

Damsel Knight

by Sam Austin

All rights reserved

Copyright 2015 by Sam Austin

First Edition: October 2015

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing by the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

For more information see: http://samaustinwriter.wordpress.com/about-me

Cover photograph: © | Dreamstime.com

Stories in the Crystal Wolves series:

Moon Madness

Blood Trail

Other Stories from this author:

Novellas:

Sage

Short Stories:

What You Wish For

Demon Teddy Bear

Monster

Second Chance

Monster Hangover

They Came at Night

Listen to Me

Iron Knife

Time for War

The Exterminator

Smile

Education

It'll be a Riot

Hellhound

The Dragon

The Doorway

Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Book One
Chapter 1

The guardian stone stands tall where it has for a thousand years, and where those it protects expect it will stand for a thousand more.

Thirty years have passed since a hand last touched its surface, and another seventy are due before a druid will come to check on it again. Many have tried to break it, from vast armies, to small children who learnt the hard way that while you may leave the giant circle this stone and its cousins form around the kingdom, few men are given the power to let you back inside.

No one reached an inch from its surface. Not with arrows, swords, magic, or fists. Until today.

A cracking sound splits the air. If a man stood on the inside of the barrier, he would look up with horror at the noise few who spend their lives deep inside the protective circle would recognise. The dragon flies high in the clear blue sky. It flaps its wings again with a whooshing crack.

Had the stone had thoughts, it would not be worried. Dragons had come and gone, slamming themselves against the invisible barrier with a blow that strained the constant hum of the guardian stones, but always ended with the barrier whole and the animal bruised and broken.

It had no way to tell that this time would be different.

The dragon stops a distance from the stone, its giant wings flapping more frantically. It eyes the object with a feral hate. Then jerking forward its neck, it lets out a burst of white hot fire.

The guardian stone stands through the assault stoically, the raised pitch of its hum the only evidence of strain. The dragon is bigger than most, its fire hotter, but the barrier is made to last.

That should be it. The dragon should give up, go back to its nest, the circle safe for another day. But all at once the humming stops.

White hot flames shoot through the invisible barrier to blacken the grass on the other side. For a moment the large stone disappears under a jet of bright white. A sharp crack, barely audible over the beat of the dragon's wings, and the ancient stone splits into two.

By the time the dragon closes its mouth the stone is a jagged pile, strewn on burnt ground.

Satisfied, the dragon flies above the stone. Its muscles tense as it passes through the barrier, but it meets no resistance. It does not pause to celebrate. This is not the victory it's looking for.

Its claws itch to rend, its teeth to crush men, women, children. It doesn't care who it hurts. It wants to hear the screaming, smell the blood, and see blackened corpses frozen forever in horror.

It flies toward the unknowing kingdom, and the beat of its wings sounds like death.

Chapter 2

The clash of swords fills the hot summer air. Bonnie fights valiantly, with the ferocity of a berserker, and the honed skills of a knight. She dances back and forth with her attacker, bare feet nimble over the uneven ground on the river's edge. His breath comes in ragged pants whilst hers slides from her lungs, smooth as silk. Then an opening. She takes it, twisting her sword against his until the wooden sword springs out of his hand and lands with a splash in the river.

Quickly while his guard is down, she raises her sword and points the wooden tip at his neck. "Will you yield?"

Neven's only response is to put a finger in his mouth with a look of pained indignation. "I think you gave me a splinter."

She lowers her sword, feeling the warm rush of victory flood through her. It doesn't last long enough for her to enjoy it. This is what her father called an empty victory. Neven had never been a match for her despite years of her diligent tutoring.

Neven looks despondently at the river, which is little more than a stream really. He sucks at his finger, his untidy mop of brown hair falling over his tanned face. His shoulders slump, making him look even more small and weedy than he already is. "I'll need to make a new sword."

Bonnie parries the air, imagining herself surrounded by enemy warriors. Barbarians, dragons, witches. All of them shy before her sword. No one thinks of her as just a woman. "It'll take you all of five minutes."

Suddenly Neven brightens. "Can I show it to you now? It's really good. I think this will be the one."

A wariness creeps over her. "Is it going to blow up again?"

"No," Neven says, walking through the long grass toward the single old tree that stands by the river. It had been here long before Bonnie came to live here, long before she or Neven were born, and she suspects long before any of their parents were born. It's a gnarled warped thing that has many hidey holes among its twisted roots. "This is something new. I've given up on the idea of flying for now. Da was right, doesn't seem natural."

As he speaks he lifts a pile of wood and iron reverently from a bundle beneath the roots. He pulls back his grubby sleeves to strap what look like manacles around each of his arms. Something bulky is attached to both of them. It contains an impressive amount of iron for a fourteen year old farm boy to get hold of, but Neven has his ways. His gift for making things had long since caught the eye of the village blacksmith. Neven's father hadn't allowed him to become an apprentice, but he works a few hours here and there in return for scrap metal and a place to forge more complicated inventions.

He holds out his arms toward her with a wide grin, and clenches his fists. The bulky things attached to the manacles sit up to attention, making Bonnie jump. They're shaped like long tubes of metal with a thick box extension attached to the manacle at the inner elbow. Already it's looking better than his last invention - the 'make a person fly machine', which Bonnie had tried to rename the 'make a person explode machine' after they tried it with a dummy which is now in various wooden pieces little bigger than the splinter in Neven's finger.

She takes a step back just in case. "What does it do?"

"I call it the 'shoot things really far machine'," Neven says as the things on his arms make an ominous clicking sound. "It shoots things. Wood doesn't work well because it burns up. I made little iron balls that work best, but stone of the right size does the job, at a pinch. I used the explosive material from the last experiment that wasn't supposed to explode. It generates a force that propels the projectile to the target at high speeds."

"Right," Bonnie says, who had only heard that he had strapped explosive material to his arms. "Are you sure you shouldn't use a dummy for this?"

"It'll be fine," Neven says. "Watch."

Bonnie watches, wishing that she'd asked to practice shield manoeuvres instead of swordsmanship. She could really use a shield to duck behind right now.

Nothing happens.

"That's strange," Neven says, shaking his arms up and down. "It's supposed to be shooting right about now."

A high pitched scream comes from behind them. They spin around.

There on the crest of the small hill that overlooks the river stands Neven's mother Mrs Moore. Her work worn hands press to her face in horror. Wide brown eyes the same dark shade as Neven's stare at them.

In a quick practised movement, Bonnie hides the wooden sword behind her back. For a moment Bonnie has a vague hopeful notion that her foster mother's horror is directed at the possible explosives her son had strapped to his arms, then she shakes it off. That isn't likely. Everyone in the village is too used to Neven's eccentric toys to raise an eyebrow at anything less than a brutal maiming or destruction of village property.

"Bonnie Ceana!" Her foster mother screeches. "Look at you! You're filthy!"

Bonnie looks down. The dress Mrs Moore had picked out for her that morning had been nicer than usual. Freshly washed, with none of the usual tatters that catch her feet as she runs. Now it hangs limp and wet around her ankles, mud showing even on the brown cloth. Splotches of mud travel up both her lightly tanned arms, and there's probably some smeared on her face as well.

"You look like a barbarian," Mrs Moore says, raising her hands to the skies in a show of hopelessness. "Whatever shall he think?"

Bonnie waves the wooden sword behind her back, and Neven finally gets the message and takes it from her. Boys can play with swords and neat things that blow up, but Bonnie would catch her foster parent's fury if they caught her doing anything like that. Girls are supposed to care for nothing but preparing to be a good wife, and worrying what their future husband will think of them.

"He's here?" She asks in a low voice. Her skin itches as dread takes over. What will this one be like?

"Yes," Mrs Moore says. "Now come child. I suppose the damage is done, and a woman should never keep a man waiting."

Bonnie walks glumly up the hill away from the river, feeling as if she's walking to her death. Maybe she is. If this goes the way her foster parents want then she won't be the same person anymore. There'll be no time for Neven or sword fighting. No more fancies about killing dragons with red scales and black eyes. No more Bonnie Ceana. She'll have to grow up and become Bonnie - wife.

The thought makes her shudder and long for her sword.

***

Bonnie steps into the roundhouse, her foster mother's fingers digging into her shoulders from behind. A feeling of melancholy washes over her as it always does stepping through the wooden door. Roundhouses are all built more or less along the same lines. A big circle shaped house with walls made of mud and straw, and a carefully thatched roof. Opposite the door there's a large wooden cabinet that holds various relics from the family's ancestors, to the sides are the beds, and in the middle is the hearth where long winters are spent around the fire.

It reminds her of her own roundhouse that she shared with her parents long ago.

By the cold hearth, two men talk. One is Mr Moore, a short man with skin more sun browned than his wife or son, and a wiry build, full of taut muscle that speaks of a life of much work and little reward. The other is taller, and unusually for a villager has a stomach that protrudes over a belt made from real leather. She knows him vaguely from trips to the market in Porthdon, a town where most of the villagers around here take their excess wares to sell. He's a pig farmer she thinks, from the larger village made up of nearly twenty roundhouses not a mile from where their village ends.

The men look up when they enter. A frown settles on both their faces.

"I'm so sorry for her state, Mr Drust," Mrs Moore says, her voice containing a panicked quality. Her fingers press hard enough into Bonnie's shoulders to hurt. "The poor girl wanted to help our son with his chores and slipped in the mud. She was ever so distressed after making such an effort to look nice for your meeting."

Bonnie shifts her bare feet. Mr Drust looks old, forty, maybe even fifty. His face holds the severe expression her foster parents had when they were about to tell her off, but she gets the impression this is how he looks all of the time. He certainly doesn't look like the kind of husband who would practice sword fighting with her, or let her go away to slay dragons.

"How old is she?" Mr Drust asks, his voice little more than a grunt. Perhaps all the time he spent with his pigs made his voice sound like that. Bonnie has to fight to bury a grin at the thought.

"Fourteen winters," Mr Moore says as he walks over to stand next to his wife. "I know she doesn't look like much, but she'll grow to give fine children."

The thought makes her nauseous. She still thinks of herself as a child. She doesn't want to have children of her own, and certainly not with an old man who looks as likely to give her the back of his hand as look at her. She'd heard only whispered rumours about what a girl had to do to have a child, but that's enough to decide that she NEVER EVER wants to be a mother.

The pig farmer steps so close that the scent of pigs rolls over her, making her dizzy. He glares down at her with his squinty little eyes, and reaches out to take a few strands of her golden hair between his pudgy fingers. Then he turns her chin this way and that, like he's examining a piece of livestock.

Something stubborn takes over her, and she fixes her eyes on his, not looking away like a good woman should. Never take your eyes off your enemy, her dad had always told her. Potential husband or not, her gut tells her this man is an enemy.

"Girl!" Mr Moore shouts, giving her a swat to the back of the head that makes her eyes water. She stumbles and then dropped her eyes to the dirt floor. Her heart thuds, angry in her chest, and her hand clutches the handle of a non-existent sword.

"She has potential," Mr Drust says in his grunting voice. His squinty eyes are still locked on her hair. Golden hair is rare this far south, and Bonnie knows that her hair, long to her waist and fussed over by Mrs Moore daily is a rare beauty. Under Mr Drust's gaze she doesn't feel beautiful. She feels like a slab of meat set out at market. "But she doesn't know a woman's place."

"Her father was from the far north," Mr Moore says, his tone apologetic. He sends Bonnie a sharp look. "She's picked up some of his barbarian ways, but she's bright enough. I'm sure she'll learn."

Bonnie's heart gives a twist. People so rarely talk about her family except behind her back. She feels a certain sense of pride at being compared to her father, but she wants to scream that he wasn't a barbarian. Barbarians are horrible blood-thirsty creatures little better than the dragons they share their mountains with. They kill men, women, and children, and that's if the victims were lucky. They're rumoured to eat people and leave any remains out for the dragons to take back to their nests.

Her father was a good and kind man. A man with a shock of bright blond hair who was always ready with a grin and a joke, and yes, even a hug, though that wasn't a man's place. He fought for the King and died in the bravest of ways. She knows of no person less like a barbarian than him.

She bites down on her tongue to hold it still. Mr Moore, while a fair man, doesn't stand for nonsense in front of strangers. Her aching head is proof enough of that.

"One pig," Mr Drust says, still staring at her. "Pick of the litter. Take it once it's weaned and feed it up yourself."

Mr Moore's face breaks into a rare smile. Mrs Moore's hands relax around Bonnie's shoulders. Bonnie barely notices. Her whole life seems to flash before her eyes in an instant. Her father showing her how to use a sword, her mother looking on with disapproval. Red scales smooth under her fingers, and eyes as dark as night staring up at her. Countless days playing with Neven by the river. All gone.

As a wife there will be no more games, no swords, no dragons. A wife exists only to serve their husband.

"We'll marry in the morning," Mr Drust says, the words addressed to Bonnie's foster father, not her. "A small ceremony at my farm. Bring her over at first light. You can choose your pig then."

"So soon?" Mr Moore asks. Bonnie thinks she hears a note of regret in his voice, but that might be wishful thinking. As much as she wants to hate them, she can't. They'd taken her in when everyone else had turned their backs, a strange girl from the King's City with an odd story following her. They had treated her fairly, even occasionally with love. Even this marriage isn't cruelty, no matter how much she wishes to think that way to justify the anger burning inside her.

For her, the foster daughter of a poor farmer who shares his land and crop with many others, being married to a rich pig farmer should be beyond her wildest dreams. She will never want for food for the rest of her life, and that's more than most in her village could ever get. It's more than Neven will get, destined to take over his father's house and farm.

But, she thinks, feeling the pig farmer's eyes rake over her body before resting on her hair. It isn't what she wants.

She sees Mr Drust nod out of the edge of her vision. "Yes," he says in that grunting voice. "I have a lot to teach her."

Bonnie shivers. No, it isn't what she wants at all.

***

"I want to be the princess!" The girl jumps up and down, messy brown locks bouncing. She's ten, teetering on the edge of her antics being laughed away as that of a healthy child, and being scolded for being unladylike.

Her twin, identical from wind mussed hair to green linen dress, frowns. "No fair. I wanna be the princess. Tell her Innes. Tell her I get to be the princess this time. She can be the dragon."

Ness laughs. It's a rich sound that sends shivers down Bonnie's spine. Jet black hair frames his face in easy waves. Broad shoulders and skin tanned a deep copper speak of the long harvest that dragged out to mid-summer. His muscles flex as he paces the small valley the children have used for such games for as long as she can remember.

"No, over there," Neven says, propping himself up on his elbows to get a better look at what Ness is scouring the ground for. "That one's better. The one you've got is all rot."

Ness raises his eyebrows, but drops the stick he'd selected, and picks up the one Neven points at. Neven drops back to the grass, lying spread-eagled under the hot sun, a satisfied look on his face. There are a lot of things Neven isn't good at, but finding materials for swords isn't one of them. He's been building a steady supply of shields and swords since he found Bonnie fighting over scraps at the marketplace and dragged her home with him.

It's strange to think that after today all of that will be over.

Ness swings the stick through the air experimentally, dark brows drawn together in concentration. Years of doing a man's share of the work, after his father succumbed to sickness and his older brothers gradually peeled off to seek their fortune, have given him the strength but not the skill. His parries are clumsy, his stance weak. Even Neven would stand a chance against him.

Bonnie clenches her hands into fists as the twins lend him their applause. She hates every inch of him from his stupidly handsome face to his large muscled frame. He gets to play swords without hiding it. He's a whole year older than her, and no one talks about marrying him off. There's even talk of him joining his brothers in the King's City now that harvest is over. Girls don't get to go on adventures like that. Girls don't get to go anywhere without a man.

"Let's make things fair," Ness says, pointing his sword at Bonnie and Neven. "Bonnie and Neven never join us anymore. Bonnie can be the princess, and Neven can be the dragon. No wait-" He shoves his thumbs in the rope that serves as his belt, and gives an easy grin. "Bonnie can be the dragon, and Neven can be the princess."

The twins break into hysterical giggles, leaning against each other. Bonnie can't tell whether it's the idea of her as the bloodthirsty dragon that does it, or weedy Neven as the dainty princess.

Neven shifts in the grass beside her, his face flushing a bright red.

She jumps to her feet, anger thrumming hot through her veins. "How about you be the dragon. I'll be the knight."

Ness makes a face. "You a knight? You may act more like a pig than a woman Bon, but not even a pig can handle a sword like a man can."

"I'll beat you. You and me one on one. First to land three blows wins," her traitorous mouth says. The moment she processes what she's said a wave of dizziness rushes over her. Her knees feel weak and loose. This is dangerous territory. Even if Ness keeps his big mouth shut, his twin sisters could blab about her acting unladylike. The village would talk. She doesn't know what Neven's parents would do about it, but it wouldn't be good. They might have to cancel the marriage. They might even report her to Porthdon council.

There had been an old woman a few years back from another village. She'd started going senile and wearing her dead husband's clothes. Someone had reported her, and soldiers had come to drag her away. They'd burned her a few days later as a witch.

That could happen to her if she stepped out of line. Mrs Moore had told her often enough. If anyone saw her sword. If her new husband wasn't satisfied with her. If she spoke out of turn to the wrong people.

Ness looks at her oddly. "You think me some child to be beaten by a girl? I'm fifteen. That's old enough to quest to defeat the real dragon." He cocks his head, some of the swagger coming back into his movements. "And maybe I'll do just that. Slay the dragon, rescue and marry the King's beautiful princess, inherit the Kingdom. My family would come to live with me in the palace of course. I might hire Neven too. He'd make a fine squire after I'm knighted."

Kensa stares up at her brother with wide brown eyes. "The King would knight you?"

"Of course he would," Ness says, that easy smile back on his face. "The King promised that any man could try and win his daughter's hand, but that doesn't mean he's going to let a pauper marry his daughter. He'll turn me into a knight, and make my family nobility."

"That's why father called him The Fair King," Kerra says, her little face solemn.

"He's not fair!" Bonnie shouts before she can stop herself. "And you could never defeat the dragon. You barely know how to fight with a stick, let alone a broadsword. You'd probably fall down the first time you tried to pick one up."

Bonnie knows before Neven tugs on her elbow that she's gone too far. Both girls jump back behind their brother, pressing hands over their mouths in identical motions. King Robin may be known as The Fair King, but people called him The Just King as often. It's bad enough insulting a boy, but insulting a king is something that ends with you tied to a post and set on fire no matter who you are. The King's justice would see to that.

"You forget yourself Bon," Ness says, the easy smile gone from his face. "You best go back home now. I don't want my sisters hearing this talk."

"She didn't mean it," Neven says so fast that the words run into each other. "Honest Ness. She's just upset. She got betrothed today. She's nervous."

"I would be too," Ness says. "If your husband heard those words, your head would be separated from your shoulders before you finished the sentence. I've half a mind to track down the man and tell him myself so he knows what he's getting himself in for."

The words have less of an effect on her than they should. They should terrify her, but all she can think is at least then she won't have to marry that horrible pig farmer. She hasn't lent as much thought to what she wishes her husband to be like as the other girls do, but him and his sour expression are about as far from it as possible. Not that that should matter. It wouldn't matter to any of the other girls in the village. They would be grateful to have a husband who could afford to put food in their belly, and she being an orphan ward of poor farmers should be even more grateful.

"But you won't," Neven says with enough terror in his voice for the both of them. His hand grips her arm tight enough to bruise. "Right Ness? Please say you won't tell?"

Ness lets out a large sigh, the warm breeze mussing his hair. "She'll never learn how to behave if you keep defending her Neven. You have a woman's heart. I don't blame you for it, but if you don't rid yourself of it soon then you'll end up as doomed as Bonnie. I hear they put cowards at the front of every army they march to the north."

Neven turns a bright red at her side. The grip on her arm loosens. Bonnie jumps forward, blood boiling as it pounds in her skull. She pushes both hands into Ness's chest, the highest part of him she can reach. It's a child's move. Her father would not think much of it, but he's caught off guard and topples backward anyway. It's also a boy's move, not a woman's, or even a girl's.

"What are you doing?" Neven hisses in her ear as he pulls her away. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Ness stares up at her from the ground, mouth hanging open. The enormity of what she's done hits her. She's thrown away her whole life, for what? Just because she doesn't want to become the property of a man? There's no chance of that happening now. She hit a boy. Ness is perfectly in his rights to kill her right now in retaliation. And if she didn't then the moment the twins got back to their mother she'd be reported to the council. No force on earth had been able to keep Kensa and Kerra's mouths shut about anything.

But where the twins stood is empty grass.

"Look!" Kensa shouts. Her sister picks up the cry. "Come look!"

Bonnie turns her head to see them standing side by side at the top of the slope. Adults is her first thought. Some adults, maybe their mother, must have wandered over from the village. The twins are calling them over to tell them what a disgrace Bonnie was being.

Only, they aren't bouncing with excitement like they should be at the thought of sharing such scandalous news. They stand stock still, staring out away from the village.

Kensa turns back to them, her little face pale. She points a shaking arm into the distance. "Look! Look!"

Bonnie, Neven and Ness glance at each other as a noise like thunder floods over the small valley. Bonnie leaves the two boys behind to scramble up the grassy slope. The soft ground shakes beneath her fingers.

"Are they raiders?" Kerra asks, her voice high with fear.

A dozen horses charge across the fields, heedless of the small herd of sheep that scatter before them. Each man and beast is caked with dirt and sweat, but Bonnie sees beyond that to the bright white and red that make up their uniforms. Behind them follows two wagons, each bearing a golden circle against a red background.

"No," Bonnie says. "They're King's men."

Chapter 3

The leader stands on the wooden platform, his long red cloak falling almost to the stained wood. His men stand behind him in chain-mail and white or red cloth that doesn't reach the blood red of the knight's cloak. Some say the red is blood. That when a knight took his oath to serve the King, he bled into a bowl and one of the King's druids infused the red into the cloth, using the man's blood as payment.

They say that when a man breaks that oath, the red will separate from the cloth, dripping down like the blood that fixed it in place.

Bonnie's not sure of the truth of that, but this isn't the first time she's seen King's men. They rarely come this far west, leaving justice to soldiers assigned to the area. But to the east hundreds wander the giant city that surrounds the King's palace, and she'd spent every day until the age of ten within sight of those city walls.

"Under order of the King," the leader says, looking odd, standing so regally in a spot that up until an hour before had been used to store most of this years harvest. Barrels and bales pile up in the dusty corners of the large roundhouse the village use to store food and livestock in winter, and for dancing in spring and summer. "Every able bodied man and boy with over ten summers is summoned to King's City in order to take up service and fight to defend the Kingdom. This is to be considered a great honour. Every man who distinguishes himself in battle has the chance to advance up the ranks of the King's army, no matter their birth."

The crowd huddle together in front of the platform. Ness's mother hugs her five children to her. The two younger; a boy of three and a girl of six do not understand enough to pick up on anything but their mother's distress, but the twins cling to Ness with a neediness that should have embarrassed the boy.

The Carews stand stiffly, their six strong boys gathered around them. All of them would go from baby faced Andoco to Sego who had just this year started looking for a wife. A small mean part of Bonnie thinks it serves them right. Their extra hands are a sore spot for many in the village every harvest when they reap more than any family. Their girls are sent away to marriages the moment they wean, and the one malformed boy they had conveniently did not survive his first winter.

If they hadn't been so quick to send away the ones they deemed useless, then the wife wouldn't be facing a harsh winter, and potentially the rest of her life alone. The world is not a fit place for a lone woman, even out here in the country where such women still had some means to support themselves.

"Please sir," said the last of the families, an elderly man who had been alone since his last wife had been burned as a witch for producing nothing but a long line of girls. "I am old and feeble. My eyes and ears do not work as they used to, and my legs only carry me so far. Surely the King does not mean me as well?"

The red cloak looks him up and down. He's right that the years have not been kind to him. They rarely are to the poor who slave away all day and can't turn to magic for help as the rich can. He has a gaunt look many in the village share. His back is crooked and his fingers curl into stubborn claws when it gets too cold.

"Every able bodied man and boy," the red cloak says. "You are able bodied enough."

The man lowers his head and does not argue.

"I beg your pardons sir," Mr Moore says, stepping forward away from his wife and Bonnie. He holds Neven in front of him, clutching his thin shoulders in a way she's never seen before. Mr Moore has always been a hard but fair man. His hands were made for hard work and swats when you didn't mind yourself, not for clinging like some woman. "I would be grateful if you could spare my boy from this. My wife can't manage the land alone, and my boy - he's not one for fighting. He was sickly as a child and still recovering his strength. I fear he would not survive a war, but if you free him from this obligation, I vow to fight as two strong men in his place. I spent twenty of my years as soldier to the King, and will gratefully serve him twenty more."

The red cloak smiles, and behind him some of his men chuckle. "A craven is he? Well a few battles ought to cure him of that. The circle needs all kinds to defend it."

Mr Moore goes tense, his fingers digging into Neven's shoulders tight enough that she sees him wince. "Yes," he says stiffly. "As I remember." Then he flings Neven behind him to Bonnie, so hard that both children almost fall over. A heartbeat later he's on the platform, red cloak reaching for the sword that's already in Mr Moore's hand.

Bonnie can only gape. Distantly she hears Ness's mother scream as she turns to run, herding her children in front of her. All but Ness who stands watching the fighting with an unsure look, like he's not certain whether this is some elaborate play put on to entertain.

"Quick child," Mrs Moore says. She pries them away from the stage, but it's like Bonnie's feet are fused to the ground. Mr Moore a soldier? Mr Moore a swordsman? She'd thought him a farmer and nothing but. From the shocked expression on Neven's face, he'd thought the same thing.

The red cloak lies on the ground, his hand gripping the wound made by his own sword. It makes no sense. Cloaks are not only soldiers, but knights. How could a half starved farmer best a knight? The other soldiers run at him, their swords drawn. Mr Moore spins, blocking the first blow. His movements are skilled, but slow. His arms wield the sword well enough, but his legs struggle to keep up.

She's brought out of her trance by Mrs Moore placing her hand over Neven's. The woman's eyes are filled with tears. "He said to take our boy. Go to the tree. He said you would know which one. Go now girl. Gods protect you and keep my boy safe."

There's a wet smack and a groan. Mr Moore falls to his knees. The stolen sword slips from his bloodied fingers. He glances back, his eyes drifting from his wife, to Neven, to Bonnie in turn. He doesn't see the sword swing toward his neck.

"Father!" Neven screams, darting forward to where the soldiers are starting to take notice of the few still in the food store.

Bonnie's hand closes over his on instinct. He's taller than her by half a head, and about as strong, but his disorientation makes it simple to overbalance him until he has no choice but to stumble after her. She pulls hard, not giving him a chance to turn and see the death blow fall on her father's neck, or the way his mother's arms spread wide to stop the soldiers spilling off the stage from running after them.

But she sees. She sees it all.

***

"Why did he do that?" Neven asks, pacing the ground by the river where they had played that morning. It seems an age ago, back before any betrothal, before any soldiers. "I would have gone. I'm not craven. I'm not!"

Bonnie bends to dig in the hollow of the tree, trying to hide how much her hands are shaking. Her fingers graze cloth. She pulls out one pack and then another. They hadn't been there this morning. Which means Mr Moore must have put them there, perhaps between the time the soldiers rode to the village and before they gathered everyone in the food store. But why? Could he think so little of Neven's ability in battle to sacrifice his life?

Whatever the case they need to get out of here fast. The village is small, consisting of only four roundhouses with people, the food store, and a couple more houses long abandoned. The area by the river is out of sight of the buildings mostly due to hills, but it won't take long to find, and if someone tells them the way then it could take no time at all.

"Here," she says, tossing him one of the packs. "He packed this one for you."

Neven peeks in the top of the pack. His face falls. "He packed my invention, and all my scrap."

Bonnie tosses her pack over one shoulder, the small wooden shield Neven had made for her over the other. In a free hand she carries her father's sword. Although large, it's not as heavy as most broadswords. A special metal, her father had said. One harvested in the north beyond the circle where he was born. Forged with dragon fire he had told her. She's not sure about that last part. Getting a dragon to help forge a sword without getting burned at the same time seems an impossible task. Everyone says dragons are mindless, and know nothing but killing.

The metal is a strange dark colour. It never seems to rust, so maybe there's something to the stories of it being special. She likes to think so. Her thumb traces the carved dragon winding itself around the hilt. It grounds her.

Maybe Mr Moore had been a knight like her father. It seems unlikely.

"Come on," she says. "We have to get to the woods before they come looking."

He drags his feet and looks like he's on the verge of crying, but he follows. That's all she can ask.

Once they're deep enough in the woods she stops, taking his pack from his shoulder. He doesn't protest, instead crouching by a small stream to wash his face. He keeps his eye on his reflection in the water, like he's waiting for it to tell him something. Maybe it will. They say water is the doorway between this world and the next. Sometimes when she looks at her reflection she fancies it must be someone else looking up at her from the other side. After all, her reflection has never looked like someone she recognises. It makes sense to think the pale girl with white blond hair and big blue eyes is a stranger.

"Don't look," she says. He doesn't even seem to hear her.

She dresses hurriedly, hoping that her cheeks aren't burning. All that has happened hasn't been enough to take every stupid weak feeling it seems. Her foster father is dead. The woman she came to know as a mother is likely dead as well. The King's soldiers are after Neven, and though she knows she has to protect him, she doesn't know why. Yet here she is acting the woman. Her father would be ashamed.

"What do you think?" She asks, not able to stop herself from plucking the fabric self-consciously.

His eyes widen as he turns to look at her. "Take that off Bonnie! If someone sees you..."

She looks down at her thin body in his spare pair of clothing. Part of her wants to do just that. A girl in boys' clothing. It's not done. She thinks back to the senile woman burned for wearing her husband's clothes. It's hard, but she fights down the urge to shudder.

"No," she says, hoping her voice sounds stronger than it does in her head. "I have to protect you, and we'll have to travel far. A girl will attract too much notice."

"Protect me?" His face screws up into a mixture of grief and anger. "You're a girl Bonnie. You won't even be able to protect yourself. You have to go back. I have to go back. I'm not afraid to serve."

She goes to crouch by the stream, her sword balanced carefully on her knees. She may have only had chance to use it for practice, but she keeps it sharp anyway. Another thing her father had taught her. Her jaw clenches against Neven's words. She's been given a mission, like her father got his from the King. She doesn't know the reasons why, but that is not always for a knight to know. A knight must do their duty.

A knight sounds a lot better than a pig farmer's wife.

"We can't go back. Your father gave his life for us not to." She raises the sword, the edge glinting sharper than most weapons. The metal has a red hint, like it's still hot from the fires that made it all these years later. She touches the broad side carefully, its surface cool beneath her fingers. She would have to be the same; different on the outside than she was on the inside. Or maybe this new identity would suit her better, and she would finally feel herself instead of an impostor. "And I'm not a girl any longer."

She pulls the blade through her hair. It cuts the strands like a heated knife through butter, and she's left with a fistful of white blond hair that trails down to curl around her feet. Her head feels lighter without it. "Help me with the rest."

Neven digs in his pack, pulling out a small blade. He steps toward her hesitantly. "I hope you're sure about this."

So does she. She drops the handful of hair into the stream. An offering. It feels strange, like she's cut off a limb.

"Gods give us luck," Neven murmurs behind her.

"Gods give us luck," she echoes the prayer. They're going to need it.

***

It's night by the time they reach the docks. It's not a long walk, an hour or two at the most. They'd waited in the woods for the cover of darkness before passing over that last stretch of open land. They'd seen no soldiers out there by the boats, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

Neven had spent the time curled up, looking through the pack his father had packed for him. She can't tell what he's thinking, but she can guess. Time hasn't dulled the pain of losing her own parents. She can't think of any words to help him in his grief, so she leaves him be.

"This one," she whispers back to him through the black.

The boat is a small thing compared to the few others on the dock. The others are trading boats with cargo bound for Porthdon. This one is as small as the fishing boats tied up off the main dock, though not as rickety. Maybe it's supposed to be mistaken for a fishing boat to hide its true purpose. If so they should have hired someone with less of a fondness for telling tales. It sways from side to side on the dock in a drunken manner. Empty it would fit ten people at a squeeze. Filled as it is with various bags and boxes covered in a large rough sheet, it would fit only two or three.

Bonnie steps in the boat, causing it to bob up and down in anger. She sets to work moving boxes to make a space under the cloth. After a while she stops to look over her shoulder and glance at Neven. "Hurry up."

He steps forward, nothing but a twitching shadow in the scant moonlight. He's heard the tales as she has, but he was always one to focus on dangers rather than adventures. "This is a really bad idea. Can't we just stick to the road?"

She knows the road he means. The one that leads from Porthdon all the way east to King's city. Going to the city isn't a bad idea. There are enough orphans scurrying the narrow alleyways that two more won't be noticed. Whether they'll be able to avoid the soldiers patrolling the city long enough to avoid whatever danger they're recruiting for is another matter. But no. Either way the road won't do. "The soldiers will go that way. And I don't fancy striking out on goat trails and getting lost. The water's our only way."

Neven bows his head. He knows it too. Still, he glances at the other boats tied to the mud caked dock before putting a hesitant foot in the boat. It lurches forward against the rope, causing him to balance precariously, arms pinwheeling before it stills. With eyes squinted shut like he expects the wood to eat him, he puts the other foot in the boat.

"See it's not so bad," Bonnie says, ducking beneath the cloth. The air is stale under here and tastes of rot. But there's enough space for her and Neven both. Enough for them to crouch between the boxes long enough for the boat to get up the coast and away from here.

"Right," Neven says, sounding like he's going to be sick. Unlike her, who hassles fishermen for a trip along the coast, this is the first time Neven has stepped foot inside a boat. She hopes he's not going to turn out to be seasick. It would be ironic given how devoted he is to the Gods if his stomach protested his travel across where the line between their world and this world is the thinnest.

A large hand reaches out of the darkness and closes around Neven's throat. He yelps, but any further noise is cut off when a second hand touches a savage looking knife to his neck. The shadow towers over him, and over Bonnie.

"What're you doing on my boat, boy?" The gruff voice rolls over them both along with warm breath smelling strongly of cider. "Stealing? You been stealing my things?!"

Neven cringes away from the hand, his adam's apple bobbing too close to the knife for comfort. His body trembles, and the colour drains from his face.

"Jack put him down," Bonnie says, standing up from beneath the cloth. It's a struggle, but she makes sure to leave her sword under there before she exits. No sense escalating things. "You're scaring him half to death."

The knife is removed from Neven's throat, but his legs stay dangling several feet off the boat. Jack bends down to squint at Bonnie through the darkness. He's a giant of a man. Nearly seven feet tall, and almost half as wide. A thick fur vest covers his barrel chest even in this warm weather, and the skin not covered is about as hairy. His eyes are not small, but his oversized jaw and wide broken nose make them seem so.

"I know you?" His gruff voice holds more confusion than menace now.

"Picture longer hair," she says, attempting a smile. It's strained. Jack may be a friend of a sort, but trusting him with this secret was stretching that friendship to its limit. "And a dress covered in fish guts."

"Bless my whiskers," Jack says, releasing his hold on Neven. He falls to the deck with an audible thump. "Bonnie Ceana. What are you doing looking like that? Did someone steal your clothes? You can tell me lass. I'll deal with those scoundrels. Got a druid I know who's looking for a couple fresh organs. Liver, kidney and such like. Not too picky where they come from either."

Neven scurries away to Bonnie's side. Once free, terror quickly turns into anger as the man's words seem to catch up with him. "You snuck us on a black market boat?!"

"Just a little one," Bonnie says, holding her thumb and forefinger a short distance apart. "And Jack's a good guy," she turns back to Jack with a polite smile. "No thank you. We don't need you to kill anyone today."

"When you have to remind him not to kill people, he's not a good guy." Neven pauses, looking warily up at Jack. "I thought he was the puppeteer you liked. The one who told really scary stories."

"Every man needs something to pay the bills, and something that makes their heart sing." Jack tilts his giant head, finally pocketing the knife. "Sometimes life is cruel and they're not the same thing."

Neven's eyes stay fixed on Jack's large stomach. She can guess what he's thinking: cruel or not, smuggling seems like it pays well. "What if he sells us as slaves, or decides to take our organs instead."

Jack raises a bushy eyebrow. "Nervous little thing, isn't he?"

"Well," Bonnie says, tilting her head. "This is his first time to the docks, and you did just put a knife to his throat."

"Traditional greeting where I'm from," Jack said with a shrug. "What're you two doing here in the dead of night anyway?"

Bonnie stands up straight, trying to look older than her fourteen summers.. "I hear you're going to Dragon's Bay."

Jack frowns at her for a moment before his eyes widen in understanding. "Oh no. No way, no how. Going out on this ship is no place for a lady."

"You say that like you haven't taken me sailing already," Bonnie says. "And it's only a couple of days away, hugging the coast the whole way."

"One, a couple trips around the bay is not sailing," Jack says, getting out his knife again and waving it through the air for emphasis. Though that's not true. There was one time long ago when she'd been bundled in his boat, the newly orphaned daughter of a knight, and carried down a river, then along the coast past what's now Dragon's Bay, and to this nondescript little market town. "And two, what would your foster family think? They'd be distraught. Nice little girl like you out in the big nasty world. Doesn't bear to think about."

Bonnie looks to Neven, but the boy looks away. His shoulders slouch like he's just been kicked.

"There's nothing to go back to Jack," she says. It's a balance deciding how much to say. Jack's a nice enough guy, and she's watched his puppet shows and peppered him with questions about the stories since she first came here, but he also works Dragon's Bay. That means he works for the King. "I wouldn't ask if I had any other choice."

Jack peers at them from under his bushy brows. "Does this have anything to do with the soldiers I've been hearing about? Word is a recruitment went wrong in one of the villages nearby. Things got bloody."

"No," she says hurriedly. Asking a favour is one thing. Asking a man to go against the one who filled his purse with coin is another. "We just-"

"We need to run away," Neven says quickly. "To er, seek our fortunes."

"To Dragon's Bay?" Jack asks.

"If you were going someplace else we'd ask to go there," Bonnie says, forcing the words to come out firm and even. Many men would give her a slap for that, but Jack had never scolded her for speaking her mind. That's why she liked him. "Things are changed now. I'm no little girl. I've got no one except Neven. Now I live and die by my sword."

"Right," Jack raises an eyebrow. He looks her up and down. Last winter had treated her badly, leaving her more skinny than usual. She had seen her reflection in the water. Her shorn blond hair left her face looking too gaunt, skin tight against her cheekbones causing them to stick out. "Expect you'll be dying then. World's a lot harder than it sounds in stories. Now out of my boat, the pair of you."

Neven shuffles, looking like there's nothing on earth he wants to do as badly as that. Bonnie doesn't move, her chin held high and her eyes fixed on Jack's.

