Jenny Rae Rappaport - [BCS315 S01] Read online

  I have refused to close my eyes because when I do, I am back in the snowstorm and I am pleading with myself to find Maksim. Except there are wings beating above my head and breath that is colder than ice and I am alone, battered by the storm. And then I wake screaming.

  I always wake screaming.

  Polina and Elzbet and I hold hands as we watch through the window, the shop lights dark behind us. The wind starts to howl like wingbeats, slicing through the air in great icy gusts. The snow falls harder, coating the street, until the cobblestones are lost in frozen white. As the twilight darkens, there’s a bang on the shop door.

  We don’t move.

  We ignore the banging, we ignore the shouts, we ignore it all. There are only the soldiers hurrying in groups from building to building, demanding entry, and still the wind and snow come. The air that leaks in around the edges of the window is bitter; colder than any winter I have ever known.

  There are stars in all the windows, there are stars in the sky, and as true darkness falls, all of them start to glow with a violet light. We stand there, painted in purple through the windows, and bear witness.

  The wind turns the snow into great swirling clouds, the icy breath of the dragon roars across the sky, and the soldiers keep coming. There are more and more of them on the street, rushing about in confused groups, and we watch as their boots slip in the snow. They fire shots at people’s windows, and we hear glass breaking.

  The soldiers scurry to form a firing line, pointing their guns towards the sky, and as the wind howls even harder, they stumble even more. They are slower—seeming to fumble with even the basic task of reloading their guns. The snow moves and swirls, half-hiding them from our view, as they break ranks and huddle together, clusters of men trying to fight an enemy they cannot touch.

  The dragon is coming, and there is nothing that they can do. I hear the wings beating, we all hear the wings beating, and I know my time is soon.

  Our enemies will die, and we will be free, and perhaps in time we will remember what that actually means. I should stand with these girls and feel my heart sing. But instead, when I hear the knocking on the kitchen door, I know. Because you always know.

  And so I pull Maksim inside to safety, because even I am not that cruel.

  The dragon comes with the dawn.

  I do not think anyone has truly slept through this night; there are children’s faces in the upper windows and shopkeepers peeping from shutters down below. They shy away from the dragon as its shadow descends over the entire city, but they stare at it anyway. The edges of its wings are purple tipped with gold, and its claws crunch over the corpses of the frozen soldiers.

  It lands with a great rumble that rattles all our windows in their panes and knocks the bolts of fabric off their shelves. One great foot, as big as a house, settles in front of the cobbler shop three doors down; the opposite one seems to be resting on the next street over. The dragon’s neck towers above the buildings, stretching higher than the spire on the top of the Grand Cathedral’s onion domes, and its head is hidden in the clouds.

  Its tail trails over the houses and stretches through the streets toward the river, so massive that it should be toppling chimneys and flattening buildings, yet it’s not. If I squint into the distance, I can see nothing but purple and gold scales, seeming to overlap with buildings and streets.

  I hold my breath when its neck bends down, its great head swooping low to the ground, and then it’s staring through the shop window with one great, gold eye. The dragon’s eye is so broad that only the bottom sliver of it is visible, and it looms so close to the window that it seems to be inside the shop with us, as if the eye is melting through the window itself.

  I search for Maksim’s hand. He is dozing, his head leaning against my shoulder, as we sit together on the shop carpet. He opens his eyes when I grab at his hand, and he stares at me, confused.

  “Look,” I say, and point to the window.

  He looks. So does Elzbet, who has spent the night watching over us all. Polina still dozes in Madam’s good shop chair.

  “Roza,” he says, and I feel him grip my hand more tightly. “It’s real.”

  “Yes.”

  “You really summoned—”

  “It was never a legend,” I say softly.

  I feel the immense eye pulling at me, drawing me closer and closer. Like metal drawn to a lodestone, I cannot escape the dragon’s pull, and I am not sure that I even want to.

