The Dragon's Price

by Bethany Wiggins

  “Let’s spend the night here,” Golmarr says. “You sit and rest your feet. I will gather wood and make a fire, and then we can cook these.” He touches the snakes dangling from his belt. I do not know what my face looks like upon hearing we are eating snake for dinner, but Golmarr starts laughing. “Don’t you eat snake for dinner in Faodara?”

  “No! Do you eat it in your kingdom?”

  He smiles and shakes his head no. “But I guarantee you, it is going to taste incredible. Fresh meat on an empty stomach is always a pleasure.”

  He hurries off, leaving me alone in the shelter.

  A while later, he returns with his arms laden with wood, several different-sized strips of leather tucked into his belt, and his leather pants cut off above his knees, leaving his boots covering the lower half of his calves and the rest of his calves bare. Seeing a grown man’s legs is almost as scandalous as seeing a man without his shirt on, and despite the fact that my legs have been bare for days, I blush and look away.

  “Here.” Golmarr holds two thin, sharpened sticks and the two snake carcasses out to me. “Thread the snakes onto the sticks like you’re sewing stitches into cloth,” he instructs.

  I take the snakes and sticks, and before I have time to become squeamish, my mind and body know exactly what to do. Without even thinking about it, my nimble hands stab the stick through the snake flesh, loop beneath it, and pull it back out again, just like I am sewing. In less than a minute, the entire length of the snake is skewered. I do it with the other snake, and when I look up, Golmarr is staring at me.

  “You’ve obviously done that before,” he says.

  I shake my head. “No, I have never touched raw meat before.” I look at my hands in awe. “It is as if my fingers knew exactly what to do.”

  Golmarr studies me for a drawn-out minute. Finally, he says, “Like when you fought the Mayanchi in the cave.”

  “Yes, like that.”

  “I wonder what else you can do.” He takes his unstrung bow from his back and a long string of leather from his belt, and then measures the leather where the bowstring should go, leaving a lot of slack. He ties a knot into each end of the leather and strings the bow with it. Next, he puts a dry, flat piece of pine bark on the ground and uses his foot to hold it in place. Last, he loops a stick through the loose leather bowstring and places the end of it on the bark. Holding the stick loosely in place, he starts sawing back and forth with his bow, making the stick spin quickly on top of the bark. Back and forth, back and forth he pulls the bow. The faster he does it, the hotter the spinning stick grows where it is pressed to the bark. After a few short minutes, smoke rises from the point where stick and bark meet. A moment later, a small orange flame jumps to life.

  Golmarr sets the bow aside and deftly places a stack of brittle brown pine needles on the flame. For a minute, I think the fire has gone out. And then the needles burst with warm light as the fire devours them.

  Golmarr lays the smallest sticks he’s gathered onto the fire, and after they’ve been taken with flame, he places big, thick boughs atop it. When it has burned down a bit, I hold the skewered snakes close to the coals, and the mouthwatering aroma of cooking meat fills the shelter. When the snakes are browned and sizzling, I pass the bigger one to Golmarr, but he shakes his head and takes the smaller one for himself.

  I hesitate for only a moment before biting into the bigger snake. Sinking my teeth into the hot meat, I pull the flesh from the bones and swallow without chewing more than twice.

  “Good?” Golmarr asks.

  “Yes. Very. Snake is my new favorite food.” When nothing more than a long, narrow trail of vertebrae remains attached to the stick, I toss it into the fire.

  Outside the shelter, full dark has settled over the land, and with it the air has grown uncomfortably cold. Golmarr steps out into the darkness and comes back with an armful of pine boughs, which he uses to block the triangular entrance to our small shelter.

  He sits down beside me and we both stare at the fire. “I would like to ask you something,” he says.

  I hug my legs to my chest and rest my head on my knees so I am looking at him. “What do you want to ask me?”

  His brows pull together, and his face loses all of its mischief. “This morning, you told me that the thought of kissing me is improper and disgraceful. Is it because I am Antharian? A barbarian?”

  I open my mouth to tell him no, but he presses his fingers over my lips.

