The Dragon's Price

by Bethany Wiggins

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Bethany Wiggins

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by iStock, (blue mist) © 2017 by Shutterstock

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wiggins, Bethany, author.

  Title: The dragon’s price: a Transference novel / Bethany Wiggins.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, [2017] | Summary: “An action-packed fantasy adventure about one girl’s choice to be sacrificed to a dragon instead of marrying a future king—but when she’s lowered into the dragon’s lair she can’t even begin to imagine the consequences that lie ahead”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008249 | ISBN 978-0-399-54981-6 (hardback) | ISBN 978-0-399-55116-1 (glb) | ISBN 978-0-399-54982-3 (epub)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | Dragons—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.W6382 Dr 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780399549823

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This story is dedicated to my son, GRW, for the gift of the dragon’s scale.

  Today is my sixteenth birthday. I am wearing a gown I can barely walk in, my artfully styled hair is giving me a headache, and I feel like I am going to throw up.

  “Hurry! Bend down!” Nona snaps, tugging on my shoulder with frigid fingers. “I can hear them marching down the hall!” I lean forward and she quickly fastens a gold tiara in my hair just as the chamber door swings open. I jump as four armed guards stride in.

  “Princess Sorrowlynn, we are hereby ordered to escort you to the opening ceremony of the Mountain Binding,” says the tallest guard, Ornald. It sounds like a death sentence, and my hands begin to tremble, so I clutch the delicate fabric of my skirt in them and square my shoulders.

  The guards studiously do not look at me, staring instead at the gray stone wall behind me. I glance from them to Nona, who is slouching in the corner of my bedchamber and chewing on her thumbnail. She stops chewing long enough to nod and wave me toward the guards.

  “I don’t want to go.” My voice quivers like I am on the verge of tears, and I take a tiny step backward.

  Ornald scowls and stops studying the wall to look at me. “If you don’t come by choice, my lady, I have been instructed to drag you to the courtyard. Please don’t make me do that. That’s no way for a Faodarian princess to make her grand entrance into society, is it?” he asks, his eyes pleading.

  “Instructed by whom?” I ask.

  Ornald frowns. “Beg pardon, my lady?”

  “Who instructed you to drag me? My mother or my father?”

  The guard clears his throat and puckers his mouth like he is about to spit, but then stops himself. He tugs on the collar of his red uniform and says, “Lord Damar, your father, instructed me to drag you if you don’t comply. Let’s show him you’ve grown into a lady and can follow orders.” A small smile softens Ornald’s square face. “You look like a lady today, my lady.”

  I glance into the mirror. My light brown hair is braided in a crown around my head, the golden tiara gleaming in front of it. The sapphire-blue dress I have been stuffed into is low-cut, and the corset gives me double the curves that I normally have. The eyes staring back at me are on the verge of panic. I do not know this woman I am looking at. I feel trapped in her body.

  “Princess Sorrowlynn?” I blink and turn away from my reflection. Ornald holds his arm out to me even though it is forbidden for guards to touch royalty. It is a gesture that would get him demoted if he weren’t already the lowest man in the guard despite his being one of the older men. But somehow that tiny gesture offering human contact sends a bit of courage through my trembling body.

  I swallow, put my frigid hand on the red sleeve of his uniform, and nod. “Ready,” I whisper, and together we walk into the shadowed passage.

  The walk through the palace goes by too fast, even with me tripping on my skirts every three steps. My mother and father are waiting for me by the palace doors. Both of their gazes go directly to my hand, resting on the arm of a lowly guard, and my father’s face turns crimson. My mother purses her lips and her blue eyes narrow. I quickly clasp my hands behind my back as Ornald steps away from me.

  “Who dressed you?” my mother snaps, eyeing my gown. Her perfume is so strong that I can barely breathe.

  “Nona,” I say. She is the only person who has dressed me since the day I was born.

  “Your corset is too loose. Has she forgotten how to string a corset?” Her eyes flash accusations at me.

  Probably, considering this is the first time I have ever worn one in my life, I think, but hold my tongue. One does not talk back to the queen.

  Outside, a horn blares, a clarion call announcing the looming arrival of our guests of honor, and the irritation disappears from my mother’s face and is replaced with majestic indifference. She lifts her chin and grasps her silver-and-gray skirt in one hand, and lays her other hand on my father’s proffered arm.

  Two guards throw open the massive double doors leading out to the palace’s courtyard, and my mother and father walk outside into evening sunlight. They are greeted by the cheering and applause of a massive crowd. Ornald gives me a small shove forward, and I stumble from the shadows into sunshine. Regaining my balance, I grasp my skirts in both my hands and climb a small staircase that leads to a raised dais.

