«Who are you?» The voice of Rose brought me out of stupor.
«Do you not remember?»
She just looked at me with beautiful, empty eyes. Eyes in which there were no memoirs left.
«Where is the dragon?»
«Where is the dragon?» I almost laughed, stupid, deaf, lost, but instead of it I only shrugged and lied. «I do not know.»
And it is instead of to honestly admit: «He is in front of you.»
I listened to the inhuman whisper of my subjects in air height, to quietly cautious steps of wolves in the snow, to the spiders in the cracks and thought what from these sounds Rose could catch, and what not. Perhaps she also heard the echoes of the conversations of the elves in the snowy storm, as some spirit laughed, looking into the pipe, and this laughter echoed in chimney. Whether she looked attentively to me in search of the angels halo over my head or tried to consider a black double satellite, which, remembering the past, broke out of the shackles of the human body and again, like a shadow, standing behind me.
«You also became his victim?» Rose looked at me with regret.
«Yes,» at least once I answered the truth. Once upon a time, my life was brought to the sacrificial altar so that my shadow satellite the dragon gained the highest strength. Now he is an integral, dark part of me. He is no longer a separate monster, but only a black soul in a beautiful body. He was a master, and I am a servant, until I was able to tame him. He is dark, and I am his bright reflection, his shell, his mask.
Remember that mask I left you on the windowsill and you will understand what my essence is, I tried to say it Rose with one glance, but she either did not understand or interpreted everything in her own way. And does she remember any mask? Does she remember something at all?
«Rose?» I cautiously called. It seemed to me that even she was here, but her soul was somewhere far, perhaps still in the dragon claws.
«Do you know my name?» She was alerted.
Great, she at least did not forget her name. She forgot only me and, obviously, everything connected with me.
«Do you remember the evening in the Marionette and the fearful play by author named Camille?»
«I remember something,» she said. The motive was the murder of a marquise in Viniena. Now I know who ruined her, but the author from where he could know that the dragon killed her?»
«Maybe he himself saw,» I mumble uncertainly.
«Or maybe he killed her himself, and he wrote the play to make the dragon guilty,» Rose said. «If he saw it, he would not write about it.»
«Yes, yes, probably,» I hurriedly confirmed.
The fire has danced in the furnace.
For the first time I had to shoot a deer, not to take revenge on Odil, but to provide a princess a dinner. I never knew how to cook food and prepare hot drinks, so I had to rely exclusively on witchcraft. It remained to hope that Rose would not think about from where the bottle of wine and glasses suddenly appeared on the empty table.
«Tell me, can he return for his victim?» Rose did not break her eyes off the fire. She didnt want to pronounce the word «dragon.»
«If he wants to find you, then the locks are not a barrier for him.» I struck with such a force with the fist along the wall, that it seemed the house was itself shaken. In a smooth masonry there was a dent, and I did not even feel pain. Fingers are just a little bit of numb.
«You can lock behind the steel doors, in the dungeon, in a dried well on the edge of the world and still he will find you. He will arrive on the smell of your blood, because»
I started to nauseate from the fragrance of fried meat. I would be bad from the smell of any meal, because I was hungry. My hunger did not have anything in common with human food, he demanded victims.
«So you need quickly to run away from here,» I finished the phrase and hastily put the wallet of gold on the table. «Take the crew on the road. If things go quite badly, came into any church.»
At least, there my subjects and the prince will not be able to touch you, I almost added.
As soon as she fell asleep, I went out in a frosty night, wander around the forest. It was better to kill the deer than the princess. That night I didnt meet any small animal to buy her life with its blood. Even the wolves were hidden from me. But if a person met me on the forest path, he would not even suspect the danger. Any oncoming offered me his company and would be careless until he noticed in my eyes an obsessed shine and did not understand that he was going next to his own death.
One deer still came upon my claws. Until then than the rage did not subside after the successful hunt, I didnt even notice that some strange beast would steal behind me. When I left the carcass in the snow, I heard someone with claws watched with greed for each my movement. There were no footprints in the snow, but the pursuer himself was. It was possible to swear in the fact that this someone, contrary to all the laws of nature, has imagined himself as a predator, and I was a victim. For him, the game was full of sharp sensations. In addition, I was so desperate that I did not even notice him. Let him crawl or flies through the forest, anyway any predator is powerless in comparison with me.