"I can't go back," Bonnie says. "You know what the village will do to me looking like this." Her heart jolts in her chest at the words. It's not like she didn't realise what she was doing, cutting off her hair. She did. A girl can't travel with only the protection of a boy and expect to get anywhere in this world alive or unhurt. A boy can. But if anyone were to realise she's a girl under the clothes and shorn hair then it'll be a quick trip to the nearest council and the first available bonfire.

A grey fog of panic settles over her as Jack only stares at her, any expression lost under his bushy eyebrows and uneven beard. Maybe she should've gone by the road, or even the goat trails, but she'd thought Jack was her safest bet. Which he was, unless he decided to turn her in.

She swallows, her palms sweating.

"We stop at Dragon's bay, then go onto the City," Jack says slowly, not looking happy about it. "There you keep your head down until your hair grows back. And you best think up a more convincing name than Bonnie. People look for skirts with a name like that."

Bonnie gives a relieved smile and holds out a hand. Her legs feel like they're made of water. "Call me Boone."

Jack wraps his massive hand around her dainty one and shakes. He hitches a shoulder in a half shrug. "It'll do," he says. "But best mind yourself Boone. Dragon's bay is nothing more than a place to go to die. You stick close to me. No going near that castle."

Bonnie gives a placating smile, but beneath it all her muscles are coiled with tension. Jack's job makes it best for him to travel the coast in ways that attract least notice, but there's another reason for her picking him. It has to do with one of the many stories he's entertained the kids of Porthdon with, and the kids of many a town with.

It's a story of a dragon with scales as red as blood, and eyes so dark you felt they'd swallow you whole. The beautiful princess he guards, and the prize awaiting anyone with enough bravery to slay him. The red beast with black eyes who killed so many that its footsteps crack on a carpet of bones.

Chapter 4

After all this time, is all Bonnie can think when they finally arrive in Dragon's Bay. Finally, after all this time. Her heart thrums with excitement. She steps onto wet sand cautiously, half expecting this all to be a dream.

It's a small cove. A short stretch of sand that quickly gives way to grass. To her right the Dark Forest goes on and on as far as she can see. The trees are densely packed together like they're whispering about the secrets they hide. Straight ahead the hill gets steeper and greener with every step.

Somewhere over that hill is the castle. It's the only building on the bay. From the stories the fishermen told her it's supposed to be on the outer tip of the island overlooking the sea. Of course, it's not really an island. Everyone just says that because it might as well be with the only ways out being the sea and through the forest.

All the champions that come here to slay the dragon arrive by sea. No one comes through the forest, not even knights.

Neven steps out of the boat and falls to the ground on his hands and knees. He grips the wet sand with fervour. "Land!" He shouts, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry I left you. Please never leave me."

"Get out of my way lad!" Jack stares at Neven with an expression part way between frustration and astonishment. "I have to pull the boat in."

The past two days have not been a happy time for Neven or Jack. Turns out Neven does get sea sick, and it turns out Jack is allergic to whining. Bonnie's just glad that what happened in the village hasn't taken all of Neven's spirit, though sometimes when he thinks she's sleeping, she'll catch him staring over the edge at the water with a haunted look on his face.

Neven scurries out of the way, moving up the hill to admire the grass. Jack pulls the boat up the small beach, muttering. Bonnie does her best to help.

"Are you going to bring that to the castle?" Bonnie asks as Jack heaves one of the boxes up the hill. She has her sword and her pack. She's a little hopeful. It would be a good excuse to get close to the castle, and the dragon.

"No one goes near that castle," Jack says, giving her a hard look over the wooden box. "Least, not anyone not half mad for gold, glory, and the girl."

Neven looks up from his spot on the hill, a wistful expression on his face. She's only ever seen him look like that when he's thinking up an experiment he wants to try. "The princess is supposed to be very beautiful, isn't she?"

Jack snorts, dropping the box heavily beside a gnarled looking tree that sits at the top of the small hill. The contents clatter. "Not sure how they can say that when she's been locked in that castle since she was a child. But I'd wager they're right. The King has more than enough gold to buy beauty for his daughter. And he has no problems buying magic to serve any of his other whims. I hear he brought his jester back to life when he couldn't find a good enough replacement. Course I imagine he's a lot less funny now being undead and all."

Bonnie frowns at the crate. "So how do you get that to the castle?"

"This does it for me," Jack pats the gnarled trunk with a certain fondness. "Magic my lad Boone. Watch."

Bonnie and Neven watch as Jack pries off the lid. Unease washes over her. She can't help but think of the crate her father brought back from one of his quests for the King. That one little crate that changed everything, and led her here today with her father's sword over her shoulder and neither of her parents by her side.

With a practised movement Jack eases off the lid, letting them see the contents. Neven screws up his nose, face turning as green as it had in the boat. "Are those teeth?"

"What did you think I'd be delivering to the castle?" Jack asks with a raised eyebrow. "Cream cakes and pasties?"

"Well, yeah," Neven says, sitting up straighter on the grass. He frowns at the gleaming contents of the crate. Disgust falls away to interest on his face. "Is it a trade? I thought you needed gold for that?"

Jack scoops up a handful of teeth, dropping them into a deep hollow in the centre of the gnarled trunk. There's no sound of them hitting wood, like they're falling forever. The crate is filled up to the very top, and there's a pang in her chest as she notices most are small; children's teeth. How did he get so many?

"Gold, teeth, bone, blood, honey, children," Jack shrugs a massive shoulder, depositing another handful. "Magic isn't too picky as long as it thinks it's got a fair trade. It's when it you don't give enough when you get problems. Then it'll just take and take."

Bonnie swallows, nervous. Neven shifts. There're stories about what magic does to people when they play with it too much. Men who ask for wealth and wake up in a bed of gold with all their limbs missing. Women who ask for youth and have their children taken as payment. Magic is for the wealthy, and no one in the villages has wealth enough to get the training to devote their lives to magic. So all they had were stories passed on by traders and fishermen to be whispered and used to scare small children.

Until now, seeing all those teeth, the stories gain a solidity that turns her speechless.

"You've traded your tucked away village for an ugly world Bonnie," Jack says, looking between her and the teeth, using her real name for the first time since they left the dock. His expression softens slightly. "You children best go and play whilst you still have the chance. Don't go far, and don't go near the castle. If that beast so much as smells you he won't stop chasing until you're dead. Killing is all a dragon thinks about, that one more than most."

Neven gets to his feet, starting up the hill. It's now or never.

"You should stay here Neven," Bonnie says with forced casualness. "I know you like to see how things work."

Neven pauses, turning back to her. "Are you sure?" He asks, his brow screwed up in puzzlement. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine. I'm just going to practice some footwork." She gives a smile that she hopes looks believable. "You stay and help Jack. It's not like you'll be able to see magic this close again."

"You're right," Neven says, near running down the hill. He stops himself on the magic tree, then gasps and looks down at his fingers. "I feel it working. It tingles."

"Just don't go sticking your hand down inside the tree," Jack says, chucking another handful into the hole. "Else you'll get mistaken for teeth."

Bonnie turns to go up the hill, her sword feeling heavier than before. Then she stops, something nagging at her.

"Jack? Have you ever known a dragon that wasn't a killer?" She asks, choosing her words carefully. Some desperate feeling uncoils itself in her chest. It screams at her, screams and screams and screams like she did the day her parents died. "A dragon that was nice?"

"A nice dragon?" He tilts back his head and laughs, the sounds booming. Finally he gets himself under control, wiping away a tear. "I'd forgotten what fancies children have. My dear Boone, take it from me I lived most of my life on the borders of the north, just outside the circle, where dragons still fly down from the mountains when winter makes their food scarce. Dragons are the cruellest, most vile creatures alive. They know nothing of mercy. They burn whole villages to the ground for the joy of it. No, mark my words, the only thing a dragon can be is a killer."

Bonnie nods, all the excitement she'd felt earlier draining away. She holds her father's sword tight and makes her way up the hill.

"Remember," Jack calls after them. "This place is magic. When the sun is high the island will push my boat back out to sea. If you aren't in it there won't be another boat coming until the next full moon."

"I'll be there," she says, hoping that it's the truth.

***

It takes hardly any time at all to see the tower of the castle. It takes an hour of brisk walking after that before said tower becomes something more than a tiny thing on the horizon, no bigger than her thumb.

The way is steep hill followed by small valley followed by even steeper hill. With every step she contemplates lightening her burden by leaving something behind. The sword is the most awkward thing to carry, but she can't very well slay the dragon without it. The wooden shield raps against her back and arm, but she'll need whatever flimsy defence it can offer. And what if she leaves her pack, and some creature makes off with the rest of her food? If the boat leaves without her, then that food will have to tide her over until she finds something else to eat on this island.

Unless a boat is sent when the dragon is killed? That would make sense. The champion has to get to the palace with the princess somehow.

'Whoever slays the dragon shall win my daughter's hand, be knighted by my sword, and inherit my throne, kingdom and fortunes when I step down.'

What other way could a girl hope to become a knight?

Jack said over two hundred champions had come here over the past three years to try and win the princess's hand. None of them came back, and they were men. All of them strong, brave, and MEN! She's just a little girl playing at being a boy. How can she hope to compete?

The morning is too quiet. Just her, the grass beneath her rough shoes, and the sun pounding down relentlessly from above. For a moment she wishes she'd brought Neven, then she mentally shakes her head. This is her task. Her dream. To drag him along would be unfair to him.

She'll share her reward with him of course. He can live with her on her lands, or she can give him enough gold to decide what he wants to be. Farmer, blacksmith, scholar, nothing will be out of reach for him. And maybe she'll hire Ness, as a jester of course. Nothing else would suit him more.

The thoughts are a welcome diversion from what's about to happen, but as the tower gets closer they get harder to hold onto. If Neven were here, and somehow not cowering in fear, he'd know the right words to put her at ease.

"They say he breathes flames as hot as the sun," she'd say.

Neven would wave off the comment. "They also say that no one who meets him comes back alive. So who exactly do they think is coming up with all these stories?"

"Claws as sharp as knives," she'd say.

Neven would grin. "And the size of toothpicks I'll bet. You've got a sword. Yours is bigger."

"But I'm just a girl."

Here's where her imaginary Neven breaks off from the real one, because there's no way he'd ever dispute the shortcomings of that. In fact real Neven would quake, and pull at her hand, and say anything to get her to stop this foolish idea.

Imaginary Neven somehow knows exactly why she must do this. "You're not just a girl," he says. "Because you know this isn't just any dragon."

She hefts the sword up higher, trying to ignore the aches in her arm. Two hundred champions, two thousand. It doesn't matter, because she has an edge they never had. She's met this dragon before.

It was small then. The size of a large hound. Maybe the tales were false, and the knights had simply taken one look at it and turned away in pity. No. She knows that's not right. No matter its size it's something to fear, but the thoughts have given her hope. Maybe the dragon isn't as dangerous as the tales make him sound.

She doesn't see the white rock until it's too late. She trips, sword flying from her grasp. Arms flailing she tries to keep her balance but the next step takes her over the top of the hill. Her foot lands wrong on the uneven ground and she topples down the slope, rolling down head over heels.

She catches short snatches of sky and grass before the hill throws her violently onto the flat ground below. But it isn't ground.

She scrambles backwards, scattering the bones beneath her hands. Her foot lands on a charred skull and it collapses with a crunch. She half crawls over the field of bones, back to the grass of the hill. Her breath comes in pants.

The bones extend far into the distance. There must be hundreds of them. Some are full skeletons, but most are scattered pieces. Most have been charred, and all have been picked clean. She shudders, hoping that it was by time and birds, not the dragon. She can't bear to think of him eating people like that - like a monster.

"So much for him not being dangerous," Bonnie says when her voice comes back.

"And so much for not breathing fire."

***

Everything about her turns weak as she stares at the hill of charred bones. There's nothing she wants more than to turn back. Her legs are as weak and watery as the patches of quick mud that surround her village. Part of her knows this is folly. A girl against a dragon. But another part wants to bury the point of her father's sword deep in the monster's throat.

That's her duty as a daughter. And she could never be a knight of honour like her father without that duty carried out.

So she pushes herself to her feet, and walks unsteadily back into the field of bones to retrieve her sword. The bones are packed so tightly together that she can't avoid stepping on them. They snap under her feet, and she tries to pretend they're just twigs, not people. The sword sticks up out of the field like some peculiar flower, the blade caught in a ribcage. She tugs but it won't come free, so she puts her foot on the skeleton, closes her eyes and pulls until it does.

By the time she makes it off of the field of bones, she knows her face must be as white as some of the bones themselves. She pushes the fear aside. A knight has to be brave and strong. If she ever wants to be a knight like her father she can't afford to act like a weak woman.

Then she looks up at what's before her and fear consumes her again.

This close the castle looks magnificent. The single tower rises far into the sky, taller than any building Bonnie has ever seen other than the palace. But that's not what catches her eye. In front of the rest of the castle - a large stone building with an open front like a giant fancy barn - a dragon lies stretched out in the sun, cat like. It's huge, bigger than the round house she'd called home for so long. Its scales, the deep crimson of blood, glint as its large side moves up and down. Every now and again its tail twitches.

It has its back to her, but that won't last for long.

So much for size of a large hound.

Bonnie reaches her hands into the field of bones, grasping a helmet. She tries a few before she finds one without a skull in it. It wobbles loosely on her head, but she can see enough to swing a sword and it should provide some protection. Then she grabs a shield, much larger and heavier than the wooden one that had fallen from her arm. Added to her sword, the weight of it all makes her stagger. She pushes on and finds her stride, though the shield and sword make her arms ache.

She ignores the bones as she creeps past them. She doesn't want to think about the bones in that pile that once grasped the shield as she is now, and wore the helmet teetering on her head.

Her father used to talk of dragons often. Some were as small as kittens, he said, and some as large as whole villages. She'd never believed they could grow so big, but now she's starting to.

Were it not for the gleaming red scales and the way his side rises and falls she would think him a hill, not a dragon. Even lying down his height is taller than any building she's seen apart from the tower and King's palace. His head is as tall as the peak of the roof of their roundhouse, his middle at least four times as tall and nearly as wide. His length from nose to tip of his tail is as long as every building in her village set wall to wall.

He's come a long way from the hound sized dragon she'd last seen four years ago.

She breathes deep, trying to push the terror down. She grips her father's sword tight. Giant or not, fire breather or not, it's sleeping. It's vulnerable. She can kill it. She will be a knight, and she'll have paid for the mistake she made long ago.

It doesn't stir as she moves closer. Its breathing is deep and even, like the waves of an ocean washing over her. Its claws are each as thick and sharp as her sword. Wings bigger than sails shuffle together in its sleep, making a noise like autumn leaves settling on the ground.

She walks right up to its head, keeping her body low and ready to run. Her heart increases in volume until she can't hear the dragon's breaths even though she's close enough to feel them.

You never can tell how tough those scales are, her father had told her once. They're usually softer on the stomach and under the jaw, but if you get them there there's no telling whether it's going to be a fatal wound or if the dragon is going to snap your neck for giving it a flesh wound. No, he said, if you get the chance then you try for the eye or inside the mouth. Only way to know you're going to do some real damage.

She's close enough now to see the intricate patterns of the scales around its jaws. Its chin is on the grass, tilted sideways slightly so the only way she can reach the eyes is if she reaches upward when she stabs. She'll have to drive the blade in fast so she kills it instead of half blinding it.

Warm breath rolls over her, flattening all the grass and flowers for a good distance before they lean back toward the beast as it takes a breath in.

Its eye, as big as her head flutters from side to side under the red lid as if it's dreaming. Bonnie heaves the sword up on her tired arm to strike, then hesitates inches from the eye. Everything about the dragon has changed, and nothing has. Its red eyelid is bordered with lashes of the deepest black, but she knows their colour is pale compared to the colour of its eyes. All at once she's stuck by the intense need to see those eyes one last time.

Bonnie takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and picturing the blood, how alone she'd felt sailing away from the city she'd known in Jack's boat. A familiar rage fills her, but then other images intrude. Her, five years old, staring in fascination at the crate her papa had brought home. Her pudgy fingers reach out toward it, and it shudders under her hands.

No. No. A knight has no place for mercy. Mercy is for women, weak women who let men control their lives. She won't be like that. She can't be like that.

She draws back the sword, and heaves it forward with all of her strength.

Somewhere to her left comes a defeating 'moo.' It's so out of place that she's caught off guard, the force going out of her swing.

The eye opens, and the ground shudders.

Chapter 5

Bonnie falls backward, her helmet clattering hard on her head. Somehow she manages to keep her grip on the shield and sword.

The dragon rises to its feet screaming. The sound seems to burrow into her head and tear it apart. The ground shakes her like a rag doll, and her ears ring.

A hand tugging the back of her shirt brings her back to her senses in time to see a set of claws cutting through the air toward her. She jumps backward, leaving the heavy shield behind. The air sings behind her as the hand drags her toward the nearest shelter - the castle. Neven. Her eyes sting with tears. Neven came for her. She should've known she could never hide from him when she was up to something. He knew her too well.

Neven stumbles, overbalanced by a large shield he must have plucked from the field of bones. Bonnie grabs his arm tight and pulls him into the lower castle. They dodge behind the nearest pillar.

The lower castle is nothing but wide open space with a stone roof and wide set pillars as thick as trees. It's so huge that shadows crowd the middle, despite the lack of walls,

"I think this is a stable," Neven whispers between gasps. He's looking around the room, white knuckled hands gripping the shield. He's donned his invention, and both the metal shooters stand at attention on his arms. He doesn't notice.

"What do stables have to do with this?" She whispers back. They're about to die and he's thinking about stables. She looks at him, worried the shock may have turned him mad..

"Look, it's got water and food." He points into the darkness where she can just see a large pool of water and beside it on a wooden platform stands a cow. A cow? She blinks but it's still standing there. Well, at least the moo sound now makes sense.

"We're in its home," Bonnie says, letting her helmet fall back against the pillar. "And it's supper time."

"Jack must have given the tree enough teeth," Neven says. Some of the fear leaves his face as he stares at the creature. "I knew you could use magic to get food, clothes, but not whole animals."

He's leaning forward to get a better look. Bonnie pulls him back against the pillar hard. "Not the time Neven."

As if to prove her point the dragon roars behind them. There's a scuffling sound, and the disconcerting noise of claws against stone. Bonnie turns to look, but soon wishes she hadn't.

The dragon pushes his way into the castle. Its head and back score against the stone roof, sending a wave of rubble behind it, the people who built this place must have underestimated how big he'd grow, just like she had.

She's struck by its eyes. Other than the size, they're just the same as she remembers. Big and completely black from pupil to what should be the whites of its eyes. Neven told her a theory once about magic vacuums, that if the world were to try and magic something that was beyond price then the magic would keep taking and taking until the whole world was gone. He says there's proof out there in space of planets that tried it. Great black vacuums that have eaten their planets and are still hungry, reaching out to pull more planets, suns, and even light to try and sate their never ending hunger,

That's what the red dragon's eyes look like, black vacuums reaching out to consume her. She feels the world tilt beneath her feet, filled with an overwhelming desire to walk toward the creature.

Then the dragon draws back its head, puffing out its chest like a bullfrog. It opens gleaming jaws to reveal a distant glow in the back of its throat. Bonnie's eyes widen and she throws herself back on the other side of the pillar, drawing Neven close to her side.

Flames wrap around them in a torrent of heat and noise. Bonnie feels her skin prickle until it sears with pain. She closes her eyes to the blue and red flames licking past the edges of the pillar either side of them. She tries to ignore the stone boiling against her back.

