The Dragon's Curse

by Bethany Wiggins

  Golmarr and I peer into Enzio’s hand. “How do you know they aren’t simply black pearls or onyx?” Golmarr asks.

  “I tried smelting it in the blacksmith’s furnace. No matter how hot I got the fire, I could not melt these. When the sun shines on them, they shimmer differently from anything I have ever seen. It looks like there is a flame inside. Watch.” He walks to the sunlight streaming into the room through a window and holds the stones in it. The black rocks light up as if there is a live coal inside of each. “See?” he says, and then carefully returns the stones to the leather pouch. He pulls the drawstring tight and tucks it beneath his shirt. “The man might have been crazy, but these are not ordinary rocks.”

  “No sea captain I ever traded with would go within fifty miles of Draykioch,” Golmarr says.

  Enzio stares off into space. “I have always wanted to see the fabled Serpent’s Island.”

  * * *

  We break our fast with fruit and cheese and poached eggs given to us by Reyler, and then Golmarr, Enzio, and I are escorted to the fourth floor of the library again. I sit in the chair, with a lit lamp on the table before me, and begin the painstaking chore of deciphering scroll after scroll, parchment after parchment, looking for the word dragon, but nothing ever turns up. We haven’t been there half the morning when I roll up the last scroll left on the table and hold it out to Golmarr. “Nothing about dragons in this one. I need more,” I announce.

  Instead of taking it, Golmarr growls and thrusts his hands in his hair, tightening his fingers in it. “I have had you look at every scroll that is written in Vinti,” he says, eyes touched with panic. “That was the last one.”

  I glance at the rows and rows of shelves. “Surely we haven’t checked them all.” I stand and return the scroll to its proper shelf. “What about the shelves back there?” I point toward the door.

  “Those shelves contain archived music, art, and other antiquities,” Enzio says. He walks to a shelf and lifts a heavy necklace, holding it up for me to see. It is made from several separate plates of metal and formed to look like a gold dragon, with red rubies for eyes.

  “And I read everything else over the last few months.” Golmarr starts pacing back and forth, his hands still in his hair, eyes intent on the floor. “We could go to the abandoned library in the Ilaadi desert once I complete my bargain with Treyose.”

  “You mean the library located out in the middle of the wasteland, which was abandoned because the sandworm eats anyone who so much as sets foot on the sand?” I ask.

  Golmarr stops pacing and gives me a fierce look. “Yes. That is the one to which I am referring.”

  I groan and stand, pressing on the small of my back. “Unless you have learned to fly, we will die if we try to get to that library.”

  “Then we die trying,” Golmarr says, and starts pacing again.

  “I don’t think we should risk it.” When he doesn’t respond, I step into his path, forcing him to stop. Golmarr pauses, raises one eyebrow, and then steps around me. I don’t think before I act, and grab his wrist, flipping him around to face me again. He looks from my hand, holding his wrist, to my eyes. I recognize the deep, dark emotion rippling over his face, and my fingers grow cold on his skin. His hatred feels like a tangible pressure, like a wall of swords has been thrust up between us. I drop his wrist.

  Enzio steps to my side, black knife in hand. “Your eyes are like weapons when you look at my cousin like that,” he says, voice sharp with anger. “Do I need to protect her? Because you know I will.”

  Golmarr pushes his hair off his forehead and glowers. “I don’t think so, but please stay here just in case Sorrowlynn’s stubbornness drives me to the point of madness.”

  I lean forward and put my hands on my hips. “Me, stubborn? You are the stubborn one, Golmarr, insisting we go to the Ilaadi library and risk being eaten in the process!”

  “Of course I am being stubborn! If we cannot figure out how to break the curse, I will never be able to be alone with you because I am so scared of killing you!” He takes a step toward me and, in a quiet voice, adds, “I can hardly even touch you with people around because I am so scared of losing control, so what will happen if we are ever alone?”

  I flinch. He might as well be trying to wound me with his words.