  Part of me is already outside the window with it. It is as though the life I had before is blowing into pieces. If the others cannot hear it, I certainly can: the dragon is waiting. All these months of preparing, of putting the pieces into place, all of it has led to this moment—to this massive eye staring at me, staring into me, and the knowledge that this is the final thing I have to do.

  Absolutely everything, Madam had said in that dingy cell, and I know, as sure as the snow falls, what she meant for me to do. What I must do.

  I hear the thunderous huff of the dragon’s breath and the click of its claws on the corpses. I have to go now; I must go now.

  But I’m selfish still, and I cling to Maksim’s hand for a minute more. There is only the feel of his fingers in mine, the warmth of his body against me, the way that his breath hitches when I run my free hand down his cheek. Everything that could be and never will.

  “I need to go,” I say, and I make myself get to my feet.

  “Where?” he says, still holding on to my hand.

  “Out there.”

  “No, Roza,” Elzbet says, scrambling to stand. “Don’t go near it.”

  “I have to.”

  “You’re being foolish.”

  “No, I’m doing what Madam would have done.”

  “What is she talking about?” Maksim says.

  “You’re not Madam,” Elzbet says, a panicked edge creeping into her voice.

  Of course, I’m not. I have never been her, although God knows I have tried. I may not be Madam’s daughter, but she has taught me well. Nothing comes for free in this world. Even freedom itself has a cost.

  “Polina, wake up,” Elzbet screams, running across the room to shake her awake. But the dragon is growing impatient; I can tell, even if the others can’t. They have not dreamt of wings coming; they have not known what must be done.

  I start to open the shop door, but Maksim stops me. He pulls his gloves from his pocket and puts them on my hands, dressing me as if I was a child. Or a doll. Or someone he loves too much to let go.

  “For the cold,” he says, and his mouth is soft and sweet as I kiss him back.

  “Thank you,” I say, blinking back tears.

  “Come back,” he says, and I do not have the heart to tell him I can’t. I can only nod when he opens the shop door for me.

  The cold air from outside blows in, and when I reach reflexively for his hand, I feel nothing. I look down, and my fingers pass through his, intersecting but never quite touching. Maksim grabs for them, trying to interlace his hand with mine, but the same thing happens again.

  “No,” he says, and if his voice doesn’t break me, the sadness in his eyes does.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, and I walk out the door.

  The dragon is before me, above me, around me; it fills the street and the sky and the city itself. It smells like the forest, like leaves ground underfoot, like the damp earth scent that comes with the first drops of rain.

  I stare at it, and its great gold eye stares at me.

  The dragon snorts, a thunderclap that knocks tiles from the roofs along the street, and extends its foreleg to me. I start to climb it, even though I hear shouts from the shop. Hand by hand, foot by foot, I scale its leg and crawl onto its back; I clamber along its spine and between its great shoulders until I am able to perch on its neck. The shop doorway, and the people I love who are standing in it, look so small from up here. And the city looks so very large.

  If we stay another moment in this place, I will be tempted to g
o back.

  “Go,” I tell the dragon. “Go now.”

  And we go, rushing through brick and stone in a manner that should not be possible. All around me, I hear the crunch of the dragon’s claws and I see the streets and squares blur by. Faster and faster, until the dragon spreads its wings and we are flying.

  We soar together—above the gleaming copper domes of the Grand Cathedral and over the river bridges that are clogged with fleeing soldiers. The city and its people look like nothing more than children’s toys dusted with snow. The dragon wheels towards the east, and we pass through clouds that are still lit with the pale pink of winter sunrise.

  And Madam comes to me. Her dress is clean and her hair is in its perfectly braided bun, but she is just as insubstantial as I am. She sits on the dragon’s neck, surrounded by the others: the dressmakers who were executed alongside her, and all of the women who never answered my coded letters. All of them waiting, all of them here.

  All of us, who lived and fought and made the dragon come.

  Madam smiles and reaches out a hand to me, and when I take it, her grip is solid in my hand. I sit next to her, next to all the women, and together, we hold each other’s hands as the dragon flies onward.

  © Copyright 2020 Jenny Rae Rappaport