When it stops Neven is crouching by her side, tucked behind his shield with his face screwed up like he's trying not to cry. She grabs his arm, cursing herself for bringing her father's sword and not the shield all those years ago. Her father always taught her that on the battlefield, when it came down to it, the shield was a far more important weapon than a sword. Then again, he'd been speaking of battles against men at the time. She doubts he ever thought she'd fight a dragon.

She pulls him behind another pillar just in time as another barrage of fire surrounds them. The cow stands one pillar to their left. It looks up at them, disinterest in its vacant eyes.

"How much fire can a dragon breathe before it runs out?" Bonnie yells over the roaring flames.

"I don't know!" Neven shouts back. "You're the one who decided to come here! You should know!"

"I didn't think it would be like this!" Bonnie moves her helmet from her eyes. It's hot to the touch.

"What? You thought it'd roll over and let you kill it?" He glares at her. "You might want to consider learning a little about dragons before you decide to face one down in a battle to the death!"

"You didn't have to come!" Then she pauses, because suddenly her voice is too loud, the room is too quiet. It hits her, the flames have stopped.

A face as tall as a house lunges into view on Neven's side of the pillar. He freezes, not even bothering to raise his shield. red scaled lips draw back, revealing jagged teeth as long as a man's arm.

Then Neven turns his head over his shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut. He drops the shield and raises his arms. The metal contraptions around his arms whir, making a high pitched whine that sounds a little like Jack's attempts to sing.

The dragon narrows its eyes at the metal shooters, giant head cocking to one side like a puppy's. Even the cow looks over to them.

The whine gets higher and higher until it's all Bonnie can do to not put her hands over her ears. Then with a magnificent bang that pushes Neven back a foot, several metal balls blast out of the shooters. And land harmlessly at the dragon's feet.

The dragon sniffs them, then starts to growl deep in its throat.

Without thinking, Bonnie shoves Neven aside. She raises her sword, but it looks so insignificant when faced with row upon row of gleaming teeth.

Her arm shakes. This is my duty, she tells herself. This is the only way to make things right. This is the only way I'll become a knight. This is the only way I'll be anything other than a woman whose sole worth is determined by who she marries. This is the only way to be me.

With a fierce cry she runs the short distance to the dragon, her sword swung high over her head. Somewhere behind her she hears Neven shout.

The dragon huffs, the same way you would if a stray hair happened to fall in your face. The sudden gust of foul smelling wind knocks Bonnie off her feet. She hits the stone floor hard, knocking her sword from her hand. The helmet bounces off her head and goes clattering off into the dragon's castle.

She looks for the sword but can't find it. She catches a glimpse of Neven standing horror struck metres away. She's defenceless. This is it. No more running away from the fact that this was a terrible plan. No more running from the fact that she's just a woman playing at being a man. Who was she kidding thinking she could do this when real men had failed? She's just a girl. Weak. Nothing more.

Warm breath rolls over her. She closes her eyes as those rows of sharp teeth descend toward her.

She tenses in anticipation of the pain, but nothing happens. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Nothing but soft waves of warm breath that stinks of rotting meat.

She cracks open her eyes.

The dragon hovers over her. Its snout is inches from her face. Black eyes stare down at her, and they don't look as lifeless as they did a moment before. She imagines she sees something like surprise sparking in those wide eyes.

Slowly Bonnie gets to her feet, but the dragon still doesn't move. It's frozen in place, its warm breath wafting over her, making the shorn ends of her blond hair sway. Those giant eyes follow her movements carefully, never leaving her face. Almost like it recognises her.

***

Not daring to move, Bonnie scans the ground around her for the sword. Whatever has frozen the dragon in place, there's no guarantee how long it'll last. This is her chance to kill the creature. Maybe the only chance she'll ever get.

"Neven," she hisses behind her. "Help me find my sword."

There's an awkward shuffling sound as Neven unfreezes, casting dirt and rubble aside to look for the weapon. She doesn't turn around, scared that if she turns her back on the dragon it will be the last thing she ever does. It's so close, close enough to touch if she were to reach out. She clenches her fist, forcing down the urge to run a hand over the hard scales of its snout.

"Sword. Here," Neven gasps, sounding breathless. Bonnie feels cold metal placed into her hand.

The sword feels heavier than she remembers it ever feeling before. Its eyes are too far away to reach in its house sized head. Its mouth is closed. She'll have to drive the sword in under its chin, and hope the scales are soft enough, and the sword long enough for the blow to be fatal.

She swallows, and lifts the sword in both hands. She'll have to be quick. One quick movement to duck under the creatures chin, another to plunge the sword up into the soft spot under its jaw. Its head is so big that she doubts even a straight blow up would reach the brain, but if she angles it back toward the throat she might have a chance of wounding something vital.

And if she fails, well then, she won't have a long time to worry about it. She's a little girl facing down a dragon the size of a hill. It could snap her in two with a flick of a claw. And if she makes it angry then it won't hesitate.

But there's something strange here, because it's not supposed to be hesitating now. It's supposed to be breathing fire, ripping her limb from limb, chomping her up in that cave of a mouth. Instead it stares down at her with dark eyes that make her heart clench. Those dark eyes that looked up at her on that day years ago.

The day her parents died.

The metal of the sword feels slick in her hands. Reaching back to that day she tries to find the anger she thought she'd feel in this moment. She tries to remember her father shouting, his gentle voice angry. Tries to remember him dead on the floor, drenched in blood. She's prepared for this day since she was ten years old. Sometimes the anger would consume her so much she was afraid there would be nothing left of her, but now that she needs it, the anger falls away.

Instead her mind drifts back to that box, left on a chair as her parents argue outside. Her, five summers old and curious. Nothing in her mind of blood and death. Monsters lived only in stories, and vengeance was unknown to her.

Her heart hammers loud in her ears, and her arms shake so badly the sword wavers. Instantly she's furious with herself. She should be able to do this. Her father killed dragons all over the border. It was the dream of every boy and man to kill a dragon, it should be her dream too. To kill the dragon, pay her debt to her parents, and present proof of the dragon's death to the King in exchange for knighthood.

Killing this dragon has been in her thoughts for the past four years. How, when she's so close can she change her mind? Then it hits her: pity. Her stomach churns in disgust. Standing here, looking into the eyes of the creature that she should hate, part of her actually feels sorry for it.

No. Bonnie grits her teeth, screws her eyes shut. Strong. She has to be strong. Only weak women would let such sentimentality cloud their mind. She has to choose. Will she be a weak minded slave of a wife, or a strong knight like her father?

She spins, putting her whole body behind the swords lunge. It's a graceful movement halfway between his father's swordsmanship and her mother's ballroom dancing. There's a cool satisfaction knowing that her mother's desperate attempts to make her more of a woman help now to make her a man.

Falling into a crouch under the animal's giant chin she flows the momentum upward, aiming her sword at the pale red patch of scales directly above her. The tip of the sword slides between two scales. There's resistance, and then it jerks upward into soft flesh. Her muscles burn, sweat dripping into her eyes with the effort. Warm blood runs down the blade, washing over her hands, soaking the sleeves of her tunic.

So much blood. She stops, shaking. The dragon's breath comes in slow even rhythms above her. Its blood pours over her, soaking through her clothes to the skin, but it doesn't even twitch.

There's a clang of metal hitting stone floor, and she realises she's dropped the sword. Numbly she looks down at what little she can see of herself under the shadow of the dragon's chin. Blood shines slickly over her arms and down the front of her clothes.

She can't do this. She can't.

Slowly she raises a blood coated hand, places her palm on the scales in front of her. They're warm and smooth under her skin, just like she remembers. The dragon's heart beats, powerful under its scaled armour. It vibrates down her arm, steady, contrasting with the rapid beating of her own heart. Above her the animal lets out a rumbling sound that shakes her very bones. It doesn't sound aggressive. It sounds almost like he's purring.

"Bonnie," Neven hisses behind her.

She jumps, coming back to her senses with a jolt. Snatching up the sword she backs up until she's away from the dragon, next to the pillar Neven stands by. The dragon doesn't move, still staring at her.

Neven's eyes widen when he sees the blood, but Bonnie shakes her head. "It's a nick at best."

Neven has the stone pillar between him and the dragon, his shield gripped in one hand. He glances between her and the dragon, face pale. "Why didn't you kill it?" He gestures a hand toward the crouching dragon. "You're never going to get a better chance than this. It's under some kind of spell or something."

"I can't Neven. I..." Her heart hammers in her chest, tongue searching for some explanation that won't make her sound as weak as she feels. "I want to earn my knighthood, not get it on some kind of fluke because a spell stopped it fighting back. It wouldn't be honourable to kill him when he's like this."

Neven presses his lips together, looking unconvinced. "I don't think you need to worry about it having a fair fight when it's the size of a castle!"

Bonnie shakes her head, eyes locked on the beautiful, horrible creature that towers over them both. She should hate him. Why can't she bring herself to hate him? She's been planning this day for years, and now he's right where she needs him, she can't do it. She can't bring herself to kill him while he's helpless. "We take him back to the King," she says. "We get him to break the spell, then I avenge my parents in an honourable fight. My father would expect no less."

"Brilliant," Neven says, staying his side of the pillar. "I'll just scoot over in the boat to fit it in. I'm sure Jack won't mind."

"We'll find a way," Bonnie says. She keeps the sword handle clenched tightly in a fist, and one eye on the dragon. Whatever magic is affecting the beast, she knows it could break at any moment. She wonders if she'll still feel the same way about wanting it to fight back when it's drowning them with fire. She wonders if whatever sentimentality stalled her hand before will show up again, even when she's defending her life. "We have to."

Chapter 6

"Do you get the feeling we're forgetting something?" Bonnie asks as they skirt around the field of bones. The dragon stands between them and the castle, its black eyes wide and curious.

"Your senses," Neven says without hesitation. He leans back, putting all his weedy strength into tugging at the makeshift halter around the zombie cow's head. It stares at him vacantly, chewing its cud. "But I think you lost those a long time ago."

Bonnie uses the flat of her sword to tap the cow's hind end, and it finally walks forward again. However magic brought it into the world, it didn't include any wits. It manages a shambling monotonous walk once it gets the momentum, but all it takes is a stone in the wrong place, or dips and humps in the terrain and it freezes.

She thinks of the long path of hills and slopes she'd traversed to get here and sighs. This wouldn't be an easy journey, but she could think of no other way to get the dragon to follow them.

"It's not working," Neven says, frustration burning in his voice. "How are we going to get back to the boat in time, if your stupid dragon won't come?"

She can hear the answer he wants behind the words. We can't, so leave him here. Anger may have pushed away most of his fear, but that doesn't mean he wants the dragon to come with them. He knows just the same as she does, that whatever is stopping the dragon from harming them is a spell, and spells can be broken.

"Here dragon, dragon, dragon," she says instead, fighting against the heat that rushes to her cheeks. At least it's only Neven she's making a fool of herself in front of. "Come get the nice zombie cow."

"Nice side of beef!" Neven calls out in the kind of voice sellers use at the market. "As fresh as you can get it!"

The dragon moves a giant foot, making the pile of charred bones clatter with the impact. For a moment she thinks that's it, then he makes another step, closing the distance between them. The footsteps are giant, but still manage to look shuffling compared to its size. Every time a clawed foot comes down the cow is the only one not to jump.

One moment he is far away, the next he towers over them, blocking out the sunlight. Her heart skitters in her chest like a frightened animal as his giant head descends toward them, its lethal smile spread wide.

She scrabbles for her sword at the same time Neven squeaks, dropping the cow's halter. Then the head is flying upward again, the cow gazing nonchalantly from between its jaws.

"My rope!" Neven says in a voice somewhere between hysterical and indignant.

A moment later there's a stomach turning crunch of bone, along with the wet ripping of tissue. A splash of blood and stringy tissue sprays all around them. The cow's severed head falls to the ground, bounces twice, then rolls to rest at Neven's feet. The halter is still attached.

"Thanks. I think." Neven stares down at the cow's head with its roughly torn neck. His tanned skin takes on a shade of grey, then decides to add a splash of green.

The cow's dull eye rolls toward him and blinks.

Neven screams at the same time Bonnie jumps. Both move back several hasty steps.

"That's it!" Neven shouts, a spray of red exiting his mouth with the words. His face and clothes are covered with it, and several chunks of flesh stick to the folds of his tunic. "I'm done! You've done some pretty stupid things Bonnie, but this one takes the biscuit. What made you think you can kill it? It's as big as a castle, and even if it weren't, you're a maid and I'm a farmer's son. You should be home with your new husband, and I should be training to be a soldier. Neither of us is right for this kind of thing."

Bonnie shakes her head stubbornly. "Ness said-"

"Ness is as pigheaded as they come, but he wouldn't actually try to kill a dragon. Or if he did come, he'd turn right around once his feet hit the shore and be happier for it. I never thought I'd say this, but he's got more sense than you. This is knight's work, and the work of royal sorts who have hours to waste learning how. The ones with great big manly beards and armour with enough shine to blind their enemies. Not an orphan girl and some boy like me."

"My father was a knight," Bonnie says, her blood starting to boil. "The greatest dragon slayer the circle ever saw. They recruited him from beyond the barrier itself because he was so good at it. I'm his blood."

"You're a girl!" Neven shouts. "It should be me protecting you. Instead you run off and try to kill dragons, then end up bringing them back as pets! Which is beyond stupid because by all rights you should be dead now. It's a dragon, Bonnie. You know the tales. You heard Jack. Dragons kill. That's all they do. I don't know what spell caused it to stop, but the moment it ends we're both dead. You know that."

He's right. That's the worst thing. She knows he's right. Tears choke at her throat. She blinks, and takes a deep breath to chase them away before she speaks. "What would you have me do?"

"Leave it," Neven says firmly. "Knighthood, riches, even the kingdom isn't worth your life. If we hurry we might still make the boat. Leave it here with its castle, and its-"

He breaks off, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish.

"Neven. What is it?" She glances at the dragon, but the massive beast is doing nothing more than crouching on the grass, lapping blood from its claws like a giant cat.

He turns back to her, eyes sparkling. "I think we're the only people to storm a castle to kill a dragon, and forget to rescue the princess."

***

The tower seems to go on forever. The rough stones rub her fingers raw before she's halfway up. It could be worse, she tells herself. The tower was made for a difficult climb, but not an impossible one. The walls could be smooth as silk. Instead they jut out at odd angles from each other, providing handholds.

Still, by the time she reaches the top her skin is covered in sweat.

She levers herself onto the ledge, gasping. She might have been the best climber in their village, excepting for Mr Moore whose job it was to fix the roofs, but climbing a tower is a lot different than climbing a tree. Her arms and legs feel like jelly. How did the King expect anyone to slay a dragon the size of a castle, then climb this thing? Who would go through that much effort for a wife?

Metal bars stand firm behind the ledge, surrounding a small balcony. Flowers of a dozen different sizes and colours decorate the dark metal and rise up to climb the walls. Pretty wooden boxes border the edges in such numbers that there remains only a small patch of smooth marble right in the middle of the floor. Each one has a different plant. She recognises carrots and strawberries, but most are foreign to her.

Gingerly she steps over the balcony onto the patch of marble. Behind the balcony is a giant pair of ornate doors, bordered in gold, and filled almost completely up by coloured glass so dark that she can see the merest of shapes behind them. She ignores them for now, turning back to the railing to tie one end of the rope hung over her shoulder around the bars.

It's a good thing Neven brought so much rope. She drops the other end and it falls just short of where tiny far away Neven waits on the ground. They'd decided only one of them should make the climb, and both of them knew it had to be her. Neven's a lot stronger than he looks, but she beats him hands down at climbing - or any physical activity for that matter.

The dragon sits watching them both with curiosity in his black eyes, but makes no move toward either of them. The spell may wear off, but for now it's holding. Bonnie takes a deep breath, turning away as Neven clambers up the wall to grab the rope.

The glass of the doors is cool under her hand. They open at the lightest touch of her fingers, as if waiting for her to come. What's behind the door takes her breath away.

The room is gigantic. The curved walls are a soft cream with the same gold edging as the doors. Shining staircases wind around the walls, reaching up to door upon door. The furniture in the main room is beyond beautiful. One circle shaped bed sits in the centre of the room, big enough to hold six grown men without danger of anyone of them touching the other. A gold encrusted vanity table holds a mirror taller than Bonnie herself. Various elegant tables dot around the room, each one groaning under the weight of plants. Plant pots cover the floor as well, and a pretty climbing plant that looks like a bright blue coloured ivy spirals all the way up the giant winding staircase.

And right there in the middle of it all stands a girl, frozen mid step with her hands around a plant pot nearly as big as herself. She's as beautiful as the room. Tightly bound ringlets, as dark as Gelert's eyes, tumble over the shoulders of a blue gown. Bright green eyes stare wide in shock from a heart shaped face, their colour as vivid as the most polished of emeralds.

Slowly the girl puts the plant pot down.

"My apologies," the girl says in a voice as finely tuned as the rest of her. Everything about her, from the elegant way she holds herself, to her rosy pink cheeks reminds Bonnie more of some fanciful painting than a real girl. The only tarnish to this perfect image are the smudges of soil on her face and hands, but as she watches, even those fade as if they'd never been there. "I am Princess Alice. I wasn't expecting company. I fear my stomach is too delicate for blood, or I would have watched your courageous battle and known to expect you. Please enter my brave champion."

Bonnie squints at the flowery words, but understands enough to know she's been invited in. She steps into the room, taking in all the sights she hadn't of yet. Over in a corner a watering can was hanging in mid-air, drifting from pot to pot to feed the plants. Perched on the corner of a table not completely taken over by plants, a silver spoon circles around and around in a small china cup. Up on the staircase, a sheet is hanging itself up to dry on a banister.

A sudden warmth covers her skin, almost painful. She glances down to see Neven's clothes are spotless and well mended for the first time she can remember. The murky grey trousers are now a pale brown, and the top a gleaming white. She raises her hands to her face. The skin is pink and burns like someone has come along and scrubbed all the dirt off, then a couple layers of skin for good measure. Her nails are trimmed, buffed to a shine, and have not a spot of dirt under them.

It's weird. If this is what magic does, she wants as far away from it as possible.

"This isn't right," the princess says, frowning. She turns to glance at a mop hopping past with a bucket. "My father said that when my true love passes over that threshold all the magic would cease."

True love. Gross. "Look. None of that matters now," Bonnie says. "I need to get the dragon to the City, and whatever spell you have going on here means he won't leave without you. So pack your things and let's go."

Panting comes from behind her as Neven clambers his way onto the balcony. The scraping sound of wood on marble tells her he's knocked one of the plant beds.

Princess Alice blinks rapidly. "You did not slay the dragon?"

"Long story," Bonnie says. "Now, could you hurry-"

Neven steps into the room beside her, breathing heavily while taking in his surroundings with wide eyes. His mouth drops open as he stares at his newly cleaned clothes and skin. Then the mop falls over, along with the bucket, splashing water toward them. On the other side of the room the watering can clatters to the floor in mid pour, then all around the room objects held together by magic fall to the ground.

The tower shakes, trembling under her newly mended shoes. Crashes resound left and right as plant pots fall off tables and smash into pieces. Shudders hammer the room until her very bones quake. An ugly cracking sound like thunder echoes off the curved walls, and just like that the walls are tearing apart, and chunks of ceiling rain down around them.

"What is that?" Neven shouts as he hurries to grab the princess's hand and pull her toward the balcony. Even in the chaos, he still finds time to blush at the contact.

"True love," Bonnie says, dodging a chunk of ceiling as big as her and rushing to the rope.

