The Witch and the Dragon - Beta

Chapter Twenty

It was only when her kill was roasting on the fire that the other two noticed Dameon had left. Maybe that says something about how we treated him, Alannah thought with a pang of guilt.

"Where's the dragon?" William asked.

"Not here," replied Alannah, avoiding his eyes.

William frowned for a moment at the fire, which they'd managed to get started without the help of a dragon, for once. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know. He just left."

Rose blinked a little. "Oh. That's a shame."

"It's probably for the best," William said. "He wouldn't exactly be welcome in the city, would he? If anyone found out what he was, the knights would string his innards from the city walls."

Alannah flinched.

"That would be terrible," agreed Rose. She was watching Alannah closely.

"Well, we're nearly there, now," the witch said, briskly. "Only another few hours and the princess will be with her King." That was cruel, even for her, and Alannah regretted it the second the words left her mouth. Rose had gone stiff and William looked like a wilted flower. "Let's all just get some sleep," she added, more gently. "I think we need it."

Without a word, the three of them bedded down, curling up by the fire to stay warm. William lay so close to Rose they could have touched each other without moving more than their fingers. Alannah turned her back to them, hands tucked under her chin.

The forest was freezing. She'd gotten so close to sleeping near Dameon she'd forgotten how cold the nights could be. The loneliness she'd been fighting since her grandmother died reared its ugly head. That's what you could have had, it whispered, if you weren't so damn scared.

I'm not scared, Alannah thought bitterly. Dameon was arrogant and conceited. Yes, he'd let her fly, and okay, yes he'd saved Geoff when Geoff was just an ugly little monster because he knew Alannah liked him, but – but he was still a dragon.

If that offer was even genuine. It could have been one long seduction, layers of charm and deceit to get what he wanted. Except she hadn't given in, and he'd left. He hadn't even tried to fight for her, he'd just left. If he really cared, thought Alannah, he would have tried harder.

Would you have let him?

She blinked and a tear dropped from her eyelashes onto the ground. Alannah brushed a hand over her eyes and closed them firmly. She could still sell his scales when they reached the city. At least this trip wouldn't be a complete waste of time. With that thought, she made her mind blank and drifted off into a deep sleep.

She woke with a yawn, the dawn light a warm blanket on her face. Alannah stretched her arms over her head and hummed as her spine cracked. "Morning," she murmured, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Anyone get the fire going?"

There was no answer. Alannah sat up and blinked the world into focus.

The fire was banked, its embers glowing under the ashes. No one had thought to hunt for breakfast yet. Fine, she'd have to do that again.

"Hey, you two, it's late. We need to-" She stopped. The fern-covered hollows that William and Rose had slept in were empty. Alannah glanced around at the clearing. Also empty. "Oh, this has got be a joke," she muttered.

Wait, not quite empty: half-hidden in one of the hollows was a scrap of paper. Alannah strode over and picked it up. The handwriting was fluid, even crammed as it was onto this tiny piece of parchment. Not William's then. She spread it out between her fingers.

Alannah, she read – not even a Dear at the beginning, they must have been in a hurry - We're so sorry, but we cannot bear to be parted from each other. The thought of spending the rest of my life married to a king I have never met fills my heart with dread. William is my knight and my true love. I am sorry for the burden our disappearance will cause you and I hope you can some day forgive us. William and Rose.

Alannah swore creatively. She folded the paper with sharp, jagged movements and jammed it into her pocket. "When I get my hands on that knight," she muttered, "I am going to wring his neck."

If they had any sense, and Rose had plenty, they would have left just after she fell asleep so she'd have no hope of catching up. Alannah fingered the scales nestled up against the letter. If Dameon was here, she could have found them easily. But he wasn't, and she was on her own.

Alannah cleared her mind of anything but William and Rose, and cast her thread. It landed in a confused spiral, pointing nowhere. Growling, she snatched it up and recast - nothing. Again.

Abandoning the thread, she paced a circle around the fire. Until her head got its priorities straight, she had no way of tracking them, let alone catching them. Beltane was tomorrow. She'd never be able to reach them and bring them back in time for the festival.

She stamped out the last embers of the fire, not bothering with breakfast. There was nothing for it but to travel to Fellmere, alone, and beg the King for mercy. Hopefully, he'd be so busy with the festival that he wouldn't care that his fiancé had run off with another man.

"Yeah," she muttered, "when pigs fly."