  “I was not raised in a grand palace like you, and have never had servants wait on me hand and foot, but I am honorable and courageous and smart and strong—and as you yourself said, kind. I am a worthy match for any woman, no matter her rank. Even you.” His voice trembles with passion and stirs my heart until it is beating so hard, I can feel it through my whole body.

  His fingers drop away from my lips, and I hug my knees tighter and let the warmth from the fire heat my shins as the weight of his words settles over me. “When I said the thought of kissing you was disgraceful, it was because I have been taught that when a princess is being courted, she plays the role of the shy, naïve woman, and the suitor is in charge of initiating all intimate interactions. It is a role we are taught to play until we are betrothed. After she is married, she can take more liberties with her husband, but any other behavior would bring shame down on her family. Because I wanted to initiate the kiss, I was a disgrace. Me. Not you.”

  Golmarr nods and runs a hand through his hair. I watch the way the firelight moves over his face and think it is possibly my favorite face in the whole world. It is a face I could never get tired of looking at. “Is that why you jump away whenever we touch?” he asks. “Because you are scared of disgracing your family?”

  “Jump away?” I ask.

  “Yes, you jump away. If I touch you, you jump away. If I hug you, you push me away. If I look into your eyes, you look back for a long time, and then suddenly look away without any explanation. Is it because I am Antharian?”

  I smile. “No.”

  “Then why do you?”

  “I’ve never been around a boy my own age before,” I answer.

  “Look at this beard, Sorrowlynn,” he says with a laugh, running his hand over the short growth darkening his chin. “I’m not a boy; I’m a man who—”

  I reach forward and press my fingers over his lips, silencing him. His eyebrows slowly rise and his mouth curves up into a smile beneath my touch. The feel of his soft lips makes my head spin.

  “If you want me to explain, be quiet,” I say. His smile grows, but he nods, and I slowly remove my fingers. “When you look into my eyes, I want to act in ways that I have been told are improper and disgraceful, so I look away. And when you hug me, all of these emotions fill me and overwhelm me, and I can’t breathe, so I step away to clear my head.”

  He studies me, his face uncommonly serious. “So in essence, the reason you look away or push away from me is because my mere presence makes you want to act in scandalous, shameful ways. In other words, you are fighting an internal battle to keep your filthy little hands off me.”

  I sit up tall and smack him hard on the shoulder. He leans away and starts laughing. “I didn’t I realize I, an Antharian warrior, was so irresistible to you.”

  “You are a fiend, Golmarr!”

  He stops laughing. “I’m just teasing you.” He raises his hand and lets it hover over my shoulder. “Can I put my arm around you without you shoving me away?” he asks, his voice full of mischief.

  “Yes,” I say, and lay my head back down on my knees. He drapes his arm across my shoulders and his hand comes down on my arm. Gently, he runs his fingers over my shirt and I can feel the warmth from his fingertips through the fabric. He raises his hand to my neck and lifts my hair. I feel his warm breath on my skin, and then his lips as he places a kiss at the curve where my neck and shoulder meet. I can hardly breathe as excitement, fear, pleasure, joy, uncertainty—too many emotions to name—overpower me.

  “That wasn’t a hug, a
nd I wasn’t looking into your eyes,” he murmurs against my ear, his voice a deep rumble. “Did that overwhelm you with emotions?”

  I sit up and look at him with wide eyes. A smile spreads across his face, and I smack him on the shoulder again. “Stop teasing me, sir.” He laughs and puts his arm around my waist, pulling me against him. I tilt my head onto his shoulder and turn my face toward him so my cold nose is on his neck. “I’m not pulling away,” I whisper, and my lips touch his warm skin. He shivers and holds me tighter against him, pressing his chin to the top of my head.

  I close my eyes and immediately feel the weight of sleep weighing on me. And then I see Ornald, my former guard, sitting in this very shelter, looking into my eyes, speaking to me, and I know what I am seeing is a memory passed on to the fire dragon by one of his victims.

  “Is that why he forbids her to attend family functions?” Ornald asks, his eyes tight with anger.

  “Did you suspect?” I am the one who says this, but it is not my voice. I look at my hands—large, thin, wrinkled hands—and a wave of shock ripples through me.