Chapter 7

"I don't climb ropes," princess Alice says, her green eyes wide.

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Oh for the love of - get on my back!"

The princess does as she's told, which is about the only positive thing about her. Bonnie's starting to think that whoever would have won her for a wife would've gotten a very bad deal. She tries to imagine herself spending the rest of her life with this pretty little creature who can't even pull her own weight up. She'd be terrible at sword fighting, even more terrible at a good old fashioned fist fight. No, she'd be no fun at all.

The weight on her back and shoulders is a little less than her own weight, despite the princess's extra head of height. She's carried Neven on her back before to re-enact stories of warriors gaining great strength from strapping sows to their shoulders - a comparison that Neven didn't care for. So the princess's weight doesn't tax her legs much, but swinging herself onto the rope with the tower crumbling around her, it drags down her arms enough to make them burn white hot. Not even winding her legs a little tighter around the rope does much to alleviate the strain. Neven is right above her, and it's a long way to the ground. She has to move fast to get them all to the ground in time. Gripping too much with her thighs or shoes would slow down her progress.

Instead she slides down hand over hand, fast enough to know her hands and legs will be raw with rope burn by the time she reaches the grass. The tower wavers, swaying from side to side. The rough bricks in front of her face break apart from each other and fall downward. She hears the thump as each one hits the ground, knowing that could easily be her fate.

A roar echoes from below, making the tower shudder. And a horrible thought hits her all at once. The spells in the tower broke once Neven entered. What if the spell over the dragon broke too?

The tower leans sharply to the right, taking their rope with it. Princess Alice squeaks like a startled kitten, and grips Bonnie's throat so tight she can't breathe. It's all Bonnie can do to keep going, one hand over the other, wishing she'd thought to wrap her palms in cloth so she could slide down the rope as easily as if it'd been polished metal.

The rope whips from side to side, then around and around like a pin wheel. Her elbow thumps against stone, and tingling pain spikes all the way to her fingers. Even when her entire arm flashes numb she keeps moving, faster and faster. Rubble rains all around her. The rope digs into the flesh of her hands, and she fancies she can smell her skin start to burn.

The tower teeters above her, for one mad moment looking like it's going to topple forward on top of them. forty feet to the ground, and a tower falling on top of them. It's not the way Bonnie imagined her end to be.

Then the tower collapses inward instead. The result is no less deadly. All the walls she can see fold in on themselves as quickly as if some giant invisible fist had closed around them and crumbled them like paper. A crack, and the rope is slack in her hands

She catches a glimpse of Neven spinning through the air above her. The iron railing she'd tied the rope to chases them, spinning, and spinning. Behind it comes a hailstorm of stone, each chunk bigger than the last. Wind buffets every inch of her, slapping cold hands at her face. Princess Alice's arms remain locked around her neck, and a high pitched sound next to her ear tells her the girl is screaming. It takes longer than it should to get it, but then she understands. They're falling.

The world twists and turns. Sky, grass, sky, grass. Each time the grass spins into view it's a bit closer, a little harder looking.

The impact would've pushed the air from her lungs if princess Alice's arms weren't firmly locked around her windpipe. Blackness, and warmth. Only when her thoughts repeat themselves enough to be heard over her racing heart, she realises the black is not complete blackness. There's a soft red glow to it that grows sharper and gains more colours.

Shaking herself, she pulls the girl's hands from her throat, causing her to drop from her back onto the rough ground. She reaches up, her fingers finding that same odd texture - like smooth pebbles joined tightly together to make something that feels smooth to her fingers, and rough to her hands. Pushing against it, the world explodes into colour as the giant fingers uncurl from around them.

The dragon's house sized head looks down at them, not seeming to notice the remains of the tower crashing apart on its head and back. His black voids of eyes seem to sparkle with something. Puzzlement? Relief? Hunger? She doesn't know.

Neven levers himself to his hands and knees on the dragon's left arm. It seems so far away from where she and the princess sit in the palm of the dragon's right hand. His expression is dazed. A harder landing than her and the princess perhaps? She's relieved to see that he doesn't appear injured.

Her relief is short lived.

The dragon drops them the short distance to the ground as the last of the rubble falls on his shoulders. Then he moves his left arm suddenly, flinging Neven into the air. The giant jaws close around Neven with a sickening snap.

Bonnie's jaw drops open and she scrambles backward to where she'd left her sword at the bottom of the tower. Time skips, and she's running toward the dragon with her blade raised in front of her. Some part of her must know that with the dragon standing as he is, the highest part she can hope to reach is his ankles, but she runs anyway.

This is Neven. The boy who met her as a ragged orphan living on scraps from the stalls of Porthdon and promptly claimed her as his sister and brought her home. The boy who helped her when he discovered her love of sword fighting, instead of reporting her.

She'll slit the dragon's belly open to get him back if she has to.

"Sir Dragon," princess Alice calls out, her voice as clear and bright as a bell. "If you please, could you spit the boy out? He is my true love you see, and I do not want him harmed."

The dragon seems to consider this a moment. Then reluctantly it lowers its head and sticks out its massive tongue. Neven rolls wet and sticky to the princess's feet and lies there gasping.

Bonnie lowers her sword. "You just - you asked it nicely?"

"I consider it the best way to get things done," the princess says, brushing down her pretty silk dress. "He really is quite gentlemanly for a bloodthirsty beast. I know father said I shouldn't, but I've grown fond of him. I'm so glad you didn't kill him."

Something white hot and painful opens in her chest at the warmth in the princess's green eyes as she looks up at the dragon. "There's time for that later."

Princess Alice flushes a deep red. "Of course good sir. I should not have presumed otherwise. Forgive my manners. Sir Dra - I mean the dragon is all I've had to talk to in three long years."

Neven raises his head from the ground. "Remind me why we can't kill it now?"

"Honour," Bonnie says, reaching down a hand and pulling him to his feet. Her hand comes away wet and stinking of rotting meat. "I mean to kill him while he's not so senseless as to stand there and let me do it. He deserves better."

Neven shakes his head at that. "And what makes you think he won't kill you first?"

***

"So I'm your true love?" Neven asks as they walk over hill after hill, the dragon shuffling slowly behind them. His face is scarlet, but whether that's more from trying to get back in time or from his question she's not sure.

The princess nods, just as out of breath as he is, but trying not to show it. "Yes. Though you are younger than I expected." Her face turns almost purple as she seems to realise what she's said. "Meaning no offence of course."

"And you're my true love?"

For a smart guy Neven seems to be having a hard time wrapping his head around this. Bonnie decides to stay out of it, dropping back a little to walk next to the dragon. Or rather, to walk on level with the dragon's shuffling front feet. Both her and the dragon could be making much better time than this, but the princess and her completely impractical frilly dress set their pace for them.

"That's the way my father said the spell works," princess Alice says. "My true love will slay the savage dragon and climb the tower. The moment he walks through the threshold the charms to fill my needs will cease to be, as he is the one charm I will need for the rest of my life."

Somehow Neven turns an even brighter red. Bonnie stares, fascinated at the change in colour.

"Are you surprised good sir?" Princess Alice asks, her bright eyes wide. "Are you displeased with me?"

"What? No." Neven scratches his head. "It's just a shock is all. This whole day is a shock. And for a while there I thought my true love was... Well, that doesn't matter. What matters is we get off this island."

The lapping sound of sea on shore seems closer now. Bonnie passes by them, running down and up two hills before she sees what she's looking for. "That might be a problem."

Neven huffs and puffs along until he's standing beside her. "The boat's gone."

"It's barely past mid day," Bonnie says, gripping her sword tightly. "And the magic. All the spells broke, which means the island shouldn't have pushed him out to sea."

"He didn't know that," Neven says, twisting the cloth of his shirt so tightly around his fingers that the metal contraptions on his arms spring upright. He pushes them back down absentmindedly. "He must have waited until he thought he couldn't wait any longer. Then he left."

He left. The words sting more than they should. This isn't the first time Jack had dropped her on a shore and left her. The first time she'd been forced to fend for herself for months before Neven's family took her in. So she shouldn't be surprised. Jack was a man who did what he could and felt no guilt about not being able to do more.

Still, it hurts.

"What's this?" The princess asks, wandering to the shore.

There in front of the hollow tree is a single crate like the ones he'd used to haul the teeth in. For just a moment another crate springs into her mind. One of darker wood, and stained with dirt and blood instead of sand.

'No, don't open it' she wants to say as Neven bends down bedside the princess. Then her senses come back. This is a different box. And she's not a little girl any longer. She's to be a knight. Nothing should scare her.

Still, she finds herself watching closely as Neven pries off the lid.

"Food," Neven says. He turns, his eyes searching for hers. "He left us supplies. Does he mean to come back do you think?"

"If he does it will be after going back to King's City to deliver the rest of the boxes. The King will be waiting for them. After that he needs to journey the circle to collect his wares." She hides the queasiness that comes over her remembering all those teeth. "If he travels it all he won't come back this way for a year, but he might turn around after dropping his goods at the palace. He usually rests a while before starting his journey, so he should have time to collect us. And if he doesn't, they'll come to drop off champions in a month's time."

"It'll take weeks for Jack to get here even if he does turn right around," Neven complains. He turns to princess Alice, stumbling back a step like he'd forgotten she was with them. "My lady - I mean, my princess. Do you know a way we can get to your father's city?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't told what happens after my true love rescues me," princess Alice says, her wide eyes darting between the shore that led out to sea, and the giant trees that form a wall to their left. Blushing again, she seems to remember her courtesies and returns her full attention to Neven. "My father just said it would be the end of my waiting."

"Seems like this is the start of it," Bonnie says, sighing. She lowers herself to the ground, laying her sword across her lap. The day had taken its toll, and her limbs ache for rest. "The castle is gone. We can't go back."

"No. But maybe we can go forward." Neven looks up at the dragon with a glint in his eyes she doesn't like. It's the same expression he wears just before coming up with some insane idea that usually ends with something exploding or catching on fire. "The city is over the forest right?"

"Sure," Bonnie says. "The forest, a few villages including our own, Porthdon, then a few miles along King's road. But you're forgetting one thing Neven. We don't fly."

"And we can't go in that forest," princess Alice says, her pretty face pale with horror. "We can't. I've read stories about what lives in there. It teems with dark magic. All my nursemaids said so."

Neven catches one of her hands in his with more confidence than he'd shown since he'd met her. She stills under his touch, but her green eyes are still wide and fearful. "It's fine. We won't go through the forest. Bon - Boone had the better idea."

Bonnie narrows her eye. She just knows she won't like where this is going. "I did?"

"Yes," Neven says, his eyes still on the dragon. "We fly."

Chapter 8

Perched on the dragon's back, where his head meets his neck, she feels like a flea on a giant. The dragon hadn't protested their climbing up here, but it had rumbled questioningly at the rope Neven had wrapped around its neck so they could hold on better. An extra hour had been spent using pieces from the bone pile to create the scabbard that straps diagonally across her back from shoulder to hip. The sword sits in it perfectly. For all his faults, Neven's brain is something to be admired.

Still, she's not so sure about this latest idea.

"Come on dragon, fly!" Neven calls out from behind her, the princess clinging to his back. For all his wariness of the beast, he's caught in an idea. And she knows from experience that ideas can make him fearless, something that doesn't always end well.

The dragon twists his massive neck around to look at them, then exhales a puff of smoke into their faces. They choke, Bonnie leaning forward to try and find fresh air to clear the burning from her throat. The ridge of tough bone and tougher scale runs from base of skull to tip of tail, a darker red than the rest of him. It provides them with a seat of sorts, and the thicker scales covering the ridge hold none of the smoothness on other parts of his body. The roughness under her fingers gives her something to grip.

"Maybe a different command?" Bonnie says between coughs. She turns around to catch the princess's eyes. The girl's commands had worked well enough before.

The princess ducks her head behind Neven's shoulder, but eventually she speaks. "Please Sir Dragon, we have need of your wings. Will you please fly us over the forest and to my father's palace?"

The dragon lowers his giant head, making that grumbling noise again. He exhales a stream of dark smoke over the ground.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Neven says grudgingly. "This is never going to woooooooorkkkkkkkkk."

The dragon launches himself into the air like a stone flung from a catapult. Bonnie grips the rope and flattens herself onto the dragon's body in order to stay on. Her stomach seems to fling itself right down to her toes, searching for the ground. She glances down and wishes she hadn't. The ground is so far below, the hollow tree is nothing more than a dot. She can see the castle from here with its fallen tower. She can even see one of the great stone pillars that marks the edge of the circle, emerging a little way out to sea.

Neven groans behind her, sounding like he might throw up. Air sick as well as sea sick. She hopes he doesn't throw up as much as he did on the boat. She can't imagine the dragon would like that much.

The dragon flaps his wings, and they soar higher over the forest. From this high the Dark Forest doesn't look as frightening as she'd thought from the tales people whisper, and the ones Jack sometimes tells through his puppets. Monsters are supposed to live in there, with witches, dark spirits, demons, and all kinds of products of dark magic. There is good magic; the kind trained druids carry out for the King and other rich lords and ladies, and there is bad magic carried out by the untrained and cruel hearted. Those found using dark magic are either killed or flee to the Dark Forest that covers the land almost from the bottom of the circle to the very top. Miles and miles of forest that would take many weeks to travel on horseback.

Only, from this far up it doesn't look like it's teeming with dark magic. It just looks like a forest. A large forest certainly, the trees as far as she can see, and beautiful. Definitely beautiful, but a forest. Nothing more than that.

The dragon makes that groaning sound again. Only, now he sounds like he might throw up. Wouldn't that be a sight? Absentmindedly she pats the dragon's neck, although she doubts he can feel her through the rough ridge. "You're fine. It's going to be alright." She catches herself mid-pat. What is she doing? The dragon is supposed to be her enemy. Instead she almost feels sorry for it.

"What's going on?" Neven yells, leaning close to stop his words from being swept away by the wind.

"I think he's sick." Bonnie leans sideways as far as she dares with the rope in one hand and her legs firmly gripped over the dragon's ridge. She catches only a glimpse of his face, far into the distance, but it's enough. "His eyes are closed. I don't think he likes heights."

"You're kidding me? He's a dragon! How can he be afraid of heights?"

Bonnie has no clue. She racks her memory for some kind of explanation but comes up empty. The last time she'd seen him he'd been a lot smaller, and hadn't been flying yet. There was a moment when -

No. She doesn't want to think about that. It makes her heart ache in ways she doesn't know how to deal with. One day soon she's going to use her father's sword to kill him. She doesn't need an aching heart for that, she needs a fierce one.

Her stomach lurches. She grips the rope tighter, looking for the cause. Either side of her the dragon's giant wings have stopped their steady flapping. They're frozen like the crooked sails of some giant ship.

Her insides feel like they're trying to rise up above her. A sudden rush of blood thumps around her head, making her skull seem like it's about to burst. It's when her legs rise off the dragon's back, and she has to grip the rope to stay seated that she understands.

They're falling.

The forest turns from an indistinct mass of greens to giant trees close enough to count their branches. Bonnie can't see, but she knows the dragon still has his eyes closed. He's scared, and they're going to crash. "Dragon open your eyes!" She shouts as loud as she can, hoping some of it reaches his ears over the wind. "Dragon! Gelert! Open your eyes!"

He must do, because all at once his wings start to flap again, but it's too little too late. Bonnie presses herself against Gelert's back, gripping rope and scale as tight as she can. The first tree they hit cracks so loud she thinks her ears might burst. Then they hit the second, third and fourth all at once and the sound of the first seems a whisper in comparison.

She lurches forward, slamming her head hard against the dragon's rough scales. Her hands grip the rope so tight that she can't feel her fingers. The dragon skids along the forest floor, knocking down trees left and right, and churning up a wave of dirt and grass that flies just short of her feet. It's a relief when she feels Neven's arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She thought she might have lost them for a minute.

It seems an age before the dragon finally skids to a stop. He raises his head from where it's half covered in dirt and shakes it blearily.

Bonnie twists around to take in her companions. The princess clings to Neven like a very young child, her eyes squeezed shut. Neven sits, his brown eyes dazed, and his tanned skin an unhealthy grey.

"My Da was right," he says, the words shaking. "Flying. It's not natural." He leans over and throws the contents of his stomach up over the dragon's side.

***

"I don't want to stay here," princess Alice says for the hundredth time. "I want to go back to the island."

Apparently flowery language only lasts when she's not terrified. Bonnie doesn't know whether to be happy or disappointed about that. On the one hand all that stooping was getting on her nerves. It's strange being the man in the situation and having someone scared to look you in the eye or offend you. It's nice that three years with only a dragon for company gave her confidence enough to express an opinion to two men she doesn't know. On the other hand, it's an annoying opinion, and it doesn't get any less annoying every time she repeats it.

"Great idea," Bonnie says throwing her arms in the air. "Just show us the way. I'm sure we'll be there in no time."

Princess Alice hunches her shoulders and drops her gaze to the ground.

"Leave her alone," Neven says, moving faster to walk by the princess's side. "It's not her fault we're lost."

"As opposed to you, you mean?" There's an ache of regret the moment the words leave her mouth, but its pain is tempered by another feeling. Satisfaction. Her tongue may have been more free with Neven than other boys, but she's always been aware that he would grow into a man. A woman insulting a man is as unnatural as a dragon playing tea parties. A man insulting a man however, that's as commonplace as that same dragon eating its tea party companions, china cups and all.

Neven's mouth drops open, before he closes it, gathering himself. "Well if someone didn't decide out of the blue that slaying a dragon was a great way to spend a sunny morning..."

Red hot anger boils through her. Anger at him, anger at herself, anger at the dragon. Before she knows it the words are out. "And if you weren't so scared of everything, your father would've sent you off to war and we wouldn't be here!"

It's unfair. She knows it as soon as the words are out. Neven can't help who he is, just as she can't help who she is. She opens her mouth to take the words back, but can't think how.

"We should stop for the night," Neven says, his voice ice cold. "I'll gather wood and you can start a fire."

She nods. There's nothing else to do. Hopefully a fire will keep the worst of the dark magic away.

By the time they find a clearing , Neven's arms are full of sticks of all sizes. They build the fire in silence, Bonnie's experience working together with Neven's instinctive knowledge of where the bits should go. The princess crouches down beside them, her arms crossed over her chest for warmth. She's shaking. Her dress is made for beauty, not for warmth. The shining blue material would be fine in a summer's day, but does little to keep the cold of the night out. Here in the forest, the thick barrier of trees should protect them from the worst of the cold, but somehow it seems colder here than it should.

The dragon follows them, trees creaking sideways as he pushes past, sometimes cracking in two or wrenching up out of the soil. He shuffles around the clearing a few times, making it bigger with every step, then curls up like a cat opposite their fire. It's a stark reminder of how large the dragon is; him lying in his self-made clearing while they huddle together in the tiny space they have left between his belly and feet.

Heat radiates off his stomach where the scales are not quite as thick. If they were to huddle in close there, they might not even need a fire. Bonnie glances up from the flint she's striking to look at Neven and Alice's faces. They'd have to be pretty desperate to consider that. She doesn't even know why SHE'S considering it.

"When we were falling," the princess says shivering, her nose and cheeks a raw red in the dim light. "You called the dragon Gelert. Why did you do that?"

Bonnie drops the flint onto the pile of underbrush she's trying to light. For a moment she can't breath. Gelert. How long has it been since she's said that name aloud? Wooden boxes, red scales, and blood the same shade all fill her mind before she shakes her head, makes herself pick up the flint. "It's got to be a better name than Sir Dragon."

