The Dragon's Price

by Bethany Wiggins

  “You’ve never seen a little waterfall like this before, have you?” Golmarr yells so his voice can be heard.

  I shake my head and open my eyes and find him staring at me the same way I was staring at the waterfall. “I have never seen or done anything before,” I call, stepping away from the roar so I can hear him better. “Everything is new for me. All of these things I am experiencing are firsts, and I am storing them away so I never forget any of it.” I walk a little ways down the stream the waterfall has created and crouch. “I’m going to remember everything,” I say, sticking my hands into the water and watching how it moves over them. “The cave, the fire dragon, the forest, the Satari. I will never forget any of it.” I cup my hands, bringing water to my mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Golmarr says.

  I stand and shake the water from my hands. “Sorry for what?” His eyes are dark with guilt and something else that I can’t identify, but it makes my heart start pounding. “Sorry for what?” I ask again.

  “I’m sorry for last night. For that kiss.” My cheeks flare with humiliation. He regrets the kiss. I duck my head and play with the laces of my shirt so I don’t have to look at him, so he can’t see my hurt and confusion. “That was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”

  I nod and roll the leather string back and forth between my thumb and middle finger and stare at it like it’s the most fascinating thing I have ever seen. He grabs my hand and stills it. Startled, I look up and meet his eyes. “You deserve better than that for your first kiss. If I could redo it, I would,” he whispers. He unbuckles my wide leather belt and pulls it from my waist.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He grins and drops the belt and dagger to the ground, and his eyes turn fierce. “Making sure you don’t stab me for what I’m about to do to you.” I gasp. “Also, you won’t feel my hands on you through that leather, and I won’t be able to feel you,” he adds, his voice a deep rumble. “A kiss isn’t only about your lips on mine. It is about your hands touching me and my hands touching you, about my body against yours.”

  He cups the side of my face in his hand and runs his callused thumb over my bottom lip. My breath catches in my throat as I stare into his eyes. Taking my hand, he places it against his chest, in the space where his shirt hangs open, so my palm is flat against his warm skin. I can feel his heart beating slow and steady. “I want you to feel what you do to my heart when I kiss you, Sorrowlynn.” With those words, my blood begins pumping so fast that my head starts to spin.

  He puts both of his strong hands on my hips, and I can feel them there, warm and firm through the lightweight fabric of my skirt. Moving his face down to meet mine, he pauses and looks into my eyes, his lips hovering above my own. “You’re going to want to hold on,” he whispers.

  I take my free hand and put it behind his neck. “I’m holding on,” I say.

  With a smile, he pulls my body flush against his. Everywhere our bodies touch, there’s heat. I tip my head up, waiting for his kiss. “This…” He brushes his lips over mine. “Is how…” He brushes them over mine again, a feather-soft sensation. “You should have been kissed your first time.” His hands tighten on my hips as he presses his lips firmly to mine, and where my hand is splayed against his chest, I feel his heart burst to life. Closing my eyes, I melt against him.

  His mouth moves over mine, patiently coaxing my lips open, and I tighten my hold on the back of his neck as my knees wobble. He kisses me slowly, softly, like I am a new flavor and he has to take his time to taste all of me. I slide my hand up his chest and press it to the side of his face to feel his jaw working as he kisses me. One of his hands slowly traces my spine through my shirt and finds my neck. The other hand fiddles with my braid, tugging the ribbon from it, slowly undoing the weave until my hair falls long and loose all the way to my waist. Golmarr twists his fingers in my hair and kisses me harder. The sound of the waterfall is replaced with the roar of blood moving through my body. The forest seems to drop away and disappear, leaving Golmarr and me in a void where only the two of us exist. His lips slow against mine, then soften. His hands clamp down on my shoulders and he gently pushes me away so he can look into my eyes.

  “If things at the binding ceremony had gone differently, you would be my wife right now, and I could kiss you all I want,” he murmurs, making my cheeks warmer than they already are. I swallow and nod and reluctantly let my arms fall from his neck.

  “If we would have been wed at the binding ceremony, I don’t know that I would have wanted you kissing me,” I say. “But now that I’ve spent every waking and sleeping moment with you for the past seven days…” I cannot find the words to finish.