I could not let go Rose on the will. In the morning, in an hour after she left, I realized that the danger would steal behind her along the trail just like the faceless clawed pursuer after me. In addition to the Henris soldiers, who noticed Rose in a small roadside tavern, other, invisible enemies chased for her. I could only be patient, prepare the sledge and wait on one of the forests roads. When Rose lost hope to save from the pursuers, I again kindly offered her help. She took my hand offered to her and climbed into the sledge, like many before her. How many girls have already done with me the same way in the sledge to the castle and they all stayed there in a silent marble gallery.
During the trip, I wondered for a long time, from what old-clothes dealer Rose had time to acquire a well-minded form camisole, breeches and high boots. The clothes were obviously a little bit alone and were not intended for cold weather. Every one strip of brown fur stretched around the collar, too tough for gentle skin of the neck and cheeks. Rose seemed to feel in all this quite convenient. The most amazing was that she looked even more beautiful than before. Perhaps the boyish outfit emphasized her fragility. In any case, the beauty again managed to touch me and for this she did not need to cry or complain. She did not even say anything, she only raised her beautiful, tired eyes and I immediately began to feel sorry for her. Even gave her a cloak so that she did not freeze.
«The storm is coming,» I said. «It is better to be in the castle in the bad weather.»
«What kind of the castle is it? Is there a castle in this wilderness?» In a charming voice, disdain was heard.
«What kind of empire is without a castle?» I grinned, thinking that without my own fortress, I would not make a proper impression on the subjects. Rose did not say anything, but looked at me like a madman. She still saw only forests and a wretched hut, and I suddenly spoke about the empire.
«What is your name?» After a pause, she asked.
What is it to say? I was already used to that no one asked for my name. I heard only the offensive shouts: «Dragon», «Demon». The peasants who went to me with the forks and knives didnt care about my name. The name was given with the baptism. So where could it be by the dragon?
«Edwin,» said I, and immediately thought with a mockery, the unfortunate handsome Edwin, it would be better for him if the royal advisors cut his head before the prince came with his fire, his demands, his dark legion.
«Whats next? What is your title? What is your Familys name?» Rose with difficulty could understand me, but I only smiled coldly and allowed generously.
«It is just Edwin.»
She would know that to call the emperor by name in any country it is a rare honor, not only in the empire of shadows, spirits and fairies, in one word, damned and unusual creatures.
«Look, we are almost at the goal,» I pointed to the patterned teeth of the towers, raised above the forest on the background of an amazing-bright blue sky. Before that, Rose enthusiastically watched the annoying birds circling about me, waiting for orders, and did not believe in the existence of the castle. See it means to believe. And the towers, the gate and bastions were quite tangible. True, there were neither guards nor gatekeepers. Witchcraft is the most reliable watchman, the most complex lock without a key. Rose didnt understand what kind of fortress it was.
She felt uncomfortably only when she noticed in the courtyard the semicircle of stakes stuck in the ground. That spectacle was usual, simply on the top of each of the stakes was a severed head. My enemies, traitors or unwanted guests who accidentally invaded the territory of the Empire were long beheaded, but it seemed that they still lived and the dead would tell about their torments. Human persons eventually decomposed and turned into skulls, and the faces of inhuman creatures always remained unchanged, suffering and a little surprised. As if they did not want to believe that the end was still coming. I hoped that the next stake would decorate the head of the prince.
The castles doors were opened, but Rose was not dare to enter. The horses in the sledge beat about the ground with hooves in such a rage, as if they wanted to stamp and the girl, and coachman and all who would meet on the path.
«Whats the matter?» I asked without words. The punished elves perfectly understood me. I had to stand between one horse and Rose.
«Your death is behind you,» in a short rye you could distinguish and bitterness, and laughter. I myself was ready to laugh, because I had only Rose behind my back.
«She will destroy you,» again a short laugh.
I turned to Rose and immediately reproved myself for it. Of course, she did not understand anything. She simply could not understand a horses neighing.
The apartments for Rose have long been prepared, the necessary things and the best outfits, which only managed to find. I did not hope that someday I would be able to lure her in the castle, but I still dragged all the things from all sides what I thought she could like. My heart rejoiced, Rose would remain in the castle. Why did I need her sculptures copy now? I wanted to laugh in the face of each statue found on the way, in the face of my own reflection in countless wall mirrors, but my laughter in an empty castle would be inappropriate.
