The Dragon's Price

by Bethany Wiggins

  The man in front of me tears the staff from my hands and then slides the knife from my belt. Quickly, with featherlight fingers, he runs his hands over my arms and legs and then backs a step away. “This is all she has,” he says, holding up the staff and knife.

  The man holding me tightens his arm on my throat, and the knife that was at my ribs comes up to my neck, just below my ear. “Who are you?” he growls. When I do not answer, the blade presses harder. “I have no qualms about murdering mercenary women to protect my people,” he says. “Who are you? Tell me or die.”

  “I am…,” I whisper. I remember dying, and no matter what anyone else believes, it does not hurt. “I am not afraid to die. A swift death is painless,” I snap. The knife comes away from my neck, and he shoves me so hard that I fly forward and skid to a stop on my face in the coarse grass. I push myself up to sitting, swipe my long, loose hair out of my face, and glare up at my two captors even though my insides are quivering with fear.

  “Who are you, and why are you in my kingdom with two armed men?” the man who held the knife at my throat asks. My kingdom? My fear melts in half, and I slowly climb to my feet.

  “Keep your guard up, Jessen. She’s a trained fighter,” the man holding my weapons says. He sounds just like Golmarr—the tone of his deep voice, the slight accent. He lifts my dagger to the moonlight and studies it.

  “This is your land?” I ask, studying Jessen.

  He lifts his sword between us and answers, “Aye, lass. And what black deeds do you plan for my people?”

  “You are Golmarr’s brothers,” I whisper.

  His face hardens with fury at mention of his brother’s name. “Who are you, and what—”

  “Golmarr brought me!” I blurt, and turn from my captors to look for him.

  “Our brother is dead,” Jessen growls. “He followed a pretty face into a dragon’s lair.”

  “He always was a fool for a pretty face, God rest his soul,” the other brother says, shaking his head.

  “We lived,” I whisper, looking from one man to the other.

  The man holding my knife looks at me. In the moonlight I can see that his eyes are narrowed, his mouth frowning. He looks at the knife again. “She is carrying Father’s knife, Jessen. The one he gave to the northern princess before we lowered her down to the fire dragon’s cave.” He holds the knife out to his brother, who takes it from his hand and runs his finger over the hilt.

  “Are you Princess Sorrowlynn?” Jessen asks. I nod, but even in the dim light I can see the skepticism in his narrowed eyes. “Northern princesses do not know how to fight.”

  “Not until now,” I say, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin in defiance.

  “I am Yerengul of Anthar. If you are who you say you are, then where is my little brother?”

  I turn in the direction I last saw him and point. “He was there a moment ago, but now—”

  My words are cut short by Yerengul’s laughter. “Jessen! We took down our own brother! I thought I recognized his voice before I cracked him over the head.”

  “We’ll see,” Jessen growls. He tucks my knife in his belt, grips my upper arm, and drags me forward. When we have gone ten paces, I see a dark mass hidden by the tall grass. Jessen shoves me at it, and I trip on my skirt and crash down onto my hands and knees, landing beside an unconscious Enzio bound hand and foot by rope.

  “Enzio?” I shake his shoulder and he groans. I move to Golmarr and lean over him, and my hair falls around his face. Gently, I lift his head and press my palm to his cheek. “Golmarr,” I say. His skin is cold, and his neck is limp. “Golmarr?” I pat his cheek, and he doesn’t stir. Carefully, I lay his head back onto the ground and glare up at his brothers. “What did you do to him?” I snap. “He already had a head wound!” I stand and ball my fists. “What did you do to him?” I shout, and shove Jessen as hard as I can. He stumbles back a step and grabs both my wrists.

  “Yeren, check and see if it’s really him before I knock this little fox on the head to shut her up,” Jessen says, tightening his hold on me.

  Yerengul kneels beside Golmarr and leans close to him. After a quick inspection, he gently shakes Golmarr’s shoulders. He looks at Jessen and nods. “It is him, but his hair is short.” Looking back at Golmarr he says, “Brother, wake up.” He lifts Golmarr’s hand and lets it go, and it flops back to the ground. “Evay is going to kill us if we’ve killed him.”