  He nods. “I know. I feel the same. Being forced into it would have been hard.” He cups the side of my face and slowly kisses my forehead, then bends and picks up my belt. When he hands it to me, I can still see the energy of our kiss in his eyes. “In one week you’ve bewitched me with your magic, Princess Sorrowlynn.”

  I shake my head. “No, I haven’t, I swear. I don’t even know how to—”

  Golmarr presses his fingertips to my lips to silence me. “Whether you realize it or not, whether you meant to or not, you most assuredly have. No one has ever made me feel the way you do.” He kneels at the side of the stream and splashes water onto his face just as Enzio steps out of the bushes holding a black-bladed stone knife in his hand, muttering something under his breath. Golmarr stands and flicks the water from his hands. “What did you say, Enzio?” he asks.

  Enzio looks from Golmarr to me, his eyes taking in my missing belt and loose, disheveled hair, and frowns. “I said I have been standing in the bushes cleaning my fingernails with my knife and waiting for you to finish kissing her for at least five minutes.” He twirls the blade in his fingers and then tosses it into the air, catching it by the hilt before sliding it up his sleeve. “I didn’t realize I was coming along to play chaperone.”

  I glare at him and pick up the ribbon from the ground, and then quickly rebraid my hair.

  Golmarr throws his head back and laughs.

  With Enzio in the lead, we ride in the stream beneath the shadow of the cliff so our tracks are hidden. I am sitting in the saddle this time, with Golmarr behind me, his hands resting loosely on my leather belt, his legs dangling beside mine. When the air begins dimming and the crickets start to chirp, the undergrowth clogging the forest floor thins and the wind picks up, carrying with it warmer air. Golmarr takes a deep breath.

  “Do you smell that?” he asks. I inhale. The damp forest air smells more like crisp, dry sunshine and less like mildew. It smells like my bedsheets right after they have been dried on the clothesline in the summer sun.

  “What is it?” I sit a little taller in the saddle and try to get a glimpse through the trees.

  “That is the smell of my home. Of Anthar.” Golmarr laughs. “I can’t believe we’ve made it this far. I didn’t know if I would ever get to see my kingdom again.” Like stepping from one room to another, the forest abruptly ends, replaced by yellow grass as tall as the horse’s belly. The wind blows and the grass ripples like warm golden water in the last light of the evening. Above, the sky is a pale, unending blue. Goose bumps travel up my arms, and I wonder if I will ever see anything as stunning again in my life.

  I turn to look back at the forest. To the east, it runs in a perfectly straight line as far as I can see. To the west, it runs in a perfectly straight line to the base of a mountain. North, a snowcapped peak juts up out of the forest. “Is that Gol Mountain?” I ask.

  “Yes. That is the dragon’s mountain. Was,” Golmarr corrects.

  Enzio slows his horse to walk beside us. “So is it true what my father believes?” he asks Golmarr.

  Golmarr’s hands hold a little tighter to my waist as he asks, “What does your father believe?”

  Enzio looks up at the mountain. “My father believes that you killed the fire dragon.”

  Golmarr goes very still behind me. “The fire dragon is dea
d,” he says quietly.

  Enzio nods. Looking intently at Golmarr, he says, “It is an honor to travel with the Dragon Slayer.” Enzio slips the black stone knife out of his shirtsleeve and presses the flat of the blade to his forehead. I can see the respect shining in his blue eyes.

  “What are you doing, Enzio?” I ask, baffled.

  “Giving the Antharian prince the Satari salute of honor,” he explains.

  “Did you make that knife? I have never seen anything like it.”

  He tosses the knife into the air. It arcs over his head, and he catches it behind his back with his other hand. “This weapon came out of Satar with my ancestors over one hundred years ago, when Grinndoar the dragon toppled our stone cities and forced us to flee or be killed.” He holds the knife out to me, handle first, and I take it. The handle, cross guard, and blade are carved from a single piece of jet-black stone. It is perfectly balanced, with the weight of the handle in exact opposition to the blade.

  “This would be a very precise throwing blade,” I say, handing it back to him.