  The courtyard is filled with nobles and commoners, and like water and oil, they remain steadfastly separate of each other. The commoners, at the far edges of the courtyard, seem to suck the sunlight away with their drab and dreary clothing. At the base of the dais, the nobles reflect the light, making it difficult to look at the white, silver, and gold clothing they favor.

  My gaze drifts over their eyes, which are devouring every visible inch of me from the tiara in my hair to the silver-embroidered hem of my dress. Everyone wants to see the youngest Faodarian princess, who has been hidden away in her rooms for most of her life. But they look at the
young woman standing before them, in a dress she’s never worn before, with her hair braided in a coil for the first time. They don’t see me at all. They see only what my mother wants them to see.

  The whispered words offering and Suicide Sorrow drift through the crowd like wind, and I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to plug my ears. Even whispered, their words seem to batter against me. And then I hear something else, hoofbeats, and my knees start to tremble.

  The nobles turn and face the open gates leading from the courtyard to the rest of the world. The commoners quickly copy them. My heart starts thundering in my ears, louder than the horses’ hooves, as the king of Anthar and his party gallop into the yard and part the crowd with their animals. They stop directly in front of the dais and the smells of leather, horse, and sweat compete against my mother’s perfume for supremacy. The horse clan has arrived.

  Their animals are sleek and beautiful: rippling muscles, glossy bodies, strong legs. Ribbons and beads and flowers have been braided into their manes, like something I would do to my dolls when I was a child. A smile forms on my lips as I look from the horses to their riders—and then it falters. These dark-haired, strapping men and women are examining me from their saddles like I am for sale. At that thought, my face starts to burn, because I am for sale, in a manner of speaking.

  I stare back at them, trying to guess which man I will be offered to, but they all look the same, with long black hair and skin as golden as toasted bread. More disturbing are their women, sitting astride their horses instead of sidesaddle, and dressed no differently from the men: brown leather pants and chain mail that has been shined until it looks like sparkling silver. Curved swords hang at their hips, and strung bows at their backs. Out of the whole group, only one person stands out. He is at the back of the party, and a cut on his cheek has bled trails of red all the way down to his jawline. I shudder at the thought of associating with these barbarians.

  “For three centuries you and your sons have been our honored guests. That tradition still holds strong,” my mother, the queen, bellows, practically in my ear. I try not to flinch and take a small step away from her. “I bid you and your family welcome, King Marrkul.”

  The biggest man, the one at the front of the group, nods to my mother. He has gray streaks in his dark hair, and a beard that looks like a bird’s nest hangs halfway down his chest.

  I shift my gaze from the king to the man on his right. He looks powerful and stern, and at least two decades older than me. When our eyes meet his jaw clenches and he glares, so I lift one eyebrow and look at the next man. He, too, looks powerful and stern and way too old for me to marry. He flashes his white teeth in a grin, and my father hisses into my ear, “Smile, Sorrow!” So I turn to my father and smile. “Not at me. At them.” He rolls his eyes in the direction of the horse clan, and I can see how desperate he is for me to make a good impression. So I do as he wants and turn my practiced smile toward them, the smile that doesn’t show my teeth, that makes me look soft and regal, like my mother.

  “I thank you, Queen Felicitia,” the Antharian king says, his accent thick. “May I present my oldest son and heir, Ingvar,” he adds, holding his hand out to the man on his right. My three older sisters all were offered in marriage to this brute, but he turned them down. Now, standing in the exact same place they all stood, and meeting the Antharian heir for the first time, I realize how lucky my sisters are to be married to Faodarian noblemen.

  Ingvar looks at me again, his eyes moving up my body, and the smile slowly fades from my face. I can’t smile because a hollow ache has opened up in me, stealing every emotion I have been feeling, but one. For the first time since birth, my name fits. I fight to keep the tears at bay.

  This baby will die by her own hand. That is the fate Melchior, the royal wizard, glimpsed when I was born. It caused my mother such distress that she locked herself in her chambers and cried for days. She refused to touch me, look at me, or speak, even name me. I was given to Nona, a scullery maid who’d lost her own baby, and she was told to never take me out of the nursery. Finally, after I had been called girl for a year, my father named me Sorrowlynn on behalf of the heartache my existence caused, and I have been called Sorrow ever since.

  My three older sisters fared much better with their fate blessings. Melchior glimpsed Diamanta, the future queen of Faodara, outliving three husbands, and at age twenty-one, she’s already outlived one. Harmony was seen making peace wherever she went. The Antharians should have chosen her for their queen, as it is rumored they are always fighting among themselves when they are not fighting their neighbors to the west, the Trevonan. My third sister, Gloriana, would bring joy to all who met her, and it is true. I can think of nothing bad to say about her.

