The Dragon's Curse

by Bethany Wiggins

  I climb down from the crow’s nest, careful to stay wide of Princess Yassim, who is still tied to the mast, and Yerengul, who is smiling and telling her about his horses while he smooths salve on her rope burns for the second time this morning. Golmarr is at the helm, his hands resting on the ship’s wheel, staring at the island, and Yeb is at his side, his attention focused on the sunken ships that have been smashed against the reef.

  “Does anyone live on Draykioch?” I ask.

  “No one knows,” Golmarr says. “No one has returned from Draykioch to tell.”

  Yeb turns to me, his pale eyes heavy with worry. “I believe the island was once populated, but that was hundreds of years ago. No one has been on the island for as long as I have been alive, so no one knows if there is life on it aside from the gulls.” He points up, and I look at the few white birds flapping through the air.

  “Can we take the rowboat over the reef?” I ask.

  Yeb shakes his head. “Do you see how, when the waves dip down, the reef juts out of the water in places?”

  I nod.

  “The boat will get stuck or shattered there, and then anyone left on ship will be as good as dead if we sink. You do know that, thanks to the sea serpent, the waters around Draykioch are known to devour ships?” He waves toward the glassy water and the underbelly of a massive ship not far below its surface.

  “I have heard,” I say.

  “What about right there?” Golmarr asks, pointing to a narrow gap in the reef where the waves don’t splash up against it and break, but roll into the calm bay surrounding the island.

  After a moment, Yeb shakes his head. “Even the best sailors would be hard-pressed to sail a tiny boat through something so narrow. My boat is built to hold twelve.”

  “I could swim it.” I remember the feel of swimming in the fire dragon’s lake. “It is far, but I don’t think it is too far.”

  Golmarr’s hand finds the small of my back, his touch both reassuring and a bitter reminder of the scales growing there. “I will swim it with you.”

  Enzio steps up beside me, the smell of metal residue from the anchor wafting off him. “I cannot swim, Sorrowlynn, and if I do not go with you, who is going to protect you from…” His eyes dart to Golmarr.

  “I can swim it,” Yerengul calls from the mast, where he is taking his sweet time to bandage Yassim’s ankles.

  Jessen leans his elbows on the railing and studies the gap in the reef. “So can I.”

  I look askance at my father. “Satari do not learn to swim because we are forest dwellers; otherwise I would not leave your side,” he says, with a sad smile. “But we make good pirates.” He pats his short sword. “I will stay aboard with Enzio and make sure the Ilaadi do not regain the ship.”

  “What about me?” Nayadi croaks, hobbling toward us. “Aren’t you going to ask if I can swim?”

  I bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing, and then with a straight face ask, “Nayadi, can you swim?”

  She starts cackling and lifts her skirt, showing legs that are thinner than my wrists and bend outward at the knees. Thick blue veins bulge beneath her pale skin, and her toenails are so long they curl down and touch the deck like blunt, yellow claws. “What a senseless question to ask someone as old as me,” she says, her voice bubbling with amusement. “I swam in my youth, but many have been the years since this old body has attempted such a feat. I was born more than one century ago.”

  A growl draws our attention to Princess Yassim, still tied to the mast. “You are going to take the fiercest fighters and leave me with the Satari forest dwellers, my ancient uncle, and an old witch? And what do we do if the ocean opens up and swallows us while you are gone?” She gives one dramatic tug to her bound hands. “We will not have enough men to man the ship!”

  “I will stay behind if it puts you at ease,” Jessen says.

  The princess visibly relaxes. “Thank you, Prince Jessen,” she says, and as far as I can tell, her voice truly holds gratitude.

  “I have two cork vests in the cargo bay. They will not help much if you do not know how to swim, but if you do, they keep you above water,” Yeb says.

  “I know where they are. I will get them,” my father says. He hurries belowdecks and returns a moment later with two tan bundles that look more like a jumble of wooden blocks sewn together than clothing. My father passes one to Golmarr and then holds the other one out for me to put my arms through. I slide the vest on and my father ties it closed. The cork blocks are awkward, making it impossible for me to put my arms down flat at my sides. Golmarr ties his closed and shrugs his shoulders a couple of times, testing the weight of the cork garment.