  “I have suspected from the day she was born. She has my eyes and my height, and my darker hair. And she is not treated like a young princess should be treated.” His nostrils flare with anger. “He is awful to her, Melchior. Every chance I get, I pass my pay on to Nona and ask her to buy the child something nice so she doesn’t feel the pain of living like a wretch when her sisters are given every indulgence their hearts desire.” He runs his hand over his short beard. “Is he doing it to punish her, or to punish me?”

  I think of the young Princess Sorrowlynn, always confined to her rooms, dressed in the worn castoffs of her sisters, eyes always shining with happiness and innocence despite her secluded life. “The child has known no other life, and Nona showers her with the sincere love of a mother. She is happy. Lord Damar treats her that way to punish you and her mother.”

  Ornald growls and jumps to his feet, pacing back and forth across the small shelter, his hand on his sword hilt. “Her mother? She is the queen! That child is her daughter no matter who the father is! Why doesn’t she divorce her husband? She is miserable with him.”

  “Because her husband will kill the child if she takes any type of action against him, and she knows it. I have seen all paths concerning your daughter, and the queen has picked the path that will afford the child the longest life possible. It is a tangled web, Ornald, a puzzle that does not yet have enough pieces fitted together to reveal the whole picture. That is why I am going to see the fire dragon.”

  “What does a dragon have to do with any of this, Melchior?”

  “He will give her the means to change the world. But she must know two things if she is to succeed.”

  Ornald crouches across the fire from me, green eyes intent. “What?”

  “Once Sorrowlynn has obtained the fire dragon’s treasure, the seven remaining dragons will hunt her down until they kill her, or she kills them. The reforged sword can cut through a dragon’s scales, and the man who wields it will give his life to her, no matter what trials of his own he faces. And the first dragon is very close!”

  Ornald stands and draws his sword.

  “Wake up, child!” the wizard hisses.

  I gasp and lurch awake, pushing myself to sitting. Red coals are all that remain of the fire, and through the branches blocking the shelter’s entrance, the sky is one shade lighter than pitch-black.

  Golmarr sits up beside me. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

  “The dragons are going to hunt me,” I say.

  Golmarr stands. “I know.” He pulls his sword from its sheath, and it reflects the minuscule light from the embers.

  “Your reforged sword. It can—”

  “Cut through a dragon’s scales,” he says, finishing my sentence. Walking to the cave entrance, he peers out between the branches.

  “How do you know that?” I ask. “Were you dreaming about Melchior, too?”

  “Melchior?”

  “My family’s old wizard,” I explain.

  “No. Nayadi taught me everything she knows about dragons.” He sits down beside me and lays his sword across his knees. “When I was born, she gave me a birth blessing unlike any ever given to my brothers or ancestors. She said, This child shall be known as the first dragon slayer in a thousand years, and he shall wield a reforged sword.” He turns the sword over in his hands, studying it in the dim light. “That is why my father gifted me a sword with a dragon hilt when I turned thirteen—because I have been told my whole life that it will be reforged by dragon fire one day.” He laughs. “I think you can imagine my surprise to wake up and discover that you, Sorrowlynn, are the true dragon slayer. Suicide Sorrow, Dragon Slayer.”

  I don’t laugh. “I wish I were not.”

  “Me too,” Golmarr whispers. “Because now you are the one who will be hunted, not I.”

  He sheathes the sword and throws a log onto the fire, and I replay my dream in my head. I am not Lord Damar’s daughter. I am the daughter of Ornald, the former captain of the guard, who got permanently demoted for intervening when Lord Damar whipped me. I always wondered why he stopped Lord Damar when no other man dared stand up to him. Now I know he was protecting his own child, and he paid a mighty high price.

  I look at Golmarr and the reforged sword hanging at his hip. Melchior said the wielder of the reforged sword would give his life to me. Does that mean Golmarr will die protecting me? The thought makes my stomach feel emptier than ever, like the core of me has been carved out, but nothing is being put back in. How I wish I did not kill the fire dragon.

