Free A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn Page B

this was something different. When this girl laughed, the dragon’s mouth turned up. When she cried for her parents, his own eyes welled up and his tail quivered with her pain. When she spoke, begging for his mercy, he scarce could keep his lungs breathing for the sound of it, and when she sang herself lullabies to drown out her rising fear, his blood near froze and all the fire in his belly fell to ash from his yearning to be nothing but a pair of ears, nothing but her song.
    Could be she realized, before the end, how the dragon loved her. Could be she told him she loved him, too, whether she did or not, thinking maybe he would let her go.
    He didn’t.
    When she died, the dragon lost his mind, these stories say, and dreamed only of her, night and day. And before another week had passed, the dream had killed him, and his woods and all their magics retreated silently before human axes and human tears.

Two
    â€œM Y GRAMPS is dead.” That’s what I say when the guard at the gate leads me all the way into the castle, through corridor after corridor lined with carpets and tapestries and great flaming lamps, to where the king is sitting up with his wife and a dog in a plush firelit room. It is the first time I’ve seen such a place. The chairs have velvet covers. The fire is as big as the great round table, which is so polished it reflects the flames. Even the dog shines bright, lifting one droopy eyelid my way, already nodding back off to sleep moments after the guard shows me in.
    I’ve come alone. Once we reached the city, the Lord of Ontrei left me in a silent square, its fountain gleaming in the moonlight, and I made my own way from there to the castle gate. We’ve no need to let the king know of our alliance just yet.
    â€œHe died all alone,” I say, “and I buried him in our garden, beneath the lilacs.”
    The king is frowning. His wife, the queen, is sewing something colorful in her lap, and she looks up at me now and again, quick little flashes of eyelashes and the whites of her eyes. She didn’t greet me when I came in. Well, but then I didn’t give her a chance to, neither. The king started to rise, but before he could say a word, I cut him off with the news of my Gramps’s death.
    â€œI am sorry, Marni,” he says now. He even looks it, with that frown. He looks near as fretful as my Gramps. “You should have told us first. He
was
a king, and the father of a king. We would have given him a fitting funeral.” He’s forgetting not to meet my eyes again. He’s forgetting he’s only ever said four words to me.
    â€œThank you, sir,” I say, as though I’ve no inkling how his heart must be singing to hear this. I grasp the needles hidden in my skirts, let their power run up my arm. I say, “But I’ve not come just to tell you the news.”
    â€œNo?” says the king.
    â€œNo. I’ve come to ask you, sir, if I might find a place at your court, now I’m all alone.”
    The queen stops sewing and peers at me with her head half tilted. The king’s face goes blank. “Ah,” he says, and nothing more.
    â€œYes,” I say. “I don’t expect to keep a noble’s position, but—I can sew and I can cook. I’ll earn my place. I can’t very well go back to our hut now my Gramps is gone. I know we’ve had our differences, sir, but it’s one thing when I had someone to watch out for me. Who would keep me from harm there now?”
    The king’s blank look is growing dangerous. It’d be a stretch to say my Gramps could have fought off a squirrel.
    I wait. I’m sure he’s near to turning me out, calling the guards, but then the queen clears her throat with a little cough and looks up for real, folding her hands carefully on her knees. She gives me a pretty smile, all sparkling and bright. Despite everything, I blink at her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile