Page 63 of Lady Macbeth

“They will not have you,” Roscille says. “Even if your village is gone—your home is by my side, now, as it will always be. We will be free.”

Senga’s brow furrows deeper. “How?”

She takes Senga’s hand. It is warm, rough in places, soft in others, and through her skin, Roscille feels her pulse, throbbing and alive.

There is no time, even, to pack a bag. She ushers Senga out of the room and through the corridors, all while listening to arrows fly and blades clang and men die like cut weeds. Her hope is this: that they will be distracted by the fumes of blood and will not notice as two women slip away.

Their brisk footsteps carry them into the courtyard, which is abandoned because every soldier is crouching in an arrow loop or cutting down his enemies on the hilltop. Roscille’s mind is turning and turning as they make their way toward the stable: Take one horse, it will attract less attention, no, take a second, one will tire quickly of carrying two bodies, fill the canteens in the saddlebags, we do not know when we will next find clean water, but then they will slap against the horse’s flanks and make alerting sounds.

She lets out a breath. Senga is panting. When Roscille blinks, Hawise’s face replaces Senga’s, only it is the white, horrified face she has conjured in her dreams, the one that screams silently as she is pushed into the black water.

No. No. This will not be like before. Roscille no longer shrinks beneath her veil. She can enchant and ensorcell her way to safety, to freedom. Her freedom and Senga’s and the freedom of three women chained in the dark.

They are halfway across the courtyard when a figure steps out from the shadows. He raises a hand to shield his eyes, as if from the sun or the biting wind, but Roscille knows it is to hide himself from her gaze. She thinks she is witnessing something impossible—a waking dream—until she sees the scar lacing out from beneath his jerkin and up his throat.

Roscille chokes. “You are not dead.”

“Nor are you.” Fléance steps closer. “Macbeth freed me, on the condition that I fight for him. He knew he would need every man at his side. And yet he swore he sent his harlot, demon-bearing wife to hell.”

“Perhaps hell could not hold me.” Her blood is hot. The scars burn on the backs of her thighs, the pain striking as if it were new again, the viper flashing its silver teeth.

But she is not now what she was then. Her flesh has thickened. She may look a fragile flower, white-petaled, but this merely conceals her; it does not bind her.

“You have again given me a good chance to prove my honor,” Fléance says. “What titles and favors will Macbeth bestow upon me when I deliver him the corpse of this unworthy witch, this hagseed whore?”

Beside her, Senga flinches at the words. Roscille grips her handmaiden’s arm.

“Come closer, then,” she taunts. “Or are you too much a coward to look into my unclothed eyes?”

“I am no coward,” Fléance snarls. Even now, it is so easy to rile him, this boy playing at being a man.

And then he draws his sword, which cuts the air, and Roscille darts forward to catch him in the path of her gaze, but he is just half a heartbeat faster. She feels the heel of his hand crush her temple, and her vision sparks, and when she manages to recover her sight Fléance has his arm locked around her throat and his sword pressed flat against her belly.

Roscille writhes against him, spitting her fury. Senga falls to her knees.

“Please,” she begs. “Please, my lord, do not do this.”

“Your handmaiden pleads so nicely,” Fléance rasps, breath in her ear. “When I am finished with you—”

That is when Roscille screams: loud enough for four voices. So loud that the sound seems to ripple out from around her, like water. Even Senga claps her hands over her ears. And Fléance winces, which gives Roscille a chance to bite down, hard, on the hand that constricts her. He shrieks. Blood spurts.

His sword digs a little bit into Roscille’s side and the pain streaks through her. Everything is blurry and held at a distance, as if behind a translucent veil. This will not be my death, she thinks, furious, but if it is, I will fight until my last breath, and take every piece of him that I can with me.

And then Senga cries out, not in horror, but in pure shock, her mouth rounding into an awestruck oh. She is staring up at the sky.

The dragon’s long green body unfurls like a ribbon, knotting and then stretching. The sky is rough and choky with storm clouds, but what little light there is pools within its scales, turning them iridescent. The suddenness of it, the impossibility, and the great creature’s obvious strength make Fléance stammer out a wordless noise of fear.

The creature is the same—Roscille remembers the crushing might of its body around hers—but different, in ways that are not obvious to her until it draws closer.

Its thick tail is banded with thorns. Between its claws are weeds that it has ripped up from the earth. The underside of its enormous body is slicked with mud, lily pads and petals pasted on, and clinging to various scutes and appendages are tendrils of vines, sticky pine needles, and fragile ferns, as if it has just wrested itself free from a large thicket. Moss drips from the peaks of its wings.

For weeks the creature has twisted in some distant forest, hiding itself among the oily shadows and the dark leaves. It has taken this dark matter with it, and as the dragon lowers itself into the courtyard, the words of the prophecy fall into place like a key in a lock: The wood has come upon the hill.

Roscille dives away from Fléance as the dragon descends upon him. She skids on the dirt, palms burning. But she recovers herself quickly enough to turn around. And so she has the privilege and the pleasure to see this: a young man, dying in agony.

After its claws have ripped flesh and its teeth have snapped bone, the dragon vanishes. It happens within the span of moments; if Roscille had blinked, she might have missed it. There was the creature’s sinewy body, stretching across the dusty courtyard, and now there is only a man, curled in on himself, naked, vulnerable. Fléance’s blood stains his sides; his arms are red up to the elbows. There are still weeds and thorns tangled in his hair, braceleting his wrists and ankles. He is breathing hard.

Roscille rushes to his side and collapses there, forehead resting against his shoulder, hands clutching at his beautiful, familiar face. Air rushes out of her and so do her words. She presses herself to him and tries not to weep.