  Evay. Golmarr’s sweetheart. The mere mention of her name makes me sick to my stomach.

  Jessen curses and drops my wrists and kneels at Golmarr’s side. He lifts something from his belt—a water skin—and pours water onto Golmarr’s face. Golmarr flinches and swipes at his nose, and his eyes flicker open. Yerengul whoops with delight and throws his arms around his brother.

  Golmarr groans. “Gently, Yeren,” he croaks. “Did you really have to hit me so hard?”

  “You’re practically bald,” Yerengul says with a laugh. “I didn’t recognize your ugly face without your hair hanging around it. And you’re supposed to be dead! What happened?”

  Golmarr pushes himself to sitting, and his eyes search the darkness until they find me. “You didn’t hurt her, did you?” he asks his brothers.

  “Not as bad as she hurt me,” Yerengul says, rubbing his stomach.

  Golmarr grips his brother’s shirt. “You hurt her?”

  “No, we didn’t hurt her,” Yerengul says. Golmarr’s hand falls back to his side. “But speaking of hurting someone, Evay is going beat you to a pulp when she sees you’re alive,” Yerengul adds quietly. “When she found out you willingly pledged your troth to a Faodarian princess, and then followed her into the dragon’s cave against Father’s will, she flew into a grief-stricken rage. She’s been taking her pain out on anyone who so much as looks at her.”

  Evay again. I drop my gaze and study my clasped hands.

  “I never pledged myself to Evay. She has no claim on me,” Golmarr says. “Why are you patrolling so close to the border, and where are your horses?”

  Jessen stands and looks north toward the forest, and the wind blows his long, dark hair around his face. “Nayadi had one of her visions. She said something was going to be coming out of the forest.”

  “What?” Golmarr asks.

  “She wasn’t sure, but I am beginning to think she meant you. Rest for now. Yerengul and I will get our horses and stand watch.”

  Golmarr wobbles to his feet and clasps his brother’s arm for balance. “I’ll help keep watch,” he says, but Jessen shakes his head.

  “Rest, little brother. Yeren gave you quite a bonk. We will travel home at first light.”

  I do not sleep well, lying on the hard ground, wrapped in a cloak, between Golmarr and Enzio. The cool night air creeps into me, and no matter how I wrap the cloak around my body, I cannot keep the chill at bay.

  My eyes pop open when I feel hands crushing my throat. Armed men lie dead in the smoldering grass beside me, and overhead a shimmering orange dragon circles through the cloudy sky—I can see it just beyond the face of the man trying desperately to suffocate me. I claw at his hands and squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, the sky is blue, no hands are on my throat, the golden grass is free of dead bodies, and I am looking up into Enzio’s startled face.

  “It is time to wake up,” he says. I press my hands to my throat and swallow. Enzio takes an extra cloak off of me—Golmarr’s—and helps me to my feet, studying me from the corner of his eye. “Nightmare?” he asks. I nod, and for a split second I see the charred grass again, feel the heat rising from it, and taste the smoke thick in the air. I close my eyes and rub them. “Sometimes, after the Black Blades have been attacked, I won’t sleep because I know if I do, I will relive the battle through my nightmares. It is the price we warriors pay.”

  I nod. I was reliving a battle through my nightmare—just not my own battle.

  “Golmarr has your breakfast,” he says, nodding toward the rising sun.

  Golmarr and
his brothers are quietly talking beside our two horses, which have been joined by two more. The brothers are both a little bit taller and broader than Golmarr, they both have the same glossy, dark hair, but one has a bit of girth around his belly and his shoulders, like a man gets when he has long outgrown boyhood. I watch Golmarr slide the reforged sword from its sheath at his hip, and his brothers’ eyes grow wide. The thinner one takes the sword and runs his hand reverently over the blade.

  At my approach, Golmarr turns and looks at me, and a hint of a smile brightens his eyes. “Sorrowlynn.” He strides over, his legs swishing against the grass, and wraps me in an embrace. His hand cradles the back of my head to his shoulder and tangles in my hair. I close my arms around his waist and breathe in the familiar smell of him.

  “Good morning,” he whispers, and kisses my forehead. His brothers are staring at us, both with shocked expressions on their faces.

  “Evay is going to pummel you, Golmarr,” the thinner brother says.