It was necessary to disperse creatures, nesting in the dungeons, strictly ordered each harpy and chimera, so that they did not dare to get closer to my guest. And I still really wanted to visit Vincent. Not in order to boast before him, and to check: whether there was no more unusual in Lara. The city, after all, I was already used to consider as mine.
Vincent was pale and something frightened. He was waiting for the appearance of someone else, but not me. Were there the secret spirits in my house? In the rooms on the second floor everything was inverted, the furniture is overturned, the frame of the paintings were broken.
«Take it from here,» Vincent, instead of a welcome, pointed to the only non turned over round table in the room as if there was on it the source of all his troubles.
«Dont ask me about anything,» Vincent himself looked with regret at the torn canvas, broken vases. «Ill clean it myself as soon as I am convinced that I am safe.»
«What a danger can it be here,» I tried to calm him like a child, but Vincent was in rage.
«Do you think that I myself scratched the walls, broke paintings and my own books?»
«Well, if you went to a witches sabbath before it»
«I didnt go out of the house for a couple of days,» Vincent was justified, or blamed. «How long have you not walked. I thought that I had to watch this damned thing all my life. I swear, no one night Ill spend alone with your violin.»
He expressively pointed to the table again. Now I also saw that there was a bundle on the table top, which I had ever kept in my hands and brought home myself. Only blood spots on the taffeta looked more fresh and thick than that night. It was not necessary to deploy the fabric to guess that the violin was wrapped in it.
From the street came some kind of sound. Vincent swore, jumped to the window and closed it.
«And what should I do with this violin?» I picked up a bundle and felt like durable strings even through the fabric rub about the skin as if they want to cut my fingers.
«Throw it out! Dig somewhere in the forest, in the cemetery, in the desert, in general, away from human settlements, where she cannot harm anyone.»
I did not understand who Vincent meant saying «she», a violin or someone living. He spoke about this cracked instrument as if it was alive. I myself remembered the bloody tears that dropped out of cracks, and I immediately felt them in my fingers. I became somehow not in my own. From the extensions of Vincent, the atmosphere around became depressing, as if fear was punctured in the room.
«Okay, I will burn it in the forest, you can not worry,» I promised and immediately forgot about my promise.
«By the way, did you not see the hunchback under the windows?»
Vincent was tired, he shook his head negatively.
«Even if he was here, I did not pay attention.»
«And Henri did not bother you?»
«He has full of his problems. They say he wants to dig a whole city underground.»
«And what do you think about this?»
The expressive, radiant eyes of Vincent flashed.
«I can say one thing for sure, he will not be a king,» he predicted and grinned, as if he was always ready to apply his hand to overthrow from the throne a not clever and sickly heir.
«Your scars are not healed,» I regretfully looked at Vincents throat. «If I could heal them»
«Unlikely. She is still too strong, «Vincent raised his hand to the collar, as if he wanted to fasten it, but he had changed his mind. «Do not worry, Im already used to the fact that I am marked.»
He was used to. And I could not get used to the deep stripes with torn edges, which cut his perfectly white, gentle skin. It seemed that some dark strength, with which he concluded a contract, waved with its claws and left its stamp on him. But it was not right, I too went into the study of dark sciences, like him, but one Vincent had a stamp on himself. I, as in life, remained impeccable to the first explosion of rage, until the first awakening of the Evil. As soon as someone managed to arouse anger in me, the dragon broke out.
«Rustle, scratch I still think that someone scratched into the window.» Vincent tried to laugh but the laughter came out bitter and weak.
«I won it, Vincent,» I suddenly wanted to share my joy with him, a moment of my triumph. «You can not even imagine. It also seemed impossible for me, but I won, I saved a girl designed for execution.»
Vincent stumbled incredulously. From his chest broke out the quiet hysterical laugh.
«Edwin, you Do you decide to substitute your beautiful immortal head for an ax because of some girl. I understand, for me there was no evil in jokes with death, I could climb ten times on the scaffold and escape, my life was nothing worth. And you achieved almost everything and now you play with fire.»
Vincent began to remind me of a concerned, charming Florian, who, instead of doing something of states importance, told me to pinch shutters. He also didnt even dare to explain that the window I should close not from birds, enemy arrows, spies, but from Debora.