“I love you, too.” I take as deep a breath as the corset will allow and walk out of my chamber to meet my fate.
The carriage ride to the mountains takes more than an hour, and since I am the offering this year, I am given the honor of riding in the royal carriage, sitting across from the queen and my father. My mother won’t look at me, and I can’t decide if it is because she is upset by the ceremony we are traveling toward, or if she is mad about me being caught astride a horse this morning.
My father won’t stop looking at me. Every so often he glances down at my white skirt and his hand twitches. If I am not fed to the fire dragon or given to the horse clan, I will be going back home to a life where I am never allowed to go anywhere alone, to parents who have never shown me love and rarely kindness, and to a whipping that will leave my legs cut and bleeding. I will be shut away again, and forced to watch the world from my bedchamber window—watch as my father dotes on my sisters and spoils them with gowns and ponies and feasts and outings to the market. I clench my teeth together and pull the curtains open to stare out the window and realize that before me are three completely different destinies and I want none of them. None!
“Shut the curtain,” my mother orders without looking at me. “The breeze is ruining my hair.” She pats her tall, powdered hair.
“Yes, my queen.” I pull the curtain shut and close my eyes.
Within minutes the carriage slows and then stops altogether. I pull the curtain open again and peer out. We have traveled to the very end of the road and stopped at the edge of a cliff. I have been in the mountains three times before today, for my sisters’ binding ceremonies. Each of those times I was deemed too young to be out in society, so was made to watch from a carriage. Today will be the first time I am allowed to get out. Before the coachman can help me down like a proper princess, I hop out of the carriage and hear my mother’s outraged groan.
I squint against the early afternoon sun as I stretch my aching legs and fill my lungs with fresh mountain air. Everything looks strange here—the jagged rocks, the pine and aspen trees, the wildflowers growing alongside the road. Even the air is different, filled with the smell of dirt and trees and the unknown. Tied to an aspen tree is a small, perfect white lamb. It is struggling against the rope around its neck, and for a moment I feel sorry for it.
At the cliff’s edge, facing us, stand King Marrkul and his nine sons. They are clad in leather breeches and leather vests over low-cut white shirts that expose half of their chests. On their hips hang their swords, and bows are slung over their backs. They look dressed for battle, not a formal ceremony. Standing in the middle of them, with five men on each side, is an ancient woman with a hunched back, withered hands, long white hair, and milky-white eyes. Despite her eyes, she seems to be staring directly at me, and all I can think is crone. Something pinches the back of my neck, hard, and I turn to see my mother. “What, my queen?” I ask, glaring and rubbing my neck.
“Curtsy,” she hisses from the side of her mouth, all the while smiling her practiced smile at the horse lords. I grasp my skirt in my hands and do as she says. The Strickbane poison dangles in front of me, the dragon scale flask shimmering in the sunlight like a lit lamp. The horse lords nod their acknowledgment.
When all the carriages have arrived, my three older sisters and their husbands come to stand beside me. “You look beautiful,” Harmony whispers, touching my hair. Gloriana grasps my fingers and kisses my cheek. Diamanta merely eyes my corset and nods her approval. I lean over to her and ask, “Who is that old crone?”
“She is King Marrkul’s witch. She was in attendance at my ceremony, remember?” Diamanta says.
“No, she was at my ceremony,” Gloriana insists. Looking at her handsome young husband, she asks, “Don’t you remember, Hans?” He frowns and looks at the old lady.
Harmony shakes her head. “She was only at mine. I would have remembered if she was at any of yours.” I study my sisters and their husbands as they continue to argue about whose ceremony the withered old woman attended. I don’t remember the crone from any of their ceremonies, and the woman is utterly unforgettable.
Without a word, I am escorted by my father to stand before the horse lords and their crone. She stares at the dragon scale flask, and her foggy eyes light up. When her gaze meets mine, she smiles a toothless smile, and despite her empty eyes, I know without a doubt that this woman is not blind. She leans toward me and sniffs, and all the hair on my body stands on end.
“She is different from her sisters,” the crone says to the horse king, without taking her eyes from me. She sniffs again and licks her gums. “She is…doughty.” I’m what? I don’t know what doughty means, but the way she is looking at me makes me think the word must mean tasty, and the crone is hungry. “It was for her that your wizard disappeared, no?” she asks my father. I blink at the crone. She spoke to my father without adding on the customary my lord. Men and women have been put in the stocks for a day for such an offense. I turn to him and see the familiar fury turning his face crimson.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he says, his voice tight with anger.
