.

“Why are they coming?” I whispered, although they were too far away to hear.

The Dragon didn’t answer at once; then he said, “For her.”

I reached out and gripped Kasia’s hand tight in the dark. “Why?”

“Because I’m corrupted,” Kasia said. The Dragon nodded slightly. They were coming to put Kasia to death.

Too late I remembered my letter: no answer had come, and I had forgotten even sending it. I learned some time after that Wensa had gone home and fallen into a sick stupor after leaving the tower. Another woman visiting her bedside opened the letter, supposedly as a kindness, and she’d carried the gossip of it everywhere: the news that we had brought someone out of the Wood. It traveled to the Yellow Marshes; it traveled to the capital, carried by bards, and there it brought Prince Marek down upon us.

“Will they believe you that she’s not corrupted?” I said to the Dragon. “They must believe you—”

“As you may recall,” he said dryly, “I have an unfortunate reputation in these matters.” He glanced out the window. “And I doubt the Falcon has come all this way only to agree with me.”

I turned to look at Kasia, whose face was calm and unnaturally still, and I drew a breath and caught her hands. “I won’t let them,” I told her. “I won’t.”

The Dragon made an impatient snort. “Do you plan to blast them, and a troop of the king’s soldiers besides? And what after that—run to the mountains and be outlaws?”

“If I have to!” I said, but the press of Kasia’s fingers on mine made me turn; she shook her head at me a little.

“You can’t,” she said. “You can’t, Nieshka. Everyone needs you. Not just me.”

“Then you’ll go to the mountains alone,” I said defiantly. I felt like an animal penned up, hearing the butchering-knife on the whetstone. “Or I’ll take you, and come back—” The horses were so near I could hear the drumming of their hooves over the sound of my own voice.

Time ran out. We didn’t. I gripped Kasia’s hand in my own as we stood in a half-alcove of the Dragon’s great hall. He sat in his chair, his face hard and remote and glittering, and waited: we heard the noise of the carriage rolling to a halt, the horses stamping and snorting, men’s voices muffled by the heavy doors. There was a pause; the knock I expected didn’t come, and after a moment I felt the slow insinuating creep of magic, a spell taking shape on the other side of the doors, trying to grasp them and force them open. It prodded and poked at the Dragon’s working, trying to pry it up, and then abruptly a hard fast blow came: a shove of magic that tried to break through his grip. The Dragon’s eyes and mouth tightened briefly, and a faint crackling of blue light traveled over the doors, but that was all.

Finally the knock came, the hard pounding of a mailed fist. The Dragon crooked a finger and the doors swung inward: Prince Marek stood on the threshold, and beside him another man, who despite being half as wide across managed to be an equal presence. He was draped in a long white cloak, patterned in black like the markings of a bird’s wings, and his hair was the color of washed sheep’s wool but with roots of black, as though he’d bleached it. The cloak spilled back from one shoulder, and his clothes beneath were in silver and black; his face was carefully arranged: sorrowful concern written on it like a book. They made a portrait together, sun and moon framed in the doorway with the light behind them, and then Prince Marek stepped into the tower, drawing off his gauntlets.

“All right,” he said. “You know why we’re here. Let’s see the girl.”

The Dragon didn’t say a word, only gestured towards Kasia, where she and I stood a little concealed. Marek turned and fixed on her at once, his eyes narrowing with a speculative light. I glared at him fiercely, though he didn’t get any benefit of it: he didn’t have so much as a glance for me.

“Sarkan, what have you done?” the Falcon said, advancing on the Dragon’s seat. His voice was a clear tenor, ringing, like a fine actor’s: it filled the whole room with regretful accusation. “Have you grown completely lost to all sense, hiding yourself out here in the hinterlands—”

The Dragon was still in his chair, leaning his head against his fist. “Tell me something, Solya,” he said, “did you consider what you would find here in my hall, if I really had let one of the corrupted out?”

The Falcon paused, and the Dragon rose deliberately from his chair. The hall darkened around him with sudden, frightening speed, shadows creeping over and swallowing the tall candles, the shining magical lights. He came down from the dais, each step striking like the deep terrible ring of some great bell, one after another. Prince Marek and the Falcon backed away involuntarily; the prince gripped the hilt of his sword. “If I had fallen to the Wood,” the Dragon said, “what did you imagine you would do, here in my tower?”