by Holly Hook
I thought about it. “Sounds like they’re getting ready to screw you over,” I said. “Sorry. I just don’t believe the best in people.”
“Naw,” Macon said, dismissing that with the wave of his arm.
“Did you know the king who sent those two huntsmen out was Henrik?” I asked.
Behind me, the growling went silent as if whatever beast was in there had heard.
Macon’s eyes got big. “Henrik? But he’s been gone for months.”
“Think about it. When did those two huntsmen get sent out?” I asked. “Months ago. Before Henrik disappeared.”
“There’s no king left to take this princess to,” Brie said. “If those two huntsmen take her back to her home, Alric will destroy her and them both. He won’t want the real heir to the kingdom to return. You can’t send her up to them.”
Macon thought. We had backed him into a corner. “It wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said as if it were his thought. “They would take her through the dark region. That alone would be bad for her, even if that’s where she’s from. I think we should get her out and keep her with us. Am I right, or am I right?”
I was hating this guy more and more. Now he had to take credit for everyone else’s ideas. But the girl had started crying again on the other side of the door. She hadn’t heard us talking out here. We were keeping it quiet. I was just about to hold the door open for Macon when Brie held her hand up.
“We don’t know what’s in there,” she said. “Let me open the book.”
We waited in the heat as she paged through. It didn’t take her long to find whatever story she needed. “Okay.” She frowned as she traced her finger down the page. “There’s a five-headed dragon behind that door and a princess who’s stuck combing its hair.”
“Combing its hair?” I asked. “Dragons don’t care about having their hair combed. Do they?”
“These ones do,” Brie said. “Macon, you go get that five headed dragon.”
Macon backed away from the door. He’d gone very silent.
“I’ll even let you borrow my sword,” Mica said, unsheathing it. “Go cut off its heads and get that princess out of there. You can do it.”
“I…” Macon started.
He was deflating. I knew what would happen if Macon went in there. He’d get annihilated. The other two huntsmen on the surface must be laughing. I tried to peer up the hole he had come down, but no light dared come through. They must have lowered him for a long time before he got down here.
“You’re the hero of this story,” Henry told him. “You’re brave and you have great survival skills, Macon. Get in there.”
“I’ll hold the door open,” I said, enjoying this.
Macon gulped and reached for an arrow. “I’ll shoot it first,” he said. “Stun it. We’ll wait until the dragon’s asleep and then strike. We wouldn’t want it breathing fire on any of us.”
“True,” I said. I had to agree with that.
So we waited.
And waited.
The girl’s cries softened and there was one final rumble, and then what sounded like a snore. We had stood out here for what felt like two hours.
“Now,” I whispered, opening the door and backing away.
I wasn’t sure whether to freak out or laugh. The dragon actually had nine heads, not five, and every single one of them had a full head of hair complete with a bow. The dragon itself was a dark purple color with a body the size of a shed, with its long necks all resting on the stone floor of the huge chamber. It slept on a pile of clean hay and there was no treasure, no anything else in the room.
Except for the young woman.
She stopped running a comb through the hair of the rightmost head and stared at me, her green eyes widening. They were Henrik’s eyes. She was his daughter, all right, his and the daughter of whoever Brie had been in her past life. The girl had to be around twenty or so and her green eyes were red from grief. She was very pale like she hadn’t seen the surface in a long time and she wore a tattered dress that was red and green in color. She knelt on the floor and looked very tired.
The dragon’s nine heads all snored at once. I made a motion that she should continue to comb and she did.
And then I took a step into the room, careful not to crunch the hay underneath. I waved Macon and Mica in behind me. Henry followed. Candice mouthed my name but it was too late. I was already in here and we were going to finish this.
I ran the Old Language word for freeze in my mind.
But just then, Macon stepped on a noisy piece of straw.
The girl did a silent sigh.
The dragon’s eyes—all eighteen of them—opened.
They were horrible, deep yellow eyes that were as ancient as the stone around us. Ancient—and mean. A low growl filled the entire chamber and Macon swore, backpedaling towards the exit. Only Mica and I remained.
“Why did you have to do that?” the princess asked. “Now I’m going to watch three more young men get eaten. Well, I suppose that will be my entertainment for the day.”
The dragon lifted all its heads, its yellow eyes trained on me. The princess backed away towards the wall as if she were following some kind of drill. She dropped the comb to the straw. One of the dragon’s bows fell out and landed next to it. The dragon turned that one head to face it, but the eight others remained on me.
“Shorty!” Candice shouted.
“Stun it!” Mica yelled.
I lifted the wand and the word for freeze flew out of my mind. The dragon sucked in a breath, or eight breaths. Wind blew against me as the dragon’s chest puffed out. I knew what was next. Fire. All dragons could breathe it.
“Hey!” Candice shouted, breaking in front of me. She dove down and grabbed the comb. “I’ll comb your beautiful hair. Just lie down and I'll even tie your bow."
"Candice!" I shouted.
But the dragon turned all its heads on her as she held up the comb. The princess on the wall peeled herself away from it. I couldn't believe it. This dragon was more like a princess than the one standing in front of me.