"I read about him," Princess Alice says. "Gelert the hound. He was a loyal hound, until one day his master found his infant son gone from the cradle, and when he went to look for him he found Gelert with his muzzle covered in blood. Enraged the man killed the hound."

Neven glances uneasily at the half asleep dragon. "I don't think that's the smartest thing to name him. If he turns, he's going to be a lot harder to stop than one hound."

Bonnie shakes her head, picking up where Alice left off. "After killing the hound, the man went to look for his son's body. What he found was a wolf dead and the baby unharmed. Gelert had killed the animal and protected the boy. So he was faithful to the end. Some say he was the most faithful hound that's ever lived."

"It's so very cold," the princess says. "Will we have a fire soon?"

"Soon," Bonnie says, striking the flint again. A spark rises but fails to spread to the underbrush. She remembers enough from father's lessons to know how it should work, but it doesn't seem to work the same way in her small hands as it did in his large ones. She takes a sharp breath, trying to force down the urge to throw the stones into the darkness pressing in on them.

"Here. Let me," Neven says, taking the stones from her without waiting for an answer. "Look in our packs and see if there's something warmer for the princess to wear."

She steps away from the fire and sits down heavily next to the princess. Cold leeches up from the ground like it's something alive, wriggling its freezing fingers up through her veins to warm itself over her heart. She ignores it, digging through the bags. The dress she'd changed out of sits at the very bottom. She'd forgotten she had it. She tosses it into the girl's lap.

Princess Alice pulls it on over her blue gown. It looks odd, worn woollen material over shining silk. Blue stands out bright on the arms and hem where Alice's extra head of height makes the dress sit shorter on her than it did Bonnie. She's lucky it had always been such a poor fit on Bonnie, like wearing a turnip sack instead of a dress, otherwise it would never have fit over Alice's waist and chest, let alone the frilly gown.

No sooner has Alice pulled the dress on, than the fire springs into life. The princess leans into the heat, watching as Neven piles on twigs, then some of the larger pieces of wood. "Gelert is a good name," she says. "But we should still be careful. My father said that after my true love came, none of the spells would last. I grew fond of the dragon, but I know his true nature is not the one he carries now."

Bonnie clenches her teeth together and looks at the dragon. He's giant now, where before he would barely have reached his own ankle. But the more she watches him, the more it seems the height is the only thing that's changed. His eyes are the same dark pools, his scales as bright a red as ever. The way he looks at her sometimes; like he knows who she is. It sets her heart on edge.

"So you agree with Neven?" Bonnie asks her. "You think I should kill him before the spell breaks?"

Alice flushes red. She ducks her eyes, as if only now remembering her station as a woman. "I would not presume to tell you what to do, and I'm sure your skill with a sword is unparalleled."

"But?" Bonnie prompts, deciding once and for all that she prefers the girl when she forgets herself. She's roughly of age with herself, but holds herself to expectations others had of her before she left for the tower when she was little more than a child. Sometimes she even forgets those expectations.

"But if you don't kill him soon," the princess continues quietly. "I worry that he'll never give you the chance to."

Chapter 9

It's the cold that wakes her as much as it is Neven's hand shaking her shoulder. She sits up groggy, cold burning her lungs when she breathes in. When she breathes out it shows by the light of the fire as a white mist.

"It's the princess," he whispers. "She's gone."

Bonnie blinks, looking about her. Sleep clings, making the meaning of the words trickle down into her consciousness slowly. For a moment she expects to see the paved yard at the back of her large stone house, where her father used to teach her swordsmanship. 'Remember,' he'd say to her at the end of each lesson. 'Don't tell your mother.'

Instead all she sees is darkness in every direction. The only spot of light is the fire, burning low. A few feet around it the shadows swallow the glow. Far away she can hear the dragon's steady breathing.

"Maybe she has business to attend to?"

Neven flushes red at the suggestion his true love has bodily functions like everyone else. "I told her to wake me if she had to - you know."

Bonnie's almost tempted to say she doesn't and have him explain it, just to see how red he can go. What is it with the two of them and blushing? Part of her wonders if that is how your true love is found, whether they blush and shy from confrontation as much as the other does.

"Have you tried shouting for her?"

"I don't want to wake your Gelert," Neven whispers. "And I waited ten minutes before I woke you. If she's nearby she would've come back, and she'd definitely hear that -" He points at the dragon. He doesn't snore, but he is very big. Every one of his exhales sounds like a gale of wind strong enough to blow down every roundhouse in their village.

"How do you mean to find her without shouting?" It's now that Bonnie realises that without knowing it she's been whispering too. But it's not because of the dragon. It's the feeling on the back of her neck, like she's being watched. It's in the question of why it's cold enough to see her breath and freeze her fingers on a summer's night next to a fire.

There's something out there in the forest, and she doesn't think it likes her.

Neven raises one of the longer sticks from the fire. The end stays burning bright.

She shrugs off the stupid superstitious thoughts. Magic is real, and so is black magic, but that doesn't mean that every childish whim is real too. Neven's more into that kind of thing than her, praying to the ancestors every day and giving offerings to the other world. If he's not mentioning it, then she won't.

"Prepare me a stick too," she says. "We'll walk the perimeter and see if we can see her."

They walk through the black with only the torches in their hands, the dot of fire, and the sound of the sleeping dragon to tell them they haven't wandered off too. They meet behind the dragon's back with nothing to show for it.

"We need to find her," he whispers. "If we don't find her soon she'll be lost forever. Anything could get her."

Bonnie tries to ignore the feeling that 'anything' is out there right now, watching them. He's right. They need to find her. There are too many stories of people going into the dark forest and never coming out. A long time ago after the purge of dark magic, King Robin sent armies into the Dark Forest to rid the circle of the last remnants of evil. Not one man who stepped into those trees ever stepped out.

They need the princess. In her focus on the dragon she'd forgotten the importance of that. The King needs the dragon dead and the princess returned to him before he'll give them the reward. Bonnie doesn't care about inheriting the circle, and Neven can wed the princess, but the riches and a knighthood do matter to her.

Her birth isn't that bad if she can prove her origins. Her mother was from one of the lesser houses, but her name still holds some respect. Her father, despite his low origins beyond the circle was a great knight. A dragon slayer. Were she a boy that might be enough to win the right to squire for some knight, and eventually become one. But she's a girl. Anyone who can verify her birth will verify that her parents only lived long enough to have one female child.

The only way she'll become a knight is if she proves her worth with no background to support her, like her father did. For that she needs the princess.

"We stick together," she says firmly. There's something solid about the black that surrounds them. It's childish, but she can't help the fear that if they step too far away from the fire, the darkness will swallow them whole like some living thing with thoughts and feelings, and a taste for blood. "We'll widen our perimeter, keeping the fire in our sight. If that fails, we may have to chance waking the dragon. The spell may bind him to her, and aid him in finding her."

"Wait," Neven says, turning his head toward the darkness. "Did you hear that?"

She strains her ears. Aside from the dragon's heavy breathing, and her thumping heart she hears nothing but the silence. The silence is as thick as the darkness, and carries its own noise, so loud it hurts her ears to focus on it. It's a hollow sound defined by its absence of sound. It seems to suck at her ears in a way that reminds her of the patches of quick mud around her village, or Neven's black holes of magic he says are out there in the stars.

"There it is again," Neven says, moving away from her, into the trees. The shadows close around him before he's taken two steps, torch and all. It's like he's stepping through a thick black curtain. "I know that voice. It's-"

His torch is gone, then his face and voice, then his head and body, until the only thing left is his right arm, trailing behind him. Panic stabbing at her chest, she grabs for it. Her fingers grasp his wrist a moment before the hand vanishes.

Then all at once she can see him again, dim but still there, as he should be. Had she imagined it? She takes her hand off his wrist gingerly, but he doesn't disappear.

He turns back to her, annoyed. "Are you coming or not?"

She opens her mouth to tell him what she saw, then closes it. He's mad enough with her already, for the cruel words she spoke, and for the whole situation with the dragon. She could explain that - or part of it, but those words hide away as well. "I'm coming," she says instead. "Just hold my hand. It's dark."

He looks at her curiously, then closes his hand over hers. He asks her no questions, which makes her love him more.

They walk together, side by side. He seems to know where he's going, weaving around trees that range in size from as round as the house they'd shared, to as thin as her arm. The sword is a comforting weight on her back, making her glad she'd thought to bring it along with the shield she'd plucked from the graveyard. Neven still has the metal cuffs attached to his arms, and the pack jingling with spare parts when he moves. Her pack still sits beside the fire, and with each step she wishes she'd brought it along too.

At least that black curtain is gone, she thinks before she happens to glance backward. The fire is nowhere to be seen. It could have disappeared behind a tree, or even the dragon if the angle was right. Only, she can't hear the dragon either, and given the noise he makes they should hear him for another hundred meters at least.

The light from their torches doesn't travel as far as it should. A few feet around him, the darkness seems to engulf it. The black curtain isn't gone, she realises. They're inside it.

"Neven," Bonnie says, tugging at his arm. "This is wrong. We have to go back to Gelert."

"Can't you hear him?" Neven laughs, breath puffing white. Laughing, in a place like this. "It's Ness. He must have followed us."

She hears nothing but that deafening silence. "Ness is marching to King's City to be trained for war. He's not here Neven."

"Yes he is," Neven says, pulling his hand from hers. The movement overbalances him, and he drops his torch. The flame dies on contact with the ground as quickly as if it had been dosed in water. It hisses steam up at them. Neven barely seems to notice. "He's right there. There-"

His eyes go wide in the dim firelight. Before she can grab for him, he runs off toward - something. She catches only a glimpse of it. It's an indistinct figure as tall as a man, with a body made of mist that stands a stark white against the black.

Then it wisps away as quickly as if it'd never been, and the black curtain swallows Neven whole.

"No!" She cries, running to where Neven had disappeared. The darkness recedes before her flickering torch the same as any darkness should, but an arms length away it turns stubborn. It keeps up its inky black wall around her, moving with her racing feet.

It's trying to separate us, she thinks wildly. Whatever is out there is trying to split them up, and then what? She doesn't know. She doesn't want to know. She just wants to find Neven and get out of here. Whatever her many reasons for killing the dragon, they aren't worth Neven's life.

Pain explodes in her head and shoulder, and she falls backward onto the cold ground. The torch flies out of her hand. "No!" She cries again, lurching toward it, but it lands and gutters out into steam on the cold ground.

Hesitatingly she puts her hand out to see what she ran into. Bark as cold as ice greets her fingertips. A tree. She ran into a tree.

Tears sting her eyes, hurting almost as much as her screaming head and throbbing shoulder. Something warm runs down her cheek, and she doesn't know whether she's crying or bleeding.

She wants Neven. She wants Gelert. She wants her dead parents. She wants Mrs Moore with her constant scolding and warm hugs, she wants Mr Moore with his simple no nonsense approach to life. She even wants Ness, though she doesn't know whether she'd hit him or hug him.

She can't do this. It's too much. She's no knight. She's just some girl whose father entertained with a few sword lessons. She can't fight dark magic, just like she can't fight a dragon. She was just kidding herself because of -

Because of the blood. Because of the box.

She's a girl. Girls can't be knights. All girls are good for is waiting around for some man to come and take care of them. Her father may not have thought that, but her mother did. All she wants right now is some knight in shining armour to come and save her and Neven.

"Wipe those tears Bon, and I'll tell you a story."

She spins around toward the voice, her hand reaching over her shoulder to grasp the hilt of her sword. She freezes.

He stands over her, looking as solid and real as he always had. He's tall with a strong build like Ness, and he has her bright blond hair and blue eyes. His face is clean shaven, something not common among knights.

"Da?" Her voice trembles.

"A story about dragons, knights," he crouches down to her level. He smiles that warm smile of his, and his eyes really seem to see her - for everything that she is. "Magic, and fierce maidens. Would you like that?"

She would. She wants that so badly, but something's not right. He's too solid, too real. Non-existent sunshine lights up his face like it would on one of their bright summer days at the stone house. Her mother had hated moving even the short distance away from their roundhouse to the city, but she loved the way the stone house captured the sun as much as they did. Around her the darkness wraps so completely that she can't see her hands.

"What are you?" She whispers, her lungs tight with cold and fear.

He frowns at her, puzzled. "Why, I'm your father Bon. Now, how about we see if we can drag that beautiful mother of yours out of the kitchen? She'll work herself to the grave, dutiful thing that she is."

No she won't, Bonnie thinks. But she'll die all the same. When he reaches out his hand to her she remembers how comforting his large callused hands felt wrapped around her small ones. How safe she always felt in his arms. She wants to take that hand, and go with him to see her mother again. She'd throw a fit over her clothes and hair, and scrub the mud from her until her skin was scoured pink, but she'd do it out of love.

Instead she takes a deep breath and draws her sword. It's light for its great size, enough to hold and even swing it one handed for short periods, but she holds it in two. It makes it easier to pretend her hands aren't shaking.

The thing pretending to be her father laughs. "Do you want to play swords now? We should wait until your mother is at her sewing. You know what she's like when she gets a project into her head. We shan't see her for hours, and when we do she'll have more pretty dresses for you to wear."

She raises herself to her feet, levels the point of the sword at the thing's neck. "What I want is my friends back. Give them to me unharmed and you might keep your life intact."

The thing's mouth twists into something too sharp for a smile. "Life?" He stands up, brushing non-existent dust off the red tunic and blue trousers her mother had sewn her father. His blue eyes fade until they are balls of mist. The merry tone drops from his voice, and it becomes something different - higher and stranger, but with enough of her father's sound to make her cringe. "What do you know about life? Taker of life is what you are Bonnie Ceana. Tell me. Why did you open the door? He told you not to. He told you never under any circumstance to open the door, yet you did. You opened the door, like you opened the box years before. You did this!"

All at once the front of his tunic is torn. The gash spreads dark over the red of the cloth, and the cloak around his shoulders is as pale a pink as any she's seen. Blood drips from his mouth, torso, and cloak. Whenever a drop hits the forest floor, it hisses and vanishes.

Bonnie stumbles back a step, both hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. Her heart pounds in her chest. For a moment she wants to do nothing more than drop her sword and run, but she can't do that. Neven is out there, so is the princess. Neither of them have a sword to defend themselves.

"Give me my friends," she says again, trying to keep her voice from shaking as much as her hands. "Or-"

"Or you'll take my life?" The sharp smile twists into something unnatural. Its features blur, becoming less recognisable. The cloak is gone, the clothes replaced by something shapeless. It laughs, and for a moment it's her father's laughter, then Neven's, then Ness's, then the twin's childish tones, until it becomes all of them warped together.

She swipes the sword through the thing's middle, almost falling when the blade passes through with no resistance. The thing turns from shapeless human to mist, then that wisps away. She spins, but there's nothing around her but black.

Her breath comes in frozen bursts, more out of emotion than exertion. It took her father's face. It knew things she'd never told anyone. How could it know those things? And more importantly, where is it now? She's not naive enough to think it might be defeated by one swing of a sword. Scared off if she's lucky, but not defeated.

"Bonnie?!" Neven's voice calls out of the darkness. "Where are you Bonnie?!"

He sounds scared, desperate, and alone. It could be a trick. The real Neven could be dead already for all she knows. There's no way to tell, except to follow the voice and find out. Follow the voice or walk away?

She follows, sword kept firmly in her hands. This time she keeps a steady pace, using her blade to find and avoid trees. Roots are more difficult to avoid. They seem to appear out of nowhere. Her mother's dance lessons come in handy for keeping her balance.

Finally she sees him ahead, bright in the solid black. It's only seeing that black curtain surrounding them again that she realises that it hadn't been there while she'd been walking. When had it gone? It was there when the thing was talking to her, she remembered, but after she'd cut it, the wall had gone as well. She files away that thought.

"Bonnie!" Neven says, sounding relieved. "I couldn't find you. I looked and looked, but there was all this black. But I think I saw some smoke coming from over there. We should go. It might be someone who can help."

"You don't want to help," Bonnie says. She slices her sword through his body, neck to groin.

He stares at her with wide brown eyes, then fades into a bright white mist and disappears. The black curtain goes too. It's still too dark to see her hand in front of her face, but it's less heavy. And she can hear Neven again - the real Neven - from the direction she'd been walking.

She starts on her way, quicker this time. It won't be long until it comes back.

"Neven?"

"Bon-Bonnie?"

Close. So close. She fumbles her way to him in the dark. He's standing with his back against a tree. She might have walked right past him, were he not hyperventilating. She'd have to be deaf not to hear the racket he's making - or separated from him by that curtain again.

"It's me Neven," she says, reaching out a hand to touch him.

He clings to her arm like he's drowning, and she's the only thing keeping him afloat. His grip is painful, but it's also real. That thing wouldn't feel like this, she knows somehow. It would be cold, she thinks. Beyond that she's not sure, and doesn't think she wants to be.

"I thought it was Ness," he says, the words clumsy and stumbling. "It sounded like Ness, and it looked like him. He was dressed all in uniform. He was covered in blood Bonnie! Every inch of him from head to toe, like he'd bathed in it. And - it - he - I think he was dead. He kept asking 'why did you leave? Why didn't you take me with you?' Why didn't we Bonnie? We could have. What if he goes to war and never comes back?"

"It wasn't him," she says, finding his shoulder and clasping it tight. "It's something else. It must have lured the princess away like it did us. It wants us separated and scared. We have to stick together and stay calm."

"It's not him now," Neven says. His voice hiccups wetly, like he's been crying. "But what if it's showing us the future? What if Ness dies like my father? What if everyone dies because of what we did?"

"King Robin is a just King," she says. "Everyone says so. The soldiers attacked your father because he attacked them. Everyone else fled. As long as they can't prove they were involved, they can't hurt them. Ness will go off to war and have as much of a chance as everyone else - more even. He's young and strong. Were he born into riches he would have already squired and become a knight." What she doesn't add is that he would have trained since toddler-hood with a sword as she had to get that knighthood. Ness may be strong, but strength doesn't compete with years of training. They have to hope whoever he faces has as little training as he does.

"And what of my mother?" he asks. The tears stay out of his voice, but his heavy breathing tells her it's a struggle. "A woman on her own has enemies, and no one to protect her from them."

Bonnie doesn't say what's on the tip of her tongue: that she may already be dead. Witnesses would have seen her hurry them away. If she didn't give a convincing enough explanation, that may be enough to convict her. "We find the princess. We kill the dragon. We get out of the forest. With the reward money we'll be able to claim her and keep her safe. She can live the rest of her days with food in her belly and silks on her skin."

She can practically hear Neven turn the words over in his head. "We find the princess."

Silence buzzes in her ears. She looks up to see the heavy blackness around them again. White mist materialises, forming the rough shape of a human. It swirls, constantly moving, as if it can't decide whether it's short or tall, fat or thin. "We find the princess."

Bonnie keeps a hand on Neven's shoulder. She raises her sword with the other, her muscles feeling the weight. There's a click that tells her Neven has his arms out, those metal shooters at the ready.

The mist rushes together, taking on shape and colour. One moment it's formless mist, the next princess Alice stands before them, her dress bright blue under Bonnie's brown one. Her green eyes go wide. "What are you doing? You're scaring me."

"Where is the real Alice?" Neven shouts. There's fear in his voice, but anger overshadows it. "Tell us where she is!"

"You have a good heart son," Neven's father says, strolling out of the black wall to stand at Alice's side. White mist trails behind him. He's younger by a few years, his skin not quite as weather roughened. He has the clothes on he wears to market; cleaner than his usual. "And life takes no greater pleasure than destroying people with good hearts. I've seen it happen. I've told you to ignore her, but since you won't listen, you take this on yourself. She's your responsibility. Make sure she keeps her head down. There's no-one more at risk in this world than a woman who can't follow the rules."