  “I already told you that Evay has no claim on me, Yerengul. She has never said she loves me, and I have never said that I love her,” Golmarr says, putting his arm around my waist and resting his hand on my hip.

  “It’s a good thing you know how to fight, Princess Sorrowlynn,” Yerengul says, tossing my staff to me. I catch it with one hand.

  “If Evay wants to pick a fight with someone, it is going to be me, not Princess Sorrowlynn,” Golmarr snaps. He turns back to me, and I can see anger gathering in his eyes. “Princess Sorrowlynn, this is my brother Yerengul”—he motions to the thinner brother—“and my brother Jessen.” He motions to the thicker, older brother.

  “I am pleased to meet you, Prince Jessen, Prince Yerengul,” I say, and grip the sides of my purple skirt and curtsy.

  They both study me in silence, scowling, until Jessen clears his throat. “Welcome to Anthar, Princess,” he says, and elbows Yerengul in the ribs.

  “Yes, welcome,” Yerengul repeats. His gaze moves slowly from my loose hair all the way down to my feet and back up. A gleam of mischief shines in his eyes, and he grins. “Nice going, little brother. You slayed the fire dragon and won the heart of the fair princess.”

  Golmarr shakes his head. “No, you’ve got that backward, Yeren.” My heart starts hammering in my chest and I look at Golmarr, wondering if he’s going to tell them that I slayed the fire dragon and not him. I shake my head the slightest bit, pleading with my eyes not to tell them the truth. He puts his hand beneath my chin. “I don’t know if I won the heart of the fair princess, but she won mine.” He stares into my eyes, searching them, looking for the answer to what he has said, looking to see if he has, in fact, won my heart.

  Yerengul claps his shoulder. “Evay is going to kill you.”

  Golmarr grimaces. “Yes, she is.”

  “Do you know what Golmarr said the night of the feast, after he danced with you in your mother’s hall?” Yerengul asks me, his eyes dancing with mischief.

  Golmarr shakes his head. “Shut up, Yeren,” he growls.

  Yerengul laughs. “He said, ‘If I was betrothed to her, I would have no problem taking her to my bed on our wedding night.’ ”

  Golmarr flinches and looks at me.

  I gasp. “You are a scoundrel!”

  A slow smile spreads over his face. “What can I say? It’s true. And if anything, it is even truer now.” He quickly presses a kiss to my lips and then darts away before I can retaliate.

  I ride in front of Golmarr, with his hands loosely holding my waist. Enzio and Golmarr’s brothers ride behind us so that I, at Golmarr’s request, get an unobstructed view of the glorious Antharian grasslands. We ride in silence over rolling hills, and by the way he keeps fidgeting with my thick leather belt, I can tell something is bothering him. When the sun has crawled a quarter of the way across the sky, he clears his throat. “I need to ask you something, Sorrowlynn,” he says quietly, so only I can hear.

  “Then ask.” I turn my head to the side so I can see him. He takes one hand from my hip and runs it through his short hair, and his eyes turn cautious. A touch of apprehension coils in my belly. “What’s wrong?” I whisper, wishing I could reach back and smooth the crease from between his black eyebrows.

  “I’ve never asked you…that is, I’ve only assumed, based on the way you kissed me, that you’re not opposed to having me…how do they say it in your land? Court you?”

  I turn away from him so he can’t see the warmth that has risen to my cheeks, and a smile dances to my mouth. “No, I’m not opposed,” I say. Releasing the reins with one hand, I lift his hand from my hip and wrap his arm around my waist, weaving my fingers over the top of his. “I’m not opposed at all.”

  “Sorrowlynn of Faodara. I am courting Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara.” He pulls my hair away from my neck and I feel his warm, moist lips against my skin. I shiver at the touch and tilt my head to the side, exposing more skin to be kissed.

  “I see that, Golmarr!” Yerengul yells from behind.

  Golmarr chuckles and drops my hair. “Maybe if you could find a woman who liked your ugly face, you wouldn’t have to live vicariously through your younger brother,” he yells back, and tightens his arm around my waist.

  “How much older is Yerengul than you?” I ask.