  When the wood has caught the flame, lighting the shelter, Golmarr pulls the remaining scraps of leather from his belt. He sets them beside me and kneels at my feet. Placing his hand behind my bare calf, he looks up at me with a question in his eyes. “You’re not going to turn into a warrior and hold me at knifepoint for touching you, right?” he asks.

  “Not this time.” I smile and he grins, flashing his white teeth. Carefully, he places my foot on an oval of leather. “Your pants?” I ask.

  He nods. “I made holes around the edges and cut some long strips of leather into laces last night while you were sleeping.” He starts lacing the leather shut, so when he is done, my foot is completely protected. “I found a better use for them,” he says, moving to the other foot. When I am wearing makeshift shoes, I stand and try them out.

  “They are perfect,” I say, and have the urge to kiss him. Shoving aside everything I have been taught, I grab his shoulder and push up onto my toes, pressing my lips to his scruffy cheek.

  Golmarr touches the spot where my lips touched. “Better,” he says, “but my lips are a little bit farther to the left. You know, for the next time that urge overtakes you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I pick up my staff from the shelter floor and knock the branches out of the entrance.

  A thin, fragile layer of frost has coated the foliage, and the morning is still. The western horizon is threaded with golden orange, the color of the fire dragon I slayed. With Golmarr in the lead, we start wending our way down the mountain, but after fifteen steps, I tug him to a gentle stop. “Not that way,” I say when he turns to take what looks like the easier path. “This way.” I point down a steep, rocky fissure littered with debris and dead wood, and can remember Melchior picking his way through it. “Trust me,” I say. “I’ve been this way before…sort of.”

  Golmarr steps aside. “I trust you. You lead.”

  Down and down we go, and though my makeshift shoes slip and slide against my feet, creating friction, my skin is protected from the worst of the rocks and sticks, and we make good time. If we pass plants I recognize as edible, we sit for a minute and eat. It is at one of these resting stops that I notice Golmarr studying my hands. I look down at them, centered on the staff and about shoulder-width apart.

  “You are holding that pine branch like it is a weapon,” Golmarr says. “Were you given any type of defense tra
ining in Faodara?”

  “None at all.”

  He grabs a long stick from the ground and a wicked grin lights up his face. Slowly, he gets to his feet, not once taking his fierce eyes from me, and positions himself in what I now recognize as a fighter’s stance. Even dressed in rags, with dirt-smeared skin, he looks dangerous. His bare arms are corded with long, lean muscle, and without sleeves to mask it, I can see the width of his square shoulders.

  “Try to hit my knuckles,” he taunts, slashing the stick through the air like it is a sword. I stare at him, speechless, and he adds, “I bet you can’t.”

  A smile tugs at my lips, and I stand, quickly surveying the ground for any obstacles. I lift my staff and realize Golmarr is right: I am holding it like it is a weapon. We stare at each other for a drawn-out moment, and I can’t help but notice the green and brown of his eyes. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I swipe my staff at his knuckles. He grunts and leaps out of the way, bringing his stick in a wide arc toward my face. Without a thought, I lift my staff and block him. He uses his height and strength and bears down on my staff, and my weak arms start to tremble. Before they have a chance to give out, I twist toward Golmarr, making my short skirt twirl around my thighs, and press my back against the front of his body. With a sound thwack, I bring my weapon down onto his knuckles, just as his free arm circles my neck.

  “You know how to fight with a staff,” Golmarr says, though he is winded. I sag against him, barely able to stand on legs that feel like mush, and feel his body trembling against mine. “If we weren’t both on the verge of starving, we’d be a lot better at that. We need to start building up your strength so your fighting skills will be more effective.” He lowers his arm from my neck so it is braced across the front of my shoulders, and buries his face in my hair while he catches his breath. Golmarr lifts his head. “I think we will be in the Glass Forest before nightfall. I can fashion a snare and catch a rabbit or squirrel. And there are Satari in the forest. They might trade food for my knife.” He holds his arm up, showing me the knife attached to it. His eyes wander to my bare legs. “Or maybe they’ll give us food for free, if you do a little dance for them. They do have a reputation for liking pretty ladies.”