  “Loving you, being this close to you…” He reaches out to touch me, but before his fingertips so much as brush my cheek, he lets his hand drop to his side. “It is killing me. Do you remember how hungry we were when we came out of the fire dragon’s cave? When we had gone seven days with almost no food?”

  I nod. Nearly every thought I had was about food. I would fantasize of the best meals I ever ate in my mother’s palace.

  “I hunger for you the same way I did for food. And now you are here, standing before me, looking at me in a way that makes me want to touch you, and hold you, and kiss you, and spend every night of the rest of my life in your arms. I want you, Sorrowlynn.” His eyes move to my lips, and he swallows. “You are like a feast being offered to a man who is slowly starving to death, and I am too scared to eat. My willpower is waning, and every time I let my guard down and touch you, I hate myself for being so weak and putting your life at risk, because even bare hands can be used to kill.” He takes a giant step away. “I am not fit to be alone with you.” Clasping his hands behind his back, he glares at the floor. “And I hate myself more than I ever hated you because of it.”

  He growls, and Enzio steps between Golmarr and me. Golmarr shakes his head and strides to the table. He lifts the chair, and I worry he is going to throw it across the room or slam it against a bookshelf. Instead, he carries it to the closest shelf—the one with the oldest tablets—and sets it down. Golmarr climbs onto the chair and sweeps his hand across the top of the shelf, disturbing clouds of dust so thick they fill the air and stifle the lamp’s pale glow. For his efforts, he finds a single brass tablet.

  He blows the dust from it, rubs the tarnished brass with his sleeve, and then slams it down on the table. The metal clangs, echoing through the library. “Is this the fabled Infinite Vessel?” he asks me, his voice taut with unspent anger.

  I carry the chair back to the table, sit down, and rub my thumb over the brass, wiping a thousand years of grime from it and exposing shallowly engraved symbols. As I slowly read, my heart starts beating faster. “Golmarr, Enzio!” The excitement in my voice has them instantly alert.

  “Please say it says something useful,” Golmarr whispers, placing his hands flat on the table across from me. Enzio, still gripping the stone knife, steps up beside him.

  I touch the date on the top of the tablet. “This was written about thirty years after the Great War. It says, ‘I and my uncle journeyed to the north to check the—something, I’m not sure what that word means—holding King Relkinn in his stone prison, but when we arrived, all we found was a great beast with scales the color of gold and eyes that shone like rubies. We assumed the beast had eaten the king, and were glad to finally be rid of him, but it was not so. The king was alive in the beast, as the beast had always been alive in the king. It is only a matter of time before the beast destroys the rock it is held under, and now it falls to my uncle to travel the world and gain knowledge so he might defeat King Relkinn and protect these people.’ ” I look up. “That is where it ends, but it is the first piece of writing that mentions dragons.”

  “Not the Infinite Vessel, though,” Golmarr whispers. He rubs his hand on the unshaven whiskers growing on his chin. “Does it say where King Relkinn was imprisoned? Maybe they stored the vessel with him.”

  I run my finger below the symbols as I look for the answer he wants. “In the north, and in stone.”

  “My gran used to put me to sleep with a story about King Understone, who was sealed beneath a mountain,” Enzio says.

  “Your gran has a lot of scary stories,” I say, and then realize his gran
may also be my gran. “Is she my father’s mother?”

  Enzio nods. “You are feisty like her, Sorrowlynn. You are going to love her. She always said King Understone was imprisoned thousands of feet below the tallest peak in the world because no one could kill him.”

  The fire dragon’s knowledge seems to swell in my head, and then I feel King Zhun there.

  * * *

  Stacks of books and scrolls and tablets are piled on two tables: one table holds the books I have read in the past few days, the other holds the books I have yet to read. I slam the book Spirits and the Unseen Realm: How Blood Binds Souls closed and carefully toss it to the “already read” table. There are only a handful of books left to read. “Is this all there are?” I ask, looking up. Melchior, leaning against the wall, has his nose in a book of spells and seeing. He looks up and glances between the two tables.

  “Yes, my king.” Amusement flashes in his young eyes.

  “What are you secretly laughing about?” I demand.