  “Two years,” Golmarr says. “And Jessen is thirteen years older. Yerengul and I have the same mother—we were born by my father’s second wife. She died giving birth to me.”

  “I’m sorry she died.”

  By the time the sun has reached the highest point in the sky and then moved a little way west, we are riding along a well-traveled dirt road lined with fenced pastures filled with cattle, sheep, and horses, or covered with row after row of corn or wheat. Men, women, and children are out in the fields, working and playing. They do not look like the fierce barbarians who are rumored to inhabit Anthar. I cannot make sense of it. “If your people are farmers, why do you all have such a reputation for fighting?”

  “Three hundred years ago, when the fire dragon destroyed this land, he razed the ground with fire. Every living thing that could not find shelter was burned, almost all of our warriors were killed, and Anthar was populated by widows and their starving children,” Golmarr explains. I blink and see the charred ground, how it looked three hundred years ago. “Out of necessity, our women learned to fight and taught their children how to fight. After the fire dragon was bound beneath the mountain, after my ancestors started to rebuild, we discovered that our soil was richer than it had ever been. Our crops grow larger and sweeter than any others. Our cattle grow bigger, our horses stronger and faster from grazing these fields. Because of the dragon fire, this is good, fertile land. We also discovered a woman who is fighting to protect her home and her children can be a fiercer warrior than a man. So ever since then, our women have trained to be warriors and fight alongside the men.

  “The Trevonan to the west want our land, so they test us regularly to see how strong we are. The men hiding in the Glass Forest, too,” he explains. “If my kingdom were not bound to your kingdom through the threat of a dragon and the possibility of arranged marriage, I would not be surprised if your father tried to take our land.”

  Lord Damar’s face fills my mind—his cruel blue eyes, his cheeks flushed and beaded with sweat from whipping me so hard—and I stiffen. “Lord Damar is not my father,” I whisper. “Queen Felicitia is my mother, but that man is not my father.”

  “Who is?” Golmarr asks, his voice gentle but not surprised.

  “Ornald, the guard who found us out riding horses on the morning of the ceremony. When Lord Damar whipped me for riding astride, Ornald stopped him before he could draw more than one stripe of blood. At the time I didn’t know why he intervened, but it is because he is my father.” I think of him escorting me to greet the Antharian horse lords on the day of my sixteenth birthday, think of Lord Damar’s shocked outrage, my mother’s anger at the sight of my hand on Ornald’s arm. Now I understand their reactions. My true fat
her escorted me to my first official ceremony, and it enraged them.

  “So you’re the daughter of a Satari man,” he says. “No wonder their clothes look so good on you.”

  I frown at him over my shoulder. “Satari man?” I shake my head. “Ornald is Faodarian. He used to be the captain of the guard.”

  “He’s Satari, Sorrowlynn—at least he used to be. Have you never noticed the earring holes in his ears that never grew back? And the short sword he carries? And the slant to his eyes is very Satari. Look at Enzio.” I study Enzio, riding directly behind us. His eyes are a striking blue, like his mother’s, and at the corners they turn up. “Even the name Ornald is a Satari name.”

  I frown at Golmarr. “Surely you’re wrong.”

  Golmarr turns and looks at Enzio. “Is Ornald a Satari name?” he asks.

  Enzio nods. “It is a most respectable Satari name. My uncle was named Ornald.”

  “See?” Golmarr says, amused at my shocked expression. “Is that why you picked the name Ornald for me when we were taken by the Satari? Because it is…special to you?”

  I nod. “I gave you the name of my father.”

  The amusement in his eyes is replaced with a more solemn emotion I cannot name. “You gave me a great honor, giving me your father’s name. I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Sorrowlynn, look. That is Kreeose, my city.” Golmarr points forward. We crest a rolling hill, and at the top, the world opens up. Golmarr dismounts, and I do the same, groaning at the stiffness in my body. After a moment, I shield my eyes from the afternoon sun and look around. The farmers’ green fields slowly taper off to the houses and streets and buildings of a large city. Beyond them, the horizon is a deep blue line before it touches the pale blue sky. “That is the ocean,” Golmarr says, and I know he means the dark blue line, for I saw it on the maps I studied as a child, but to see it now, with my own eyes—my heart swells against my breast.