  I, though, would die by my own hand. I stare at my soft, narrow hands and wish the old wizard were still alive so I could slap him across the face for that fate blessing. And then I remember how kind he was, and take it back. Before he disappeared, Melchior would spend hours in my chambers with me and Nona. He always wore the same faded green tunic over tan hose and had his graying hair tied in a tail at the nape of his neck. When I asked him why he dressed like a peasant, he said, “When you are as old as me, clothing no longer holds much pleasure. It simply becomes a necessity.” We would spend hours piecing puzzles together while he would tell stories of the eight dragons he’d seen with his own eyes. He always compared the fate of the dragons, or Faodara, or Anthar to the puzzles. Every single time we finished one, he would say, “It isn’t until all the pieces come together that we see the whole picture, Sorrowlynn.”

  Diamanta yanks the laces of my corset hard, and I grab on to the bedpost to keep from toppling backward. I gasp as deep a breath of air as I can before she gets it any tighter.

  “Sorrow,” she snaps, “it is obvious you’ve never worn one of these the right way before. You’re supposed to breathe out when I pull, not in.” I grit my teeth and breathe in even deeper, making my ribs as big as possible. She huffs and slaps my butt, but it hardly hurts through the layers of petticoats. “Please, for the love of Faodara, let me at least give you the semblance of a womanly figure,” she growls, putting a foot up onto the bedpost to get more leverage. “The horse king is going to be looking to see if you’ve got the body for grandchildren.”

  I shudder at the memory of Ingvar’s eyes examining my body, at the thought of bearing his children. “That’s the point,” I say, keeping my ribs as wide as possible. “The worse I look, the less likely I am to be picked for the heir’s future bride. And besides, I think it is ridiculous that we still do this horrendous, ancient Mountain Binding ceremony. I do not see how my agreeing to marry a scruffy old brute will have the power to keep a fire-breathing dragon locked beneath a mountain. And if I don’t agree to marry him, will I truly be fed to the dragon? That is savage, and inhumane, and crazy.”

  “Did you learn nothing from our history tutors?” Diamanta asks, glaring at me. “Three centuries ago, the Antharian king woke the dragon with the intent to have it destroy Faodara, but it didn’t follow the king’s orders. The beast nearly destroyed both of our countries before a wizard’s binding spell was able to imprison the vile creature. Unfortunately, the spell requires an ongoing sacrifice to work, which—”

  “Is dependent on me sacrificing myself to the Antharian heir in order to keep the dragon locked away,” I blurt. “I listened to our tutors.”

  “You’re not exactly sacrificing yourself, just offering yourself in marriage. It’s only if you refuse to offer yourself in marriage that you are sacrificed to the fire dragon. But the Antharians haven’t picked anyone from our line for three generations. I doubt they will change that for you, considering they turned down Gloriana two years ago. She’s more pleasant and more pretty than you. And so are Harmony and I, and they didn’t take any of us. If they didn’t want us, they’re definitely not going to pick you.”

  I glower at her, but she’s right. My three older sisters have thick, golden blond hair, blue eye
s, and gentle curves. I have unruly brown hair and green eyes, and not quite as many curves, not to mention I stand half a head taller than all three of them. If they didn’t pick any of my sisters, what makes me think they will pick me? All the air swooshes out of my lungs. Diamanta uses the opportunity to cinch the corset into place before I can take another breath, and I can feel my ribs compacting.

  “It’s just a silly tradition. For all we know, the fire dragon is long dead,” she says.

  “If it is a silly tradition and nothing more, why do we still do it?”

  “We do it for two reasons. To keep peace between Faodara and Anthar, and just to be safe; if the dragon is still down there, we don’t want to risk setting him free.” With nimble fingers, Diamanta ties the corset laces. She looks at my reflection in the mirror and grins as she runs her hands down both sides of my ribs. “Look how tiny your waist is now.” Her grin turns to a frown and her hand pauses just above my hip. “What is this lump?”

  I smile and say, “It is my dagger, dear sister.” Diamanta’s eyebrows creep up her forehead and for a moment fear darkens her eyes. I know she is thinking of my fate blessing, thinking something like, Is Sorrow going to kill herself with her own hand to avoid an arranged marriage? “I’m not going to kill myself!” I bellow, rolling my eyes.

  “Then why are you wearing a dagger to dine with the horse king and his sons? To cut your food?”

  “It is the dagger the wizard Melchior gave me when I turned eight. He told me to always wear a weapon for protection, so I do. If you think I should take it off, undo my corset and I will,” I say, my voice taunting.