  He closes his book with a snap, and a gust of air fans his brown hair back from his forehead. Turning in a slow circle, he looks at the rows and rows of books lining the library shelves. “Well, Uncle, it has taken you almost six years to read every book in this library, so, yes, six years’ worth of reading is all this library contains.”

  “There must be information somewhere about how to kill the beast.” Its blood-red eyes flash in my memory, making my blood grow cold. When I return to Arkhavan, I will devise a way to make a dragon-proof room, for every day that we do not find answers, the great beast is one day closer to destroying his stone prison. “I wonder if any of our other council of nine have found anything.”

  “Considering you have brought the smartest and strongest men and women to help in your quest, it is likely.”

  “Good. As soon as we finish with these last books, we need to gather them and see what they have found.” I run my thick, callused finger over the embossed title of the book at the top of the stack, Almanac of Desert Plants, and How to Transfer Their Energy, and sigh. Plants are my least favorite subject to read about. “When we return to Arkhavan, I am building the biggest library in the world. It will contain fifty years’—no, one hundred years’ worth of reading. It will hold all the knowledge in the world, so that when someone else is desperately seeking answers, they will all be contained in the same place. And if they know the mistakes we have made, Melchior, they won’t be foolish enough to repeat them.” I open the book and start reading about the plants that thrive in the Ilaadi desert.

  * * *

  “Where are you?” Something shakes me, and when I blink, I am back in King Zhun’s library, which contains well over one hundred years’ worth of reading. Enzio releases my shoulder, but he frowns with worry.

  “The fire dragon must have killed King Zhun, because I have his memories in my head,” I say, my voice light and dreamy. “Before he was eaten, King Zhun built this library to contain all the knowledge he could obtain, in the hope his people’s mistakes would never be repeated. When he couldn’t find the answers he sought, he must have gone to the fire dragon for help, since the fire dragon hoarded knowledge.”

  “What answers was he seeking?” Golmarr asks.

  “He needed to know how to defeat the gold dragon locked beneath stone. He sought the brightest minds and the strongest warriors and delved into histories and magic and darkness.” I search my head for more, but hit what feels like a void in my brain, where the knowledge and memories of King Zhun simply disappear. “Golmarr, are there any more tablets where you found this one?”

  Golmarr shakes his head, and I peer at the tablet again, rereading it, hoping I missed something that will help me better understand what happened. There is nothing. Golmarr reaches for it, but before he even touches the tablet, he jerks his hand back as if he’s been burned. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses on the bridge of his nose. Instinctively, I reach out to him, but stop myself before my skin makes contact with his. After what he said about hating himself for touching me, I dare not touch him. “Are you all right?” I ask.

  Enzio gently shakes Golmarr’s shoulder. “Can I help you?” he asks.

  Golmarr stands tall. “A dragon is here. I can feel its hatred mingling with mine.”

  The sound of a clanging bell echoes through the library. Another closer bell starts ringing. I meet Golmarr’s unblinking eyes. They are filled with fear. A third bell gongs, so close the ceiling cobwebs shudder from the vibrations rattling the library’s very foundation, and dust floats down from the rafters. I know this bell.

  “That is the dragon bell from the tower. They have finally come for me!” I stand and wrap my fingers around my staff. A moment later, the bell rings so loudly it makes the floor beneath my feet vibrate. And then it is silenced. “Something is terribly wrong.”

  Enzio grabs the lamp in one hand and frees Golmarr’s reforged sword from his belt with the other. He holds the blade out to Golmarr, but Golmarr backs away. “I dare not,” Golmarr says, his eyes haunted.

  “But it is the only weapon that can kill a dragon,” Enzio says. “How else are we going to beat it?”

  “I do not trust myself to wield it with Sorrowlynn in the vicinity!” He wraps his arms around his chest and tucks his hands under his armpits.

  Enzio’s blue eyes flash with anger. “Then you will leave her to die?”

  Golmarr’s face darkens with loathing. “I hate myself enough already for attempting to take her life once. If I killed her, I would not survive it.” He clenches his hands into fists and turns his spiteful gaze to me. “I am sorry!”