The dragon set its nine heads down on the floor. Candice actually started to comb.
And then the beast purred.
"Are you kidding?" Macon asked from behind me. "That's the solution? Come on. I'll get you out of here." He burst in front of me and waved to the green eyed princess still standing by the wall. "I told her to comb the dragon's hair. Clearly it just wants to be pampered."
She smiled at Macon. "Finally," she said. "Someone who knows what he's doing."
Macon practically glowed at the compliment. "Why, thank you," he said, waving to her while Candice continued to comb. "I figured having Candice comb the dragon's hair would distract it enough to allow you to walk out."
"It wasn't your idea," Candice said through clenched teeth.
Macon sighed as if Candice were the problem. I turned to Macon as my girlfriend continued to comb the dragon's purplish black hair. She affixed the bow to its head and grimaced at me. I knew what it meant. Get me out of here.
That dragon wasn't going to let her go so easily. Its nine heads were almost between her and the door. Unless someone distracted that dragon she was going to be stuck there, combing for a really, really long time. The food down here wasn't for the dwarves. It was for the dragon's prisoner.
"Candice," I said. "As soon as I think of the spell to freeze the dragon, you can get up and leave."
The green-eyed princess pushed past me and joined Macon at the doorway. I could already tell the two were going to make an insufferable couple. They strode out of the room, almost arm in arm, leaving me and Mica there to deal with the new problem.
"Well, now what?" Mica asked.
Candice stopped combing for a second and the dragon growled. She went back to it and messed with the bow, making the purring return.
"We have a problem," Brie said. "Macon. You're supposed to make sure you cut off the dragon's heads. You have time while she has it distracted."
Macon muttered something that I was sure would make me want to hit him like I had hit Prince Wesley.
"Macon," Brie said in a dangerous voice.
The word for freeze had escaped me. We didn't have the Old Language version of the stories and even then, there would be no telling which word was the right one from reading the book. I couldn't even think of any stories with that word in them. I could try to throw the dragon back, but the one head Candice was combing might rise up and hit her.
That left the killing spell.
The dragon might be too big for it to work. It opened one vicious eye and sized me up like a piece of meat. To it, I might be a piece of meat. But it was big enough so I wouldn't hit Candice. I might kill a few of the heads instead and Mica could chop them off.
"Do something," Mica said.
Everyone was watching.
"Shorty, do something. If I do this too long, I'll go insane," Candice pleaded. "I was never into bows or dolls. You know that."
I lifted the wand. The dragon continued to glare.
"A spell. Any spell," Mica said.
I opened my mouth.
The killing spell was the darkest magic you could find.
So I did one that would work almost as well.
"St...Schlafen!"
Sleep.
I uttered the word for sleep instead. The dragon raised all its heads as a mixture of light and dark energy raced through my body. It was a neutral spell.
Then, its eyelids drooped and all nine heads fell to the hay with heavy thumps.
I almost went down from the amazing amount of energy it took out of me. I grabbed onto the wall and struggled to stay upright. Doing this to the knights had never done this to me. A dragon was bigger. I hadn't thought it would require this much punch.
Candice sprung up and dropped the comb. "Let's go," she said. "That's good enough for now. Close the door behind us."
I agreed. I wasn't sure how long a behemoth like that would stay asleep but I had the feeling it wouldn't be as long as the two knights we had left at the camp. I followed Mica and Candice out the door.
"But their heads," Mica said.
"Forget it," I said. I felt drained from using a spell like that on such a big creature, even after a decent meal. "Let's go. I have the feeling one of them might wake up while you're cutting and take a chunk out of your leg."
We all piled out of the room and Candice closed the door behind us right when the dragon let out a low growl. It was already rousing and my knees shook like I had been walking for days. There was no way I could use magic again so soon. Already the light around us was flickering. It didn't have much more energy it could draw from me.
I leaned on Candice right when the dragon thumped against the closed door.
“Go,” Mica said.
All of us ran up the stairs, Macon and the green eyed princess in the lead. They fled and left us behind, running for their own lives. I staggered up the staircase with Candice. It was narrow. Maybe the dragon couldn’t fit through here. Everyone else pushed in front of us and I clutched the wand, trying to find the strength to utter the killing spell, but it was gone. I stumbled and went down on the steps.
The door crashed and splintered behind us. The dragon had broken out. It roared again.
“Don’t stop,” Candice said, helping me up just as the sack Rae was dragging vanished around the stairs. The dragon sucked in a breath behind us and I knew what was coming. I found the strength to bound up the stairs after her just as light exploded in a hot, flickering fire and seared the back of my legs.
I swore and raced up the stairs beside her and the heat faded. The air reeked of smoke and I coughed. We could suffocate down here if the dragon breathed fire too many times. There was no ventilation.
The air got fresher the higher we climbed and wisps of smoke rose from my jeans. A second later and I might be lying there, dying in flames. I grabbed onto Candice’s arm as we stepped over the threshold and back into the main tunnel after what felt like forever. No heavy footsteps followed. This stairway had been made narrow for a reason.