  “I think it would be easier to swim to shore without this.” I lift my hands to untie it, but a high-pitched scream fills the air, jolting my fingers to a dead stop.

  Princess Yassim is motioning up at the sky with her tied hands. Yerengul follows the direction of her gaze and draws his sword. My blood runs cold as I search the dawn sky, for I already know what they have seen. A dark spot flaws the pristine blue, dipping and jerking with every flap of its wings. I don’t need to see the creature up close to know the two-headed dragon has finally caught up to us.

  Somehow, I am holding the reforged sword, though I do not recall drawing it. I turn to Golmarr. “You have been trained to fight them. What do we do? How can we fight something like that from the deck of a ship?”

  “You cannot,” Yeb says, his voice hollow with defeat as if now, finally, he has realized there is no hope his ship will ever sail away from Draykioch. “A creature that size will snap the masts like twigs and break the ship in two with one swing of its tail.”

  I tighten my grip on the sword. “I am not ready to give up hope. What do we do?” I ask Golmarr, but his eyes have glazed over. I grip his cork vest and give him a fierce shake. “It is going to attack us! What do we do?”

  His attention turns to the sword in my hand, and he backs a step away as his eyes fill with panic. “I don’t know what to do! I’ve never learned how to fight a dragon when I am confined on a boat!”

  “But you have been trained to fight them since you were old enough to wield a weapon,” I say, and hold the sword forward. He clasps his hands behind his back and fervently shakes his head. “You do not want the sword?” I ask, when really I am hoping he will take it from my hands and lift the burden of fighting the dragon. “Please fight the dragon, Golmarr.”

  He closes his eyes and swallows. And then he reaches for the sword. “For you, I will do it.”

  I take a deep breath and place the sword into his hand. “Thank you,” I whisper. His fingers wrap around the hilt, and they are a perfect fit. Without a word, he crosses the ship’s deck and climbs onto the railing, staring down at the still water.

  “Enzio, give me your sword!” I say. Enzio slides his short sword from his belt and hands it to me. My bare feet thump on the wood as I run to catch up with Golmarr. He looks down at me, and fear darkens his eyes, but he is standing firm and sure, his head held high. I start climbing up beside him, and he asks, “What are you doing?”

  “Just because you are wielding the reforged sword does not mean I will not fight at your side,” I say. With those words, he seems to stand even taller than before, as if my presence lends him physical strength.

  “Now I am the one who owes you thanks.” He leans close so our shoulders are touching and points at the approaching beast. “This dragon is unbalanced because of its unsymmetrical wings and wounded tail. The left side of its body—the side with the feathers—is more powerful than the right, so we could attack the weaker right side and try to kill it ourselves, or aim for its stronger left side and weaken it. If we can weaken the left side, the right will be nearly useless, and it might drown. If it drowns, hopefully we won’t inherit its treasure. What do you think?”

  “Let it drown, if possible. I don
’t know what its treasure is, but I don’t want it.”

  “Agreed. But we also need to stop its lightning somehow, or dive deep below the water’s surface when the lightning strikes. Have you ever seen lightning hit the ocean?”

  “No.”

  “The energy stays on the surface. So if the ugly head draws back, it is going to shoot lightning. There is a problem, though.”

  I look at Golmarr like he might be crazy. “You mean a problem besides a two-headed dragon about to attack, with us stuck on a pile of fragile logs floating in serpent-infested waters?”

  Lowering his voice, he says, “We have to lure it away from the ship so that everyone who survives the attack will have a chance of sailing home. Plus, if we fight it in the water, we have eliminated one of its strengths: its use of water as a weapon.”

  I peer down at the ocean, at the fleet of a thousand ships sunken beneath its surface. “You want me to jump into the water to fight the dragon? What about the sea serpent?” I ask, voice on the verge of hysteria.