He's talking about her, she realises. When Neven saw her scrounging for food at the market and decided to take her in. The figures fade in and out between mist and person.

Her father joins them, smiling and asking if she wants to see what he brought back for her from his trip. Her mother materialises beside her, launching into a tirade about the state of her clothes, and the pout on her face. She doesn't notice her haircut or the sword in her hand. She's scolding a younger Bonnie, not her. Jack joins them, then the pig farmer, Neven's mother, Ness, the twins. They form a circle around them, blocking them in from all sides.

Bonnie tugs Neven away from the tree, pulling at him until they're back to back. They fled before her sword before. All she needs to do is cut a hole and they can run through it. But, there's so many of them. What if they chase after them? What if she loses Neven running through the dark, or one of them trips and breaks something?

And where do they go? There is nowhere to go. For all she knows they've been running around in circles this whole time. Each way looks like the other. She's no idea which way might lead her to the princess, or Gelert. The dragon could give them an edge if he's still under the spell, but first they'd have to find him.

The things - whatever they are - start moving toward them, closing the circle. Her parent's outfits change to the ones they wore the day they died, covered in blood. Ness is as Neven described him; drenched in red from head to toe. Alice's face turns gaunt, her black ringlets limp and dull, as she would've been if they'd left her to starve after her spells broke. They keep talking; one voice overlapping the other to create wave after wave of sound.

"Why did you open the door?" Her father asks at the same time her mother asks: "Why did you open the box?" "Why did you let us die?" They ask together. Mr Moore asks the same thing, and his wife breaks into sobs.

They reach out their hands toward them. Their eyes fill with mist. It drips down their faces like tears. "You can make it better," they say as one. "Give us a taste of life." "Only a taste," her father adds, the ends of his blond hair trailing mist. "It's so long since we've been warm," the haggard Alice says.

She waits until they're close enough to feel the cold leeching from their skin, then she slashes her sword. Three of their arms disappear at the elbow in a blur of white. The rest of their bodies turn back to that indistinct white mist. Behind her Neven's shooters give a high pitched whine as they fire at their target.

Bonnie spins, slashing left and right. Each one she cuts turns back to formless mist, but this time they don't disappear. There's no opening to run through, only a wall of white, surrounded by the wall of black. They're still trapped. The things press in closer. They have no mouths, but she can hear them whispering in languages she doesn't recognise. One has the high pitched cries of a child calling for his mother. Another sounds like the desperate prayer of a woman, the words pushed together like she's scared she won't have time to finish.

The sword does nothing to stop the progress of the mist. The white parts for her blade, then closes afterwards. Tendrils reach to touch her face, drawing a freezing line down her cheek. It has a wetness to it, like being touched by snow, except no snow would bite so deep. It feels as if it reached through skin and muscle to turn the bones of her skull to ice.

"We have to run Bonnie," Neven chokes out behind her. "Bonnie we have to-"

He grabs her free hand and tugs so hard she almost drops her sword. It's white all around them, but he's right. They have no choice. Together they run toward one of the patches of mist. They duck their heads as they pass through, her trying to cleave them a path with her sword.

The metal passes through the mist easily. They don't.

Cold air forces its way into their lungs. She can feel them shrivelling as they make their protest. They stumble through the white to the other side, then Neven falls to his knees and she follows.

She tries to take a breath, but it won't come. Her lungs are too small for air, and her throat and mouth are so dry she's sure her whole airway must be cracked open and bleeding. Every inch of her is numb, from her face to her toes. A glance down at her hands tells her they're a blotchy mess of purple and red, some of the fingers stark white. Somewhere along the way she's dropped her sword.

Neven looks up at her weakly from his hands and knees. Ice clumps his eyelashes together, and frost gleams across his clothes and hair. As he shivers, his messy brown hair moves little, each strand frozen in place.

Bonnie's eyes widen as she takes in the reason why she can see him again in the darkness. One of the mist forms is crouched right next to him, wrapping itself around him. It swirls as Neven shivers, his eyes fighting to stay open.

"Stop," she tries to say, but her mouth won't move. "Leave him alone." She tries to grab it, and overbalances, collapsing forward onto the hard dirt.

It might have heard her anyway, because a moment later agony blazes through every nerve ending. It's as if she's been stabbed in a dozen places with icicles, each one spreading a path of cold throughout her body.

The pain lasts seconds, then a heavy feeling replaces it. A drowsy warmth tingles to life in her chest. Every finger feels like it weighs as much as her dragon. All she can see is a hazy mix of darkness and light, and Neven surrounded by a soft glow.

It hurts to think. There's something she has to do, but she can't remember what. The dragon? She had to kill the dragon, and she can't remember why. She pushes the thought away. It's not important. Gelert is her friend. Why would she want to kill him?

A flash of white blinds the sky.

Air burns as it trickles into her lungs, and with it the noise floods back into the world. Screaming makes her wish it'd stayed silent. A dozen different voices cry out, some in anger, but most in anguish. A stab of pity hits her, even with her tingling limbs and pounding head. They sound broken, like they've lost everything.

They have, she thinks, drawing in a breath that doesn't freeze her lungs. They've lost her and Neven. Something made them let go.

The white light flickers into blue, then red, then burnt orange. She pushes at the ground weakly, her muscles standing up to the task about as well as if they were made of watery porridge. The light is warm on her numb face. It dances above them like flame.

Gelert, she thinks. Gelert came to save them. Only, when she manages to raise her head from the dirt it's not Gelert she sees.

A woman stands over them, a black cloak pulled over a face as well-worn as old leather. Her back is crooked, and the hair peeking out from under the cloak is white as bone. She glances down at them with one pale eye, the other nothing but a dark hole in the side of her head. Her mouth gapes open, lips loose around naked gums.

Flames every colour of the rainbow streak from a waist high wooden staff, spreading across the sky in waves. A witch.

Chapter 10

"Drink up my dear," the witch says, with a gummy smile. "It's only milk and honey, but it should bring back some warmth to your bones."

Bonnie looks down at her cup; a tiny delicate thing made of wood and carved with prancing kittens. She glances back up at the witch with mistrust. The witch said her name was Claudia and to call her that, but it doesn't fit her, like her house doesn't fit her.

Witches are synonymous with black magic. Everyone knows that. It takes special training, and a certain kind of person to wield magic wisely and become a druid. They start their training before ten summers of age, and are older than herself and Neven when they are allowed to perform the simplest of spells. The uneducated witches are dangerous to everyone they come across.

Magic has a price, and if you don't know how to pay that price correctly, it takes. Sometimes it's only the witch that suffers, but often magic will take from those around them as well. Crops suffer, children are stricken with sudden disease, whole flocks of animals die without cause.

Witches are evil. They feed off the people around them to get the things they want. Little more than parasites, Jack always said. They featured a lot in his puppet shows, sacrificing other's animals for beauty, even their own children for youth. They form pacts with dark spirits to kill people, and poison cities for fun.

This house doesn't look like it's owned by someone who talks with dark spirits. It's a roundhouse in shape, but the walls are made from carved wood instead of wattle and daub. A stone hearth burns in the middle of the room, and opposite the door, the cabinet stands packed with some of the smaller carvings.

Every surface, and most of the walls are covered with knitted wool of some description, giving it a cosy feel. You can't look in any direction without seeing a carving standing on the dirt floor or jutting out of a wall. Even the table they're sitting around is held up by a strange, but happy looking creature with huge ears and a long wooden nose.

"An elephant," the witch says, seeing her looking. Having no teeth slurs her speech, but Bonnie soon finds her ears adjusting to it. "My King thought them magic, until he managed to procure one from the Romans to study. A creature of flesh and blood like you or I, but no less magnificent don't you think?"

"The King doesn't trade with anyone outside the circle," Neven says. He'd been near frozen through after they finally gave up the search for Alice to find warmth. His skin still veers too much toward blue, but now he's sipping his milk his eyes are more focused.

Bonnie takes that as a good sign and takes a sip of hers. It tastes sweet and warm, the heat settling comfortably in her stomach.

"This King doesn't. A folly that will cost him. No man can achieve great things without help, and no country can achieve greatness without looking to others for ideas." She takes a long drink from her carved cup, decorated with songbirds. "No child, it wasn't your King I was speaking of, it was mine. King Goron, father of this King Robin before a dragon slew him. King Goron was a different kind of King. Courageous. We invaded more countries than I can count, and every one bended their knee to us. He knew more of magic than anyone who came before him, and after him I would think."

Neven's mouth gapes open and closed. Bonnie feels the same way. "King Goron died one thousand years ago."

Claudia chuckles into her cup. "And you're surprised at little old me for living that long, but not King Robin for looking much better than I do after these long centuries. Or King Goron. No one's sure about his age, but everyone agrees he had at least five centuries before he met his end."

Neven splutters, then stays silent, obviously not wanting to offend her. Bonnie has no such qualms.

"You're a witch," she says bluntly. "Trained druids help the King stay youthful. Witches have no such training."

Claudia's one dark eye dances with humour. "And what makes you children so sure I'm not a druid?"

"Only highborn males are chosen to become druids," Neven says quickly, before ducking his head to analyse the carvings on his cup, and avoid that peering eye. "You're no male."

"I was trained by my King's chief druid herself. Also a woman. My mother" Her toothless smile becomes mischievous. "He believed that in some ways women made stronger druids than men. So he bought several women slaves and taught them his magic. That was a kindness, but also a cruelty. You see, your strength at magic depends on understanding the way the world works, concentration, knowing the price for the spell, and how much you love what you give up. Every time one of his druids bore a babe, they would give it up. I never saw what happened to them, but my mother thanked her King every day for allowing her to keep me. And once I bore my own son, I thanked the ancestors every day when my King died before he could make me give him up. I loved my King, but I loved my son more."

Neven chews his lip. "So you could be a druid even if you aren't a highborn male?"

"Child, let me give you some advice," Claudia swirls her cup before downing the rest of the contents. "The world is going to tell you what you can't do all your life. Never make it easy for them. Choose a dream and work your fingers to the bone making it come true. I won't lie and say it'll happen, but I can say with certainty that if you don't try it will definitely never happen. So try, and maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones. Luck loves those that try, and hates those that don't."

The words cause Bonnie's thoughts to whirl back to Alice. Alice out there in the dark with those things. If her own dream is ever to come true then she needs Alice. Her chances of becoming a knight like her father begin and end with her. She swallows the rest of the milk, then pushes herself to her feet. "We've warmed up. We need to look for our friend again."

Claudia shakes her head sadly. "The lost ones are still out there, and I fear I'm running out of staff to chase them off." She raises the stick of carved wood. It's half the size it was, now a little over the length of her forearm. The end is charred. "I've been carving a new one, but it'll take a few more weeks to finish. The longer you labour over these things, the more you come to love them, and the stronger the magic you can use them for. My staffs do not last so long these days. The life of a druid is a hard one. The heart can only lose so much before starts to wonder if a life without love would be an easier one."

"What are those things?" Neven asks, shivering from under the heavy woollen blanket Claudia had wrapped around his shoulders. "Will they hurt her?"

"They don't intend to," Claudia shuffles her crooked form around the table, gathering up the cups. She pauses to fuss with Neven's blanket, tucking it around him tight. "The lost ones are not evil, though doubtless many think of them that way. They were once people like you and me. They fled the wrath of King Robin. Many did in the years of the purge. They met their sad ends. Most times the ancestors gather up souls, and bring them through the water to the other world. But when a soul clings to life, perhaps caught in suffering, it gets lost and can't find the way. They forget everything that they are, except that they knew life once, and it was glorious compared to their cold, emotionless existence. They are shy, sweet creatures."

Neven snorts, his expression sour. "They tricked us. They pretended to be a friend of mine. They lured Alice away from us."

"They've forgotten everything they are. Yet when they meet someone they're little small children, excited to communicate." Claudia busies herself around the room, pulling a bowl of what looks like honey cake from one of the wooden cupboards. "But you need to know who you are to communicate, so they reach into the person's mind and take the form of the one closest to the surface of their thoughts. They'll try to get you alone so they can connect with you. Every human dead or alive desires connection with another. But sooner or later their excitement overcomes their shyness and they touch you, wrapping themselves around you and tasting your life. As you can see, it doesn't end well for their new friends."

"Which is why we need to be out there," Bonnie says as firmly as she can manage. For most women that would be enough, but Claudia isn't most women. A couple of boys aren't going to intimidate an old witch this far away from King Robin's rule. "Alice is important. She's-" she breaks off, thinking how to best explain why they need her without mentioning the dragon. Even a witch might mistrust anyone travelling with a dragon. The lost ones might kill, but they'd do so without intending to harm. Dragons live for nothing but killing. What is evil, if not a creature like that? "She's our friend, and it's not safe. She doesn't know how to protect herself. She'll be scared. You know these woods. Help us."

"I'll take another look if it will calm you child," Claudia says with a sigh. She places the honey cake in the middle of the table, serving them each up a slice without asking. "But you two stay here, eat and sleep. I sleep in my armchair more often than not these days, so you two use the bed. And don't argue with me child, by the gods you're a stubborn one. The lost ones will stay away from me with a short warning, but you'll lure them like flies to honey. The both of you stink of life."

Bonnie frowns, shifting where she stands to better feel the comforting weight of the sword on her back. "We can't just stay here and do nothing."

"Staying is exactly what you'll do," Claudia wraps a shawl around herself, her expression fierce. "My house is the only one for miles. The only one in the whole forest for all I know. If this princess of yours goes anywhere, she'll be following the smoke from my chimney to here. So stay, wrap yourselves up warm, and perhaps she'll be here before I get back. Don't be alarmed if you feel a chill. The lost ones often wander close, but they won't come in as long as the fire's burning. They don't like the light. It makes them remember."

Neven opens his mouth to argue. Thinking quickly, Bonnie gets there first. She sits in front of her cake, forcing what she hopes looks like a polite nod. "Thank you for all your help. We're both really grateful."

Neven turns to stare at her for a beat too long, then he turns back to the woman. "Yes. Really grateful."

Neven twitches impatiently in his chair until Claudia shuffles out the door, a blue glow trailing off the end of her staff like smoke. She gives them a measured look before she closes the oval door, as if trying to tell whether they meant to listen to her instruction and stay put.

She doesn't need to worry. Bonnie isn't going to brave the lost ones without magic. Her bones are still frozen through from last time, and she's starting to think it won't come to any good.

"What was that?" Neven hisses once the door clicks shut. "I know you don't like Alice, but we can't leave her out there."

Bonnie pushes away her honey cake. She hasn't had cake since the previous summer when Jack visited Porthdon with his puppets and bought some for her, but right now she has no hunger. "She called Alice a princess."

"So?" Neven wrinkles his nose in confusion. "She is a princess."

"How does she know that Neven?" Bonnie shrugs the half charred shield off her shoulder in frustration. It clunks to the dirt floor and rattles against carved wood of her chair. "Neither of us mentioned that, so how does she know?"

***

Bonnie crawls out from under the pile of blankets, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't meant to sleep. They were still cold from their encounter with the lost ones, so when a chill stole over the house it seemed natural to wait it out under some blankets on Claudia's straw filled bed. All that dragon slaying and walking the previous day must have taken it out of her, because morning greets her blinking eyes. Neven and the witch sit side by side at the round table, pouring over a dusty looking book.

Something uneasy crawls under her skin. They look entirely too friendly for comfort. She digs in the woollen blankets before she finds her father's sword, still securely in its scabbard and harness. The charred shield leans against the bed. She feels better once both are in her rightful places on her back and shoulder. Then a horrible thought occurs to her, leaving her twice as wary as before. What good can a sword do against magic?

"Come over here dear. Next to the fire," Claudia says, that one eye fixing on her. "I've prepared breakfast. A simple fare given freely by the forest. Egg, roast bird, some greens. Sit, eat. You've had quite the journey from what your friend has been telling me."

Bonnie turns sharply to Neven, trying to keep her emotions off her face.

"Yes," Neven says quickly. He twiddles his fingers on the carved table, but manages not to blush. "It was silly of us. We just wanted to see the dragon island with our friend Jack, but we got distracted playing and when we got back the boat was gone. We knew another boat wouldn't come for weeks, so we had no choice except to try and cross the forest."

"You might have been better off waiting. This forest is not one to enter lightly, and it's certainly no place for children." Claudia smiles a toothless smile at Bonnie, and pats the empty place next to her.

Bonnie has no choice but to sit. She does so carefully, adjusting her sword and dropping her shield by the legs of her chair. Her father wouldn't have approved of that. Wearing weapons at the breakfast table isn't what you'd call polite, and as good as he'd been with a sword, his ability to charm was just as polished. Though some took offence to his tendency to talk directly to women instead of through their husbands, she'd rarely seen one of his conversations last longer than two minutes without a smile or laugh from the other party.

It's situations like now that a part of her wishes she had learnt that way of charming people along with sword fighting. The witch is hiding something, and it has to do with Alice.

She tries to hold out, but the smells of meat and egg get the better of her, just like the honey cake had the night before. Pulling the wooden bowl toward her, she starts shovelling it in her mouth. It's good. The meat is well cooked and glazed with something sweet, and the eggs are rich and creamy. At home they ate well after a harvest, but at other times got by mostly on watered oats. Almost four years living with the Moores taught her tongue to appreciate flavoursome foods when she gets them.

"I was just telling Neven that I've found no sign of your poor friend." Claudia's mouth droops like she's genuinely sad. "But don't you worry. We're not giving up. Why, me and Neven are going through my old book right now to see if we can find a spell that might work." Her wrinkled hand reaches over to pat Bonnie's arm. A knife, Bonnie decides. That's what she needs. A sword is too cumbersome in such close quarters, and over her back it takes too long to draw. She decides then and there that she won't even take breakfast without a knife hanging from her belt, as well as the sword on her back.

"We've found a dozen locating spells so far," Neven says, his eyes brightening. "Some of them look simple. Claudia says I can be the one to cast it. Me Bon-Boone. Real magic."

He looks like a child come harvest feast. She should be happy for him. Casting magic is something few get the honour to do, but her mind fills with images from Jack's stories. Men waking up after a spell with the wished for pile of gold, and all their limbs gone, and family dead. "Is that safe?"

"These spells are the result of many generations of experimentation, finding the lowest cost techniques for performing spells." The witch looks fondly at the thick leather-bound book. "His lack of focus will heighten the cost, but locater spells are inherently simple things. It will not ask for much."

Bonnie presses her lips together. She still doesn't trust her, and not all of that is down to her being a witch. The dark forest is evil, and only evil things can survive within its trees. If the woman has been here as long as the carved house and all its carved furniture suggest, that can only mean bad things. "Why are you helping us? What's in it for you?"

Claudia flinches back from her like she'd been scalded. "Oh child. What kind of life have you led to make you ask such a thing? You're two children in need of my help, and I can help. What more should there be?"

"Gold usually," Bonnie says between mouthfuls of meat. She forgoes the wooden fork to bite pieces off with her teeth. Most of her life she's had someone nearby to rap her fingers for unladylike behaviour such as this, but she knows from feasts that Ness gets away with it. It's a relief not to have to think so carefully about how she's acting. She needs those wits for other things. "Everyone wants something. We're the sons of a farmer, not lords or knights, we don't have anything to give. So why are you offering to teach Neven magic?"