  Without taking my eyes from Golmarr, I switch the staff to my left hand and hold out my right hand. “Give me the sword,” I say.

  “No!” Enzio takes a step back. “I will use the sword if Golmarr will not. You are a…”

  My jaw tightens when he does not continue. “A…woman? I am a woman, and I am also a better swordsman than you. Give me the sword.” Enzio hesitates for only a moment before he lays the hilt on my palm. My fingers wrap around it, the metal pressing against my skin. I swing it in a fast figure eight, its blue blade blurring as it slices the air. Despite the hilt being slightly too thick for my grasp, the sword feels familiar. Holding it is like waking after a long sickness to discover my body is completely healed. It feels good. “I will wield the reforged sword until Golmarr trusts himself to.” Once the words leave my mouth, a shock of fear makes my knees tremble. I have just volunteered to fight the dragon.

  “No! I cannot ask you to fight it!” Golmarr says.

  I glare at him. “You did not ask, Golmarr. I have chosen, of my own free will, to wield the sword, and there is nothing you can do to stop me unless you dare to touch me. Because you will have to physically pry this weapon from my hands if you do not want me to fight.” He opens his mouth to protest, but clutches his left shoulder and grimaces.

  “What is wrong with your shoulder?” I ask. This is not the first time I have seen him grip it.

  He looks down at his chest and grasps the laces of his tunic, cinching them as tight as they will go. “Nothing is wrong.”

  I stride to him, determined to examine his shoulder, but both of my hands are holding weapons.

  “It is nothing!” He turns away. “Stop worrying about me. A dragon is here.” He says it so simply, I almost laugh.

  “Is now when you want me to find those secret passageways through the library? Are we leaving this castle?” I ask.

  “No. If we go now, you will still be married to Treyose. And besides, I can’t leave until I find the location of the Infinite Vessel. There has to be something we missed.” He turns to me, his eyes pleading. “You don’t understand. I have to figure out how to break this curse before—”

  Booted feet are pounding up the stairs. Golmarr steps to my side and wraps his fingers around the quarterstaff, just above mine. “D
o you know how to use a sword against a staff?” he asks.

  I nod. “Thanks to Zhun’s knowledge and Yerengul’s training, I think I know everything about fighting.”

  “Good. Let me fight with the staff. If I attack you, do not hesitate to kill me.” He takes the staff, and his entire body ripples and firms with the anticipation of battle. I do not tell him I don’t think I could kill him, even if I am wielding a sword. Because I love him, I would not be able to take his life—even to save my own.

  I know the moment the owners of the booted feet reach the top of the stairs. Light fills the far end of the library. Golmarr takes a step forward. “You two stand behind me on either side. If it comes to fighting and I cannot hold them off, move forward and take your places at my sides. If we can keep the enemy squeezed between the bookshelves, we can kill them one at a time,” Golmarr instructs. I know this formation. It is an ancient technique used to fight an enemy who outnumbers you.

  The lamplight moves closer, growing brighter between the narrow shelves, and then Reyler and another man are before us. “Treyose has sent me to see you safely out of the castle. A dragon is here. It is perched on the castle’s bell tower, practically above our heads!” Reyler shouts. He doesn’t wait to see if we follow.

  As I take the first step forward, an outpouring of bravery I never knew I possessed steels my body. I straighten my spine and move forward with the confidence of a true warrior.

  “Where is Treyose?” Golmarr asks.

  “He is organizing the palace guards and soldiers to protect his people from the dragon,” Reyler explains.

  When we exit the quiet of the library, I stop walking and stare. The air is heavy with humidity and the jarring scent of sweat. Maids and manservants, their uniforms askew, are wailing and screaming, filling the halls with panic and chaos that seems to bleed into the guards trying to herd them efficiently out of the castle. Lords and ladies are mixed up in the mess, screaming insults, insisting on order, and cursing everyone around. For once, no one listens to their threats or cowers beneath their murderous glares.