  Golmarr shrugs and glares. “You know infinitely more than me! Do you have a better idea? You’re a strong swimmer. So am I. If we don’t get off this ship, they all die.” He nods his head backward, at Enzio and my father, his brothers, Nayadi, and the Ilaadi. “If we jump into the water to fight, our odds of dying don’t change at this point.”

  The dragon is so close, I can see the sun reflecting off its scales and purple feathers, see the bones through the taut skin on its ugly wing, and see the black scab on the end of its severed tail.

  “Here’s the thing,” Golmarr says, speaking quickly. “I have been thinking nonstop how to defeat a dragon if it tried to attack us on a ship. If the dragon is smart, the first thing it will do is destroy the ship, and chances are, everyone on it will be crushed at the same time. You are the one this hideous beast is coming for. If you are already in the water, it might leave the ship alone.” Golmarr holds his hand out to me. “Come on, Sorrowlynn. I know we can do this!”

  “Promise?”

  He nods and flashes his beautiful, heart-stopping smile. “I promise.”

  My knees threaten to buckle, so I put my hand into his, and together, we leap off the side of the ship.

  Water fills my ears and stings my open eyes, and something big and black and snakelike moves in the water below. Before I have time to get a good look at it, the cork vest pulls me up to the surface. I whip the hair out of my eyes. Golmarr surfaces beside me and looks up at the sky.

  “Did you see that?” I splutter, treading water.

  “What?” he asks, eyes begging me not to give him bad news.

  “The sea serpent is in the water with us.” I point in the direction of the thing I saw, and Golmarr dives. I fill my lungs and follow, struggling against the vest to stay underwater. Colorful fish dart about, weaving in and out of the ship graveyard, but nothing else moves.

  Golmarr and I emerge at the same time. “I didn’t see anything,” he says.

  “I promise it was there.”

  “I believe you, Sorrowlynn, but we have to put some distance between us and the Ilaadi ship.” He starts paddling away from the boat and I follow.

  “How do we dive below the water’s surface, deep enough to avoid lightning, if we are wearing these vests?” I ask. Golmarr curses and then reaches for me, quickly untying the strings.

  “Just keep one arm looped through it. If you have to dive, pull your arm out.”

  I am about to tell him there is no way we can possibly survive this fight when the ocean starts pulling me away from the boat. Ahead, the water is moving in a slow, lazy circle that gets tighter and faster toward its center, until it is a tight funnel sucking everything caught in the spiral under the water. I try and swim out of the whirlpool just as Golmarr yells, “Lightning! Dive!”

  He grips the crown of my head and shoves me under, hard. Water fills my nose and pours into my open mouth. Before I can slip my arm from the cork vest, the ocean seems to wrap around me, dragging me downward so hard and fast my ears pop. Above, the surface flashes with blue light that illuminates the sunken ships and saturates the water’s surface with an energy that vibrates against my skin. When the water has darkened to its normal color, Golmarr grabs my vest, pulling me back up.

  Golmarr and I break the surface together, and I gag and cough and blow water out my nose. The ocean is still—no more whirlpool. “The ocean dragged us down,” I splutter. “I didn’t have to take off my vest.”

  “I know, but we can’t worry about the ocean right now. Never take your eyes off your opponent,” Golmarr orders, glaring up at the sky. “Look!” I look up and see the two-headed dragon framed by bright sky. It is hovering above us, its wings flapping.

  I told you sneaking wouldn’t work, a deep female voice whispers in my head. We should have eaten them while the girl wasn’t paying attention. Once again, you have ruined everything. The words are accompanied by a rush of bitter hatred. The feathered dragon slams her head into the ugly dragon.

  Golmarr frowns and shakes his head. “I can hear them again,” he whispers.

  “So can I.”

  You are the one who ruins everything! It is your fault we are like this! another voice wails, and the ugly dragon snaps a mouthful of feathers from the other’s neck.

  The feathered dragon hisses. I will never be as ugly as you, no matter how you tear my feathers. Save your bouts of temper for the girl, sister. Look! She is drawing the sword that severed our tail.