  Enzio nods and grins like a rogue. “Why do you think my people are known throughout the forest as the Black Blades?” Faster than my eyes can follow, the blade disappears, and I know Enzio has hidden it in his sleeve again. “We should set up camp before full dark.”

  Golmarr peers back at the sheer, inky edge of the forest. “Let’s get as far from the tree line as we can while we still have the light. The farther the better.”

  When the sun has set, and the sky has turned a brilliant, deep purple, we rein in the horses. Golmarr quickly dismounts, and without giving it a second thought, I swing my leg over the horse’s hind end and gracefully hop down. My legs are like stone when they hit the ground, and I lean forward with my hands braced on my knees to keep from falling.

  Golmarr laughs. “I warned you that you’d be stiff. Let’s eat and then see if we can work some of that stiffness out. What do you say?”

  “In the dark?” I ask, peering up the starry sky. “Are we going to light a fire?” I rub my hands over my arms. With the sun down, the breeze has a cool bite to it.

  “No,” Enzio says. “No fire this close to the border. It will be like a beacon for every cutthroat watching the grasslands.” He holds something out to me, and when I hold my palm up, he puts a piece of stale flatbread into it.

  Golmarr offers me a water skin. “Enzio,” he says, “when are we most likely to be attacked?”

  “In the dark,” Enzio answers. “At night. That way the attacker has the advantage. He can sneak up on you and…” He pretends to throw a knife, and then gasps and presses a hand over his heart.

  “I agree. Night is a good time to practice fighting because not all of your foes will be considerate enough to attack in broad daylight. Didn’t you ever spar at night, in the dark, Princess Sorrowlynn, when you were being taught to fight at your fancy cliffside castle?” The sarcasm in his voice makes me bristle. I shove Golmarr’s shoulder to quiet him, but he grabs my wrist and twists my arm behind my back, pinning it where it causes me nothing more than mild discomfort. He drops my arm, though, and leaps away from me like he’s been burned. “One rule I need to mention.” He leans forward and taps my hunting knife. “No blades allowed. I don’t want a repeat of what happened when I did that to you in the cave.” He rubs his chest in the very spot where my blade rested when he fake-attacked me before.

  “Fair enough.” I unbuckle my belt and hang it over the horse’s saddle. The moment I set it down, Golmarr is behind me, pinning my arm against my back again, his other arm around my throat.

  “Do you know how to get out of this?” he asks calmly, hugging me to him.

  “If I had a weapon, I could just—”

  “But you don’t have a weapon. That’s the point,” he says, tightening his hold. “I’ve seen you fight with your staff and your knife, and you’re going to be very good with them once you’ve gotten stronger. But do you know how to fight unarmed?”

  I struggle for a moment, feeling the tension in his body, gauging the angle at which he is restraining my arm, and then I elbow him in the ribs with my free arm, duck under the arm holding my throat, and try to lunge out of his grasp. When my shoulder joint strains to the point of pain, I yelp and stop struggling. And then, without even thinking about it, my body knows exactly how to break free. A small, sly grin finds its way to my mouth.

  “It looks like I’ve caught a princess,” Golmarr murmurs, his mouth beside my temple. When he talks, I can feel the fresh scruff on his chin rub against my skin.

  “I believe you are mistaken,” I say, and thrust my elbow into his ribs again, then step to the right to relieve the tension in my shoulder, twist around, and break free. “There,” I say, thinking the lesson is over, but Golmarr lunges for me. Without a thought, I swing my forearm against his reaching hands, knocking them away. He chuckles and tries again, but instead of grabbing for me, he ducks beneath my arm and tugs on the end of my braid.

  “Hey, no hair pulling,” I say.

  “Sorry, Princess, that was not in our previously agreed-upon rules.” He lunges behind me and tugs my braid again, and I stiffen with frustration. Enzio, watching us while he eats, laughs, which frustrates me even more.

  When Golmarr tries for a third time to tweak my braid, I dive away and roll through the grass, swinging my foot toward his ankles before I come to a stop. He jumps out of the way a split second too late, and my heel catches the bottom of his boot, knocking him off balance. His arms flail, and he stumbles backward, and I hop to my feet and leap at him, knocking him onto his back. He lands with a thud and groans, and I land on top of him, pinning his wrists by his ears. My braid falls forward over my shoulder.