"There are more valuable things in life than gold or glory." The witch shakes her head to herself, gathering up their empty bowls. "It may surprise you in seeing me all the way out here, but once I lived happy in a town teeming with people. My son and I sold herbs to cure ailments and heal wounds. Not magic you understand, just the right plants with the right preparation. Ours was a busy market town, but everyone loved me and my son. We wouldn't charge those who were too poor to pay. Our products were popular at market, so why would we need to? Often we were called to help someone hurt, and we did so happily. I was bred to serve. And freed I discovered doing so by choice was nothing less than euphoric. I take no pleasure in causing suffering, but causing joy begets more joy. I think it's the same with most people who have true freedom to choose what they do with their time."

A witch who's a saint. Bonnie doesn't believe that for a second. Neven seems to though, from the way he shoots Bonnie a dark look, like she's the enemy here.

Why are you lying then, she might've said to the witch. What about Alice are you not telling us? "When will you cast the spell," she asks instead.

"First I need to gather some things from the forest," Claudia says, plucking a woven basket from among a group of carved animals sat along the cupboards that held the food. "Most of those spells need some ingredients I don't have, and I remember all too well how much growing boys eat. I imagine you'll be here a few days yet until we can find a safe way to get you home."

She moves swiftly for her age. Picking up the small staff leaning against the wall next to the door, she turns to give them one last hard look with that eye of hers. "Get some fresh air if you wish, but keep your eyes on the house. The lost ones hide from the light, but the trees play tricks even in the day. Neven, read all you want, but don't try any of the spells without me there. Boone, please try to smile more dear. There's honey cake in the cupboard."

It's an effort to keep herself fixed to the chair once the door closes. There are more important things than cake she tells herself firmly. "Do you think you could do one of those locating spells without her?"

Neven frowns. "I guess so. Some of them look pretty simple, and Claudia told me about visualisations and things. But we should wait for her to come back. Magic is dangerous if something goes wrong, and she told us to wait."

"And I'm telling you I don't trust her. She knows something about Alice."

"She's a druid," Neven says, turning back to the book. "Druids know things. She has magic. It doesn't mean she knows where she is."

It could be true. She doesn't claim to know the ins and outs of how magic works. She's seen druids before, wandering through court when she'd lived near the City. They'd been tall dignified men with an air of power cloaking them at all times. They spoke little, but when they did everyone fell silent to hear their words, even the King. The ways of their magic is a secret thing, talked about only behind the thick walls of the academy, on an island far on the east side of the circle, where young boys become young druids.

"What if this is all a trick?" Bonnie asks. "She said herself, she's not of highborn blood. She can call herself a druid, but no druid would accept her as such. That makes her a witch, and you know what witches are."

"Like I know what women are?" Neven hunches over the yellowed pages of the book, his shoulders tense. "If a woman can be a knight, then can't a low born be a druid? You can't break everything that's normal in the pursuit of this fool quest of yours, then mistrust someone who has more claim to their title than you do. She trained as a druid. She was a druid. Times changing doesn't change that. I'll bet she has more skill than all the druids in the circle put together. She was trained by a king."

A king that invaded countless countries and turned their people into slaves. A king that killed men, women, even children by the thousands to fuel his power. Everyone knows the tales of Goron the bloody king. "If she was so good, then why is she hiding in the dark forest. Did she tell you what she did to deserve that? She's lying to you."

"And you aren't?" This is a side of Neven she's never seen before. Neven who turns meek when confronted, and is always the first to back down from a fight. True, he'd spoke his mind more to her than most, but there's a fierceness that twists his expression into one she doesn't recognise. "I know you Bonnie. I know you're not stupid enough to try to kill a dragon, not even for a knighthood. There's something you're not telling me. If you want me to trust you, then you have to be honest with me."

He's right. It stings, but she knows he's right. He's stuck by her when others hadn't. He gave her food and shelter, and a place to call home when she had none. He even saved her from the dragon, and she doesn't underestimate how much courage that must have cost him. She owes him the truth. "Gelert. He's not just any dragon. And the King didn't capture him from beyond the circle like everyone says he did. His men captured him from my house after he - it - killed my parents. That's why I have to kill it, to avenge my parents. It's what any good son would do."

Neven stares at her, his brown eyes gone big and round. His mouth hangs open. Whatever he'd expected her to say, it clearly wasn't this. He reaches across the table and clasps her hand in his. That's when she realises she's shaking. "I don't - why didn't you kill the dragon when you had the chance?"

It's a hard question to answer, one that makes her think of doors and boxes. She doesn't want to think of that wooden box covered in dried blood, or those doors shaking under the blows. She doesn't want to remember what she did. "My father killed dragons. None of them ever made it easy for him. If he could do it, then so can I."

Neven gives her a long look, like he's trying to see if he believes her. Finally he turns back to the book, flipping through the pages. "I saw a spell that looked simple enough. I've already checked, and we have the ingredients for it."

Chapter 11

Bonnie watches Neven prepare to cast his first magic with her hand firmly on the hilt of a knife. She knows that if it goes wrong, all the swords and the knives in the world won't stop what happens next, but it gives her some comfort. Someone once told her that magic is like standing before Gods and asking them for a favour. You'd best know exactly what you're doing, or they're just as likely to tear you into pieces as grant your request.

He reads through the yellowed page of the book for the tenth time, and then smoothes out the map for the eleventh. The map barely deserves that name at all. Bonnie drew it, as she has more experience with penmanship than Neven, and is the only one of them who has actually seen a map. Still, writing had never been her favourite subject, and her mother hadn't considered it an important subject either. Reading is a fine thing for a highborn woman to learn, to keep themselves quiet and occupied, but writing is for men who can put the letters to good use. So the lines are heavy and scrawled, and in many places the ink is blotched. The parchment is rougher than she's used to which only serves to spread out the ink more.

A small lopsided circle sits in the middle of the page. Above it are the words 'Claudia's house' in messy uneven letters. She's taken care to add in the small shed outside where the witch keeps most of her stores, the wood pile at the back of the house, the small vegetable patch beside it, and the carved rocking chair that sits in the largest patch of sun. She even circled the house carefully, trying to place bushes and trees on her map as they are in life. Everything beyond that is a blank of yellowed parchment. They'd considered adding trees, but didn't want to confuse things by adding trees where there should be a clearing, and clearings where there should be trees. The spell says the more accurate the map, the more accurate the location given, but this should serve to give them an approximate direction.

He holds his hand out to Bonnie, and grudgingly she presses the hilt of the knife into his palm. She feels weaker without it, despite the weight of the sword on her back and the charred shield on her shoulder.

Neven shifts as if the bag on his back weighs a lot heavier than when they were running through the forest. Nether of them speak of it, but both are kitted with everything they had before the old woman found them, and everything they need to leave her. Bonnie knows Neven would rather stay. For whatever reason, he trusts the witch, and magic lets him dream a life beyond taking over his father's farm and scraping by on what small portion of his hard earned money the King doesn't take as tax.

She understands the lure of dreams. Farming is good honest work, and she doesn't doubt many a man can live a happy life with a spade in one hand, and seeds in the other, but she also doesn't doubt that Neven is not such a man. He's too curious, always wondering how things work, what he can do to transform metal and wood into creations up until then only alive in his imagination.

The druids might not take him at his age, but watching him, she resolves to use the gold earned from avenging her parents to persuade them to try.

Neven squeezes his eyes shut and draws the knife quickly over the ball of his thumb. The knife clatters on the table, and he stares at the blood welling up with a grey face. He swallows like he might throw up. "You can get this sickness from being cut by old metal. A poisoning of the blood. It draws up all your muscles tight, and your jaw locks shut. In the end you starve to death."

"The knife is clean," Bonnie says, picking it up and wiping it off on her shirt before slipping it onto her belt. "You're not poisoned."

Neven gives a slow nod, still staring at his thumb. Eventually he shakes off whatever thoughts haunt him, and turns back to the book. Holding his thumb over the map he begins to chant. The words are gibberish to Bonnie. Some long dead language that sounds sweet even on Neven's halting tongue.

Bonnie shifts on the other side of the table, hand on the hilt of her knife, and one eye on the door. Unease makes her twitchy. If anyone outside of this forest were to see what Neven is doing, it would mean a burning for him, as well as her for aiding him.

Fire consumes all. The ancestors may live forever in the worlds through the water, but those who die by fire do not. Some say they go to somewhere else - a hellish place sometimes glimpsed in the flames if you strain your eyes enough. Others believe fire has the power to consume everything; mind, body and soul. All gone like it never existed. It's part of why dragons are so hated. They can give the forever death as easily as breathing.

Bonnie doesn't know which she prefers. Neither sounds a good way for things to end.

Neven sways a little as he squeezes the blood from his thumb onto the childish map, but he doesn't faint. Bonnie's legs twitch, wanting to walk around the table and help him, but she knows she can't. Neven had explained it to her. Magic is all about what you give up, and his magic will be stronger if he pays the cost freely with no help. Since he's new to this, and only paying with a few drops of blood, he needs all the added strength he can get.

The voices of the birds outside seem deafening. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, feeling like someone is watching them closely. She looks around the room, but nothing looks back at her apart from the many wooden carvings. She shoves the feeling aside. Now is not the time for fear.

The blood drops quiver on the parchment. Seven drops, the spell had said. Of course, the spell is from the witch, and witches lie. It would be a simple trick to say that a spell needs less magic than it does. Magic doesn't care about honest mistakes, all it cares about is getting paid. It would take from Neven, drawn to the things he loves most. The hands he uses to make his creations, his wits, his mother, her.

That's part of the reason why Bonnie wants to do this without Claudia watching. She can't sabotage what she doesn't know about. Unless she does know about it...

All at once the blood drops move, gliding across the parchment like raindrops sliding down polished metal. Bonnie lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. Some of the tension drains out of her. It's working, which means it's accepted the price.

By all rights the blood should drain into the page like the ink it passes over. Instead it skates over the material, leaving no marks, or smudges in the fresh ink. The seven drops march one after the other in a circle, chasing each other until one speeds up and is swallowed by the drop before it. That drop races to catch the next drop in the line, and so on until only one fat drop of blood circles on the map.

It veers outward, its circle widening until it circles the edge of the map. Then it spirals inward. The circle slowly getting smaller and smaller, winding around the trees, around the witch's roundhouse, until it stops all at once over the shed she uses to store her food. A heartbeat later the drop of blood drains into the paper, leaving no mark or stain to say it ever existed.

Neven looks at Bonnie, his face twisted in pain. He doesn't know this lesson, she realises with a lurch. He's never trusted someone, then had that trust betrayed like it meant nothing. He doesn't know how to take the feelings and shove them down until only dull anger remains.

Bonnie takes her fingers from the knife to pull her father's sword out of its scabbard. "Come on," she says, the weight reassuring in her hand. "Let's go rescue our princess."

***

The shed is cold. Long lengths of branches stand together side by side, bark and all to make the square shape like most of the houses in King's City. The cracks are filled in with straw and mud.

It's a warm day. What little sun reaches them is an equal mix of unbearable and pleasant. Even with the dense trees towering over the witch's house like giants, the shed should not be cold. The bark glints, its rough surface shrouded in frost.

A crunch echoes through the stillness, making them both jump. Bonnie glances down to see the grass beneath her feet is frozen solid.

Her heart beats wildly in her chest, like it wants to burst free and run away. The lost ones were here. How recently, she can't tell. For all she knows they could still be here now, watching them.

"Claudia said they were afraid of the light," Neven says, his voice shaking. He stands at her side, looking down at the frozen grass.

Her stomach falls to her knees as she stares at the frosted door. Part of her already knows what she's going to find even before her hand grips the freezing rope handle, wrenching it open. Wood parts from wood with a crack. "It's dark inside."

Dark doesn't describe it. The front of the shed holds a normal gloom, what you'd expect from a shed under the shadow of trees. On the left stands a wooden rack filled with jars, boxes, and sacks; all labelled with what food they contain. On the right is a bookcase, jammed full of books for every age from toddler to adult. Most of the older books seem to be encyclopaedias about different things, from plants to magical creatures.

Half way down the rack, and just beyond the bookcase the shed vanishes. In its place is a wall of black. The black curtain.

"It looks like \- I thought I saw something like it in the woods when the lost ones were chasing us." Neven glances back over his shoulder, like he expects to see the lost ones appear. "Do you think she's in there?"

"The spell said so." Bonnie hesitates in the doorway. The witch could be back any minute. They need to grab Alice and be as far away as possible when she does, but anything could be beyond that darkness. "It'll part for us if we get close. Torches might help if we do meet lost ones."

Neven narrows his eyes. "If I leave to get a torch, how can I be sure you won't go in there without me?"

A noise erupts out of the darkness, halting whatever poor argument she might've come up with. It's wet and laced with pain. A child. It's the sound of a child crying.

Bonnie meets Neven's eyes, then they walk as one into the darkness. It moves aside for them, as the black curtain did the previous night, but it seems different. It ripples like something alive, and the taste isn't the same. Last night the air had tasted crisp and cold, like after a fresh snowfall. This air still tastes cold, but it also tastes of the minutes before a storm when your hair stands on end and your whole body tingles.

She glances back over her shoulder to see that the curtain had closed behind them. It's only an illusion, she tells herself. The door is still right there. A shiver not caused by the cold travels down her spine anyway.

"Bonnie," Neven says sharply.

Bonnie turns, her sword held ready. His use of her real name sets her nerves blaring danger. What she sees is not what she expects.

Alice lies on the dirt floor of the shed, face pale, eye closed. Five of the witch's thick woollen blankets are wrapped around her, but her lips are tinted blue. A boy no older than eight leans over her, his little hands on her shoulders. He wears the cotton clothes of a fairly paid merchant's child. Pink shorts and bleached white shirt show his parent's wealth compared the rougher materials of peasants, but a lack of silks and velvets single him out as not one of the high born.

"I tried to help," he says, turning to them. He has an honest face with wide features and skin so dark that his many freckles give him a dappled appearance. His eyes are almost as dark as the ink black of his shorn hair. "She said she was cold. I just wanted to warm her up. Now she won't wake."

Bonnie has never been good with children, not even when she was one. The boy's face screws up, on the verge of tears again. Something inside her quails at the sight. Give her a monster she can battle with her sword. She'll take that any day over watching a child cry.

Neven crouches down beside the pair, putting a hand on Alice's forehead. The girl doesn't stir. He sits back on his heels. "What exactly did you do to her?"

"Neven we don't have time for this," Bonnie says, starting forward. The black curtain is all around them, writhing like something in pain. Hers and Neven's breaths come out in ragged wisps of white. A few white tendrils even pass through Alice's blue lips. "The lost ones are close, and the witch could come back any time. Help me lift her. We need to go."

"I just gave her a hug," the boy says, his voice shaking. "Mama said she was mine now, and I just wanted to give her a hug."

Bonnie's footsteps still. Her heart seems to still too, quivering in her chest. She tries to swallow, but her mouth is suddenly too dry. White mist comes from her lips, from Neven's, from Alice's, but not the boy's. Because he's not breathing.

"Neven, he's-"

"I know," Neven says. His voice trembles, but he stands stiffly, putting his hands under Alice's arms and pulling her up with him. She's his size, so he stumbles under her weight. As the blanket puddles into her lap, Bonnie sees the princess's hands are tied behind her back. "Help me with her legs."

"What are you doing?" The boy gets to his feet, hands closing into fists at his sides. His voice rises, becoming petulant. "You can't take her. Mama said she's mine forever and always. She's going to be my friend."

Bonnie slides the sword back into the scabbard on her back. The moment it's gone from her grip she misses it. It's not like it could do anything against lost ones. From what she's seen only magic and light have an effect on them, but without it she still feels more vulnerable. Moving quickly, she grabs Alice's feet and heaves her off the ground. Her legs are tied together with the same thin rope as her hands.

"Stay back and we won't hurt you," Bonnie says, walking backward toward the darkness and the door. Neven follows, neck and face turning red with the strain of his cargo. It's an empty threat. They don't have anything to use to hurt the boy, whereas he can knock them out with a long enough touch. Death by hug. It's not exactly a knight's way of going out.

The boy stays where he is, watching them sullenly. Around them the black curtain seems to crackle, its surface moving like the clouds of a storm. All the hairs on her body stand on end. The tingling energy increases, almost to the point of being painful.

"Faster Neven," she whispers, trying not to look phased.

Neven mutters to himself, but increases his speed, teeth gritted and face purple under the weight. She's finding it difficult herself. She's shorter than Neven and the princess, but it's not just that. It's the black curtain, and the tingling cold around them. It's like it's sucking at them, drawing all the energy and warmth from their muscles.

The black curtain waits until they're inches away, then retreats reluctantly. It keeps a steady presence around them, closer than before. Tendrils reach out toward Alice, long fingers made of black smoke. They caress the air above her.

"Stop that!" Bonnie snaps, sending her best glare toward the darkness behind Neven where the boy had stood moments before. "Leave her alone."

The fingers withdraw with something that sounds eerily like a child's sigh. They fade into the curtain, and the black wall around them seems to open up a little. The air in her throat feels less like swallowing a lightning storm, and more like how a regular shed should smell. The cold doesn't go away. That stays along with the curtain, both taking on a solid presence, watching, waiting.

Neven freezes without warning, staring wide eyed at something behind her, like a rabbit caught in a trap. In her hurry, Bonnie's feet carry on a step or two before the message reaches them to stop. Alice's legs almost slip out of her hands, and the princess's head lolls against Neven's chest.

In a moment she's spun around, dropped to a crouch to lower Alice's legs to the ground, and slid a hand out of sight to the knife hanging on her belt. Yet she knows it will be little use.

The door is open, inviting sunlight streaming through and chasing the black away. In the doorway stands Claudia, her one eye glaring and the remains of her staff held high. Magic. Bonnie's beginning to despise its whole existence.

Still, the wielder of magic is flesh and blood. Her fingers tighten around the knife's hilt. She's never killed anyone before. The closest she's come are chickens back at the farm, and even that turned her stomach the first few times. She thinks she can handle it though. Men have to be prepared to kill. Knights have to be prepared to kill. Her father could do it, and so could Ness she bets. So if she needs to, she'll do it too.

The witch's toothless mouth closes tight, making her cheeks hollow and her lips liquidy. Bonnie waits, expecting a fight, or at least some big speech about why she has a dead boy - her son? - in a shed with a stolen princess. That's what would happen in one of Jack's puppet shows. The villain would explain their plan, and then after waiting for some reason Bonnie never understood, the hero would start a last epic battle, and win of course.

So when the witch slams the door shut it comes as a surprise. She fumbles for the knife, so clumsy she would've cut herself if it were sharper. The throw is as sure and quick as the ones she and her father practised on the side of their shed years ago. But it lands a second too late. It quivers in the closed door as the sound of a bar slotting into place comes from the other side.

"No!" Bonnie shouts, running at the door. Her shoulder hits it so hard her teeth click together. The rough bark scrapes at her, even through her shirt. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She should've thrown the knife when she had the chance.

"Bonnie," Neven says sharply. "She's casting a spell."

Bonnie backs up, sets her shoulders. She hears the chanting, but tries to ignore it. The shed's only wood. The door will be the weakest area. She could slash her way through, but that might take too long. Shaking her head, she charges again, leaping at the last moment to slam her whole body weight into the door. If she's lucky the hinge will break and they might be able to manoeuvre the door over the bar. If she's really lucky the bar will break and in a second they'll be out of here.

Her side hits the door hard enough to make her whole body sing with pain. Then something hits her back.

A giant's punch sends her flying back across the shed, narrowly missing the shelves to her right. A glimpse of swirling darkness. A sharp pain exploding outward from her head and back. Voices. Then nothing.

<<<<>>>>

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