  They are right that I am drawing a sword, but it is not the reforged sword. “They are focused entirely on you,” Golmarr says, holding the reforged sword under the water. “Raise the sword and try to draw them down to the water, and I will attempt to wound them.” Lifting Enzio’s sword from the water, I wave it from side to side.

  “Right before it attacks, dive under the water,” Golmarr instructs. “When they hit the water’s surface, go deep. I will use the reforged sword to—” His words are cut short, and we both look away from the dragon and stare at the ocean. The water is suctioning us again, pulling us in a tight circle toward a roiling center. I kick my legs and use my free arm to paddle out of the current, but the water is immeasurably stronger than I.

  “Stop paddling and focus on your opponent,” Golmarr calls above the sucking, hissing sound of the growing whirlpool. With my eyes glued to the two-headed dragon, I give in to the spinning water and keep my gaze focused on the beast.

  Look! Cackling laughter fills my head. Even the ocean wants her dead.

  Wait until she is being sucked into the vortex before you pluck her out and eat her, then I will eat the beautiful boy at the same time.

  I think we should eat them now. Or I can use my lightning again.

  “They’re going to use lightning again,” I say, and both dragons shriek.

  She has been listening, sister! the pretty dragon says. The ugly one lurches toward us, yanking them closer to the water, but the pretty one slams her head into her sister again. Wait, you fool. They are almost trapped in the center of the funnel. She will not be able to use her sword if she is being sucked underwater.

  “They are waiting until we are in the vortex to attack,” I say as we are rushing toward the whirlpool’s center.

  “I know. I can hear them, too,” Golmarr says. The dragon is still hovering out of reach, waiting. When we enter the edge of the vortex—where the water grows white and foamy—I take a deep breath and tighten my hand on Enzio’s sword, prepared to be sucked down into the depths of the ocean or fight the creature. The moment the water begins to drag me downward, the spinning stops and the ocean turns as smooth and silent as glass. And then the two-headed dragon dives for us.

  Before I have a chance to plunge beneath the ocean, a black mass of scales, claws, and fins shoots out of the water.

  Sunlight gleams off a wingless black dragon as
it streaks straight up, its long, narrow body dividing the sky in two. It collides with the two-headed dragon and clamps its mouth on one of the dragon’s necks—the beautiful purple-feathered one—dragging the beast down through the air. They hit the water with so much force, a wave surges up around them, washing me toward the boat.

  Help me, sister! Bite him!

  Gladly!

  I stare in horror at the writhing, twisting mass of two bodies—one black, one purple and gray. They fight and writhe, and then plunge beneath the ocean. The force of their movement agitates the water until it looks like it is boiling.

  I quickly slide my sword arm out of the vest in case I need to dive. Golmarr slowly starts paddling toward the mass, sword ready, but I stop him. “You will get killed in there.”

  So we wait, and the water around us slowly turns from blue to pink to red, until it is as if I am treading blood, and all the while I can hear the wailing and snarling of the two sisters in my head. Somehow, the water wraps around Golmarr and me again and starts carrying us toward the boat as the ball of dragons twists in the water, surges above its surface, and then sinks below. Feathers tinged with blood float to the surface, and the red keeps spreading until the entire ocean looks made of blood.

  I need air! the ugly dragon wails. I am dying!

  We have to get away, sister! We have to work together. If we both bite his neck, we can suffocate him. Not taking my eyes from the roiling water, I paddle backward, putting as much distance between myself and the dragons as I can. And then, as if the dragons wink out of existence, the water becomes tranquil. A few bubbles rise to the surface and pop, but nothing more.

  Golmarr and I look at each other. I stop paddling and grip Enzio’s sword tighter, watching the ocean, waiting. A ripple shudders across the surface. In a spray of red, the two-headed dragon shoots up out of the water and opens its ugly, unsymmetrical wings. Soggy feathers fall from its body in clumps, revealing scales that have been torn and are dangling from its flesh. The air catches in the beast’s wings, and bloody water sloughs from its body and lands in giant drops in the ocean. The hideous creature pulls itself higher into the air and both of its heads whip around. Two sets of eyes focus on me.