  “My head,” he gasps. It is at that moment I remember the wound he got fighting the dragon that morning.

  “I’m sorry!” I say, letting his arms go. Before I have time to climb off of him, he sticks his fingers through the loops of my braid and undoes it halfway. And then I am tipping to the side, and the ground is beneath my back, and Golmarr is straddling my waist and pinning my wrists by my ears.

  Enzio claps. “Not bad, Sorrowlynn, but I think you need to work on your hand-to-hand combat.”

  I glare up at Golmarr and struggle to get my wrists from his hands, but his powerful grip doesn’t loosen. “I thought you said your head was hurt,” I grumble.

  “It is, but that wasn’t a good reason for you to stop fighting.” Even in the dark I can see his wide smile and white teeth. “When you fight, you use every available weapon you have to win. I turned your own sympathy against you.” He makes no move to get off me. I stare up into his shadowed eyes and contemplate his words. Gathering every bit of courage I possess, I lift my head and press my lips to his. For a moment his eyes widen and his hands tighten on my wrists, and then his body dips down and presses against mine. He releases his hold on me to lay his forearms flat on the ground on either side of my head. I smile against his mouth and flip him hard and fast, careful to cradle his head in my hand so it doesn’t hit the ground again, and then hop to my feet.

  “So, if you used my sympathy against me, what did I use against you?” I ask.

  Golmarr sits up and wraps his arms around his knees. Grinning, he answers, “My lascivious, lustful nature, obviously.”

  I gasp, and Enzio starts laughing so loudly that the horses look up from their grazing. Golmarr’s laughter joins Enzio’s, and then I can’t help but chuckle. Enzio walks to the horse lord and gives him a hand up. Stepping to me, Golmarr runs his hand through my hair until the braid has come completely undone and my hair is loose around my shoulders.

  “You pulled my ribbon out the first time you tugged on my braid, didn’t you? That is the second time you’ve done that today.”

  He studies me for a moment and simply says, “It is a shame to leave hair like yours bound all the time.”

  “You’re not the one who has to brush it out every morning,” I say.

  “I wish I was
.” He runs his fingers through my hair again and takes a small step closer.

  “Golmarr!” Enzio crouches low and I see the silhouette of the black knife in his hand. “Something has spooked the horses!”

  Golmarr slides his sword from its sheath. I throw my hands up in the air and glare at him. “I am disarmed!” I whisper. Hiking my skirt up around my knees, I sprint toward the horses, who have wandered a little ways off.

  “Sorrowlynn, wait,” Golmarr whispers, but I ignore him.

  The horses have stopped grazing and are both looking in the same direction, their ears facing forward. I grab the belt from my horse’s saddle and swing it around my waist, fumbling with the buckle in the dark. Next, I slide my staff from the leather strap. When I turn back toward Golmarr, I freeze. He and Enzio are gone. It is just me and the horses standing in the tall grass…and whatever has spooked them.

  I grip my staff in my clammy hands and slowly start to spin in a circle, trying to get my bearings—trying to find Golmarr and Enzio. The moon has risen, painting the landscape silver, and the only sounds are chirping crickets and the gentle swish of the wind through the waist-high grass. When I have spun all the way around, a black mass is standing in front of me. I lift my staff to attack, but hesitate. For a moment my head fills with confusion as I stare at the outline of a tall, square-shouldered man with long black hair. In the dark he looks just like Golmarr…but Golmarr’s hair is now short.

  My staff swings into action and meets steel. I press forward hard, swinging so quickly, with so much adrenaline, that my opponent stumbles backward. I leap forward and thrust the end of my staff into his stomach. He doubles over, and I use that moment to swing my staff toward his head, but his free arm meets my weapon and blocks it.

  An arm cinches around my neck, and I feel the prick of a knife against the side of my ribs and the body of a second man pressed firm against my back. I force myself to freeze and my hands begin to tremble on my staff. “A woman?” a deep, rough voice whispers against my hair. “Disarm her.”