Read Dragon's Keep for Free Online Page B

either side of me as Ali sliced the loaf
and dripped honey on the bread. Eyeing the crumb-encrusted knife, I ate the
morsels Mother fed me until my aching belly calmed.
    My betrayer came to take my horn, and I saw a
ring of dirt beneath the girl's
fingernails. Still, her hands were slim and beau tiful, and I felt a
pang. If I had God's power to order, "Let her hands be mine," I'd do
so. What would it matter to this girl who betrayed me to the hag? Who would
care if
she
had a claw?

"Who is the girl?" I asked when
she'd left the cave.
    "Ah." Demetra laughed. "She
might have walked in your shoes."
    "Quiet," ordered Mother.
    Demetra left the cell, her gray hair lifting
like cobwebs in a breeze. It was the first time Mother had crossed the hag
since I'd been recaptured. But it was in defense of another.
    "What does she mean to you?" I
asked, the words leaking from the ache in my chest.
    "Nothing at all," said Mother.
"She's Ali's bastard, Katinka."
    So Katinka went from angel to bastard in a
single day. How strange the world was. Then I remembered the look Ali had given Mother when first she'd seen her. "You
knew Ali before she was a servant here," I guessed.
    Mother started. She would have denied it if
she could and worn a fixed look of indifference, but I'd read the truth in her
face already. "She was once my lady's maid," Mother admitted.
    Marn had told me about the lady's maid
expelled from Mother's service for bedding a wandering minstrel. "And
wasn't she rounding with child already before she left?" Marn had said.
"Ah, she was spoilt. And here she was as pretty as an angel."
    Demetra still hadn't returned, and Mother was
softening to me, it seemed.
    "Free me." A
command, not a plea this time.
    Mother kissed my damp
hair. "You will be healed, Rosie. And later
when you're married to Prince Henry, you will thank me."
    "Take me to the lake. I'll find my
healing there."
    "The lake?" asked Demetra as she
darted back in.

"Columba's Tear," said Mother, patting
my arm.
    Demetra laughed. "It's nothing but a
marsh now."
    "I don't believe you!" I said.
    "Well, now, do you think I'd live here
if a lake could do my healing? I'd stir the waters myself and charge good coin
for folk to come and take a dip."
    The hag slit a prune and removed the pit.
Humming to herself, she took a jar from the shelf, pulled the cloth from the
lid, and drew out an enormous spider. Its legs flailed in the air.
    "Mother," I
said, hoarsely. "Order her to take the thing away!"
    She knew my fear of spiders. I'd always run
at the sight of them. A year before this, when a fat spider had crawled into my
solar, I'd screamed and leaped onto my bed. Mother had bolted the door and made
me stand beside the spider. "A princess doesn't
show her dread," she'd said. And so the spider crawled up the wall
while I held my breath. Thus, she'd taught me to swal low my fear, to let my blood scream in my ears and not give voice to
it.
    Blood was screaming in my ears now as Demetra
held the spider by its leg.
    "Mother! Tell her to get rid of it! I
don't mind my curse at all. I'll wear my
gloves till death."
    "Till death, you say?" Demetra
laughed. "That may be." Demetra dangled the spider above the fruit
then stuffed it into the shriveled plum.
    I tried to get up, but the leather cinched my
gut so tight I fell hack on the cot.
    "Keep her still," ordered Demetra.

"Marn!" I screamed as Mother held me down. My nursemaid was
far away down the mountain, but she would have stood between Demetra and me,
old bones to old bones, and kept the horrid spider away.
    I clamped my jaw against the fruit. If that
spider crossed my lips, I was sure to enter a strange world knit by the devil's
needles—a world where a loving mother would pay out silver to have her girl
tortured.
    Demetra bent over my cot, her breath smelling
of turnips. "This will stave off the shivers." She thrust out the
puckered plum, the spiders leg wiggling out one side.
    "Take it, Rose. It's for your
good," said Mother.
    I bit