"Fweewy...given..." she gasped.
As the light in her beautiful golden eyes faded, she sighed once. Then she was gone.
Leopold opened his eyes with an effort at the sound of hoarse sobs. It was not something he had expected to do, actually. He should have been dead. He couldn't imagine why he wasn't dead. He knew he had taken a fatal wound, and a moment ago the world had been fading away around him. He couldn't imagine why now he was feeling better by the moment.
"Lie still," said the Godmother — how had she gotten there? — with a firm hand on his shoulder. "You're still healing." Healing? And then he saw past her.
He could only lie there in bewildered wonder, watching Siegfried cry with terrible grief as he cradled the head of the dead unicorn in his arms.
Chapter 22
The balcony was a good two stories above the crowd, and as Lily looked down on the sea of faces below her, for the first time in her life she experienced a great deal of trepidation. She glanced to the side, where Jimson stood in a uniform the Brownies had designed especially for him. Not overornamented, not overelaborate, and, she hoped, not uncomfortable. In black, of course, to match "Queen Sable's" ubiquitous black, for Jimson was the Queen's personal Guardsman so far as anyone other than Siegfried, Rosa and Leopold knew. His slightly pointed ears, that betrayed him as some form of Fae, were hidden beneath a helmet.
Lily still was not sure what had happened when the mirror hit the Huntsman. Jimson just got thin-lipped when she asked, and said, "Let's just say that under certain rare circumstances, someone evil's fate can catch up with him — and that allows for an exchange between our world and yours. I hadn't planned on that, though. I had only planned to drag him over into my world, where he couldn't threaten you anymore."
Well, whatever had happened, she was grateful for it.
She should have known that Jimson was Fae of some sort, though. After all, he had been alive longer than she had.
She held up her hand where he could see it, and they both watched it shake.
"It's called stage fright, my love," he said, quietly. "Don't worry, everyone gets it."
Well, that was comforting. Sort of.
This was her own fault, really; she had wanted to address the largest number of the people of Eltaria that she could to cut down on rumors and wild stories, and this was the result. She would just have to tell the butterflies in her stomach to settle down, grit her teeth and get through it.
She took a deep breath, and with a gesture hidden from those below, invoked the spell that would allow her voice to project to the farthest point of the crowd. It was a good thing that the Palace had been built with a view to making mass addresses like this, because otherwise she had no ideawhere in the Kingdom it could be done. But she, Jimson, Rosa and Siegfried all stood on the seldom-used East Balcony, and there was nothing in this direction but acres of practice fields and lawn. Not that long ago, those fields had held a small army of adventurers vying for Rosa's hand. Now they seemed to hold every man, woman and child in Eltaria.
"People of Eltaria," she said.Oh, heavens. Do I sound nasal? I sound nasal. I sound like I'm whining — "We thank you for coming here today. This day, this moment, marks a turning point in the history of our Kingdom. For centuries, we have lived in fear of the surrounding lands, for Eltaria is small and rich, and a tempting morsel for others to swallow up. For centuries we have worn out our Kings, sending them to early graves, forcing them to confront invader after would-be invader. For centuries our bravest warriors have spent their lives dashing from one trouble spot to another. But today, that is at an end."
That was the signal for Jimson to toss the firebird, who had been sitting quietly in his cupped hands, into the air. She arrowed upward and burst into flame, causing oohs and aahs from the crowd, and surely some people were wondering how on earth this little creature, potentially dangerous though she was for her size, could defend a kingdom.
Of course, it wasn't the firebird that Lily was talking about. The firebird's flare signaled something quite a bit more impressive. And a very great deal more dangerous.
From where they had been waiting, soaring in slow, lazy circles high above the palace, hidden by the glare of the midday sun, the dragons came.
Four of them.
This was the culmination of Siegfried's plan, the one that had fairly won him Rosa's hand. Oh, how she had laughed aloud when he told her, because it was perfect. And as the years went by, the defenses would only get stronger. Kings and Queens would come and go, even Godmothers — but the Dragons would remain, increasing in numbers with every century until not even an army of Dragon-slayers could defeat them.
The people below were already looking up at the firebird; beyond the firebird, four little dots of color came slowly spiraling down out of the sky. A few people in the crowed, keener eyed than most, spotted them first. As they drew nearer, more and more folk noticed, began pointing, murmuring. Then as it became apparent that these winged things were not, in fact, birds...as it became obvious that they were bigger than folk originally thought...as it became very obvious that they were much, much bigger than folk thought, and that they were, in fact, dragons, the murmurs increased to a dull roar that sounded like a distant ocean.
The dragons backwinged and settled to graceful landings on the peaked roof of the palace, spaced out equally behind the royal party.
Then, as one, they lifted their heads and blew out huge plumes of flame that joined into a canopy of
many-colored fire above the heads of those on the balcony. The roar of the flames and the heat were just
a little bit uncomfortable, even fifteen feet below.
The murmuring cut off abruptly. Every eye in the field was fixed on the dragons and their flame. Before anyone could take it into his head to panic, Lily spoke again.
"People of Eltaria, I present to you the Guardians of the Border."
She paused, as the dragons cut off their flames and gazed benignly down on the crowd.
"You will have heard that Prince Siegfried of Drachenthal, here beside us, won the hand of the Princess Rosamund with his answer to the final test of the competition — the question of how to best protect our land, not only now, but well into the future. Finally we can reveal his brilliant answer." She did not stint on the warmth and approval she projected into her words. Siegfried had gotten the idea just before Rosa was kidnapped, but had not been aware just how many dragons the Godmothers knew. Nor how many were ready to jump at the chance for secure homes where they wouldn't be harassed by treasure-hunters. When he suggested it tentatively, Lily had nearly proposed to him herself.
Siegfried blushed crimson. Fortunately, he didn't have to say anything, or she was fairly sure he would have stuttered.
"As Guardian for the East, we present Beryl of the Clan Buchenwurm. She and her kin will dwell in the caves of the mountains of the east."
Beryl, a dragon who had made Sharpstone's eyes fairly pop out of his head with desire when he first saw her, was a slender and graceful creature of emerald green, with wingwebs exactly the color of young beech leaves. She nodded her head to the crowd, a glint of amusement in her eyes. Sharpstone's interest had not been lost on her, and as Beryl herself was a young dragon with no hoard yet to speak of, and Sharpstone was not bad to look on and had quite the impressive hoard...well. Sharpstone was a very attractive prospect to her, as well. So far as Beryl was concerned, Sharpstone's presence only sweetened an already-honeyed bargain.