I had never been so glad for the coolness in my life.
The dragon growled again, far below, and there was another thump as it rammed into the entrance to the stairwell. Whatever dwarves kept the dragon down here sure didn’t want it getting loose anytime soon. I stopped and leaned against the wall of the tunnel just as the light from my spell got dimmer and closed my eyes.
“Shorty,” Candice said.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, lowering my voice so only she could hear. “I should have killed it.”
“If putting that dragon to sleep for a few seconds did this to you, killing it might have killed you. It was too big.”
She forgave me. That was a plus. We were all alive and the princess was freed.
“Hello?” the princess asked. She was very close.
I opened my eyes.
She stood there in her red and green dress, eyeing me with irises like poison. They were the exact shade of Henrik’s. We had brought up the daughter of Fable’s worst king. Behind her, Brie stood there like she wasn’t sure what to think.
The princess was scowling at me.
“What kind of magic was that?” she asked. “You almost got all of us killed. Dragon scales are resistant to most magic. Don’t you know that?”
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked. "Give the dragon a big kiss instead?"
I remembered this girl.
Henrietta. It was what my nanny called her.
Even though Henrik and Alric had kept us on opposite sides of the castle, I had seen her in passing a few times when I was four or five. She’d been a few years older than me when she vanished and Henrik sent his knights to go search for her.
And she was eyeing me with suspicion now like she was trying to size me up. To place a face at the back of her memory.
I let the light fade about as quick as I could and darkness fell, swallowing us all. But before it left us completely, I spotted Macon standing to the side, eyeing Henrietta with a loving glance.
Maybe I had screwed this up after all.
Chapter Eleven
Macon had found his soul mate.
It was obvious after the dragon stopped pounding on the walls below and Candice gave me more fruit and some bread to eat. It was obvious before I even stood up from the floor of the tunnel with renewed energy and put the light spell back on full power.
Macon had a girlfriend and now there was the terrifying possibility he would reproduce. He and Henrietta stood there in the corner, talking to each other in low voices and laughing. Macon talked about his hunting prowess (which I seriously doubted) and Henrietta told him about her bravery, combing that dragon's hair for so many years by herself in the darkness. The dwarves kept the dragon as a pet and she was in charge of keeping it calm so it didn't act out like this. She didn't once mention her tears. They were eating each other up.
Neither one of them had thanked me or Candice.
Candice stood next to me as the quivering vanished from my legs. She made a face and I pretended to throw up on the floor as the two of them drew closer and closer together.
"I spent my first ten years in Henrik, my father's, castle," Henrietta said, raising her voice. "Alric was his magician. You're saying he's the new king?"
Neither one of them smiled now. Macon nodded.
"And my father is somewhere--"
The dragon growled in rage and rammed against the stone below us. It had woken back up. The sound echoed up the stairwell.
I tensed and Brie backed away into Stilt. The two of them hung together. They seemed just as nervous about Henrietta as I was although I didn't know why. Henrietta had said hi to me once in the dining hall. She had to know my identity. I glanced at Macon and slashed my finger across my mouth.
And he actually shut up.
It was the first time I'd seen the guy make an intelligent decision so far.
"We need to go," I s
aid. "I'm recovered. Now we need to find those prisoners."
Ignacia held up her yarn and gave it another command, this time to find everyone still in the glass coffins.
The yarn unraveled again--and struck a wall in the tunnel where we had come from. The yarn bounced off of it and fell to the floor, writhing like it was injured. Ignacia rolled it back up with a confused expression.
"I don't understand this," she said.
"We came through that area when we were looking for food," Stilt told her. He walked over, crossed into darkness and ran right into where the wall must now be. "Ouch! Okay. Something happened here either when we crossed over this area or when the dragon got loose."
"That's awesome," I said. "Did the dwarves put a wall here while we were raiding the food?" I walked closer and my light followed me.
A solid stone wall had appeared in the middle of the tunnel. I reached out and touched it. It was just as real as the other walls were and made of the same stone. I slapped myself on the forehead. This wasn't right. Not at all. Some other kind of magic was at work and I had never seen something like this before.
"Annie," Brie said. "She must have put this here. She trapped us." Panic was rising in her words, ready to pop.
"She could have," I said, trying not to think about the implications of this.
Henrietta sighed. "Some rescue."
"Would you shut up?" I asked. "We're doing the best we can and you're not going to get in the way. We have a common enemy here. Alric. He's taken over your kingdom, by the way."
Henrietta hadn't tried to hurt us yet but I was sure she had inherited some of Henrik's magic. Henrik wasn't as skilled as Alric, but his power was there.
"Here's the thing," Macon said. "There has to be another way out. Ignacia, tell the yarn to find us one."
"It already attempted."
"Then Shorty, blast that wall open so we can get out."
We weren't screwed. At least, I hoped. I raised the wand and yelled the word for open.
A mixture of cold and warm tingling coursed through me and the wand trembled, trying to release the magic, but nothing happened to the wall. The atmosphere thrummed with the same nervous energy the castle back in Wesley's kingdom had given off.