“She scared him away,” she adds.
Lord Damar looks at me. “She scares all of us at times.”
The crone hoots with laughter, and then, quick as a coiled snake, her hand darts out and clutches mine. I freeze as the woman pries my fingers open and looks at my palm. “Our fates intertwine,” she whispers, running a brittle yellow nail over my fingertips. “But I, unlike Melchior, am not scared of you.” She drops my hand and I lean as far from her as I can without taking a step back. “I am ready to proceed with the ceremony when you are,” the crone says, addressing my father and the Antharian king.
As she says those words, a flash of memory comes back, of this very woman presiding over all three of my older sisters’ ceremonies, and I wonder how I could have forgotten.
King Marrkul steps up beside me so I am centered between him and my father, and the three of us turn to face the gathered crowd with the sun at our backs. My father smoothes his pale hair and adjusts the sword hanging at his side, and starts speaking, welcoming the nobles and thanking them for coming. I can hardly follow what he is saying; my head is spinning, and I can barely breathe.
After a few long minutes of formalities, I jump at the sound of hissing steel as King Marrkul unsheathes his sword. He holds it high over his head so it gleams in the sun. It is well worn, and so polished that half of the designs on the blade have been rubbed off. It is a sword that has seen many battles. “I, King Marrkul of Anthar,” he says, “swear to uphold and respect the binding of my kingdom to Faodara. What say you, Lord Damar?”
My father unsheathes his sword, a weapon he has never used, and holds it up. “I, Lord Damar of Faodara, speaking as proxy for Queen Felicitia, swear to uphold and respect the binding of my kingdom to Anthar.” He looks at me. “What say you, Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara?”
I fight the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt and swallow. The air is heavy, and I feel like it is going to make me snap in two. “I, Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara…” The words falter as I think of my three choices: marriage, home, dragon. Marriage, home, dragon. All the while, the air seems to be getting thicker and thicker.
The people gathered to witness the ceremony start whispering. My mother is staring at me, her sparkling blue eyes eager, as if she can make me speak by sheer force of will. My three sisters, standing beside their husbands, look at each other when I don’t continue. Gloriana pales and grips her husband’s arm. Harmony wrings her hands. Diamanta takes a tiny step forward and whispers loud enough so I can hear, “humbly submit to give my life…humbly submit to give my life!”
I clear my throat. “I, Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara…” I look at my father, at the anger burning behind his pale blue eyes, then turn and look at the nine sons of King Marrkul. My eyes pause on Golmarr’s worried face and then stop on Ingvar, and all I can think of are his massive hands touching me moments after they
have been on his wife. With that thought, I know which fate I shall choose. “I, Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara, humbly submit to give my life,” I say, my voice strong, “to the fire dragon instead of giving it to the Antharian heir.”
“What?” my father retorts, grabbing my upper arm so hard it hurts.
Somehow, looking into his furious eyes, all the strength leaves my voice. “I choose the dragon,” I whisper. The air is pushing on me so hard I can barely stand.
“What are you doing?” he growls through gritted teeth. His hand tightens so his nails dig between my bones, and I cry out. “When we get home, I am going to whip you until you can’t cry anymore,” he whispers.
My blood starts to burn. I jerk my arm out of his grasp and match his stare with my own overwhelming anger. “I choose the fire dragon over going home with you,” I say, and my voice is strong, pushing back on the stifling air.
He shakes his head. “I forbid you to—”
“You cannot forbid me! I choose the dragon over going home with you!” I yell. Adrenaline rushes through me, and I turn to Ingvar. “And I choose the fire dragon over going home with you!” I look at the gathered crowd. “I choose the fire dragon!” I shout, my hands balled into tight fists at my sides. My mother sighs a practiced, regal sigh and turns her back on me. Diamanta is shaking her head, Harmony has fainted into her husband’s arms, and Gloriana is still as stone, her mouth gaping. Aside from a gentle breeze whistling through the trees, the cliff top has gone utterly silent as everyone stares at me. I have made my choice.
And then one voice quietly speaks above the wind. “I choose her.”
I whip around, and my white skirts whirl out in a wide circle. Golmarr has stepped forward so he is standing in front of his eight brothers. “I choose you, Princess Sorrowlynn,” he says. “To be the wife of the future king of Anthar.”
I shake my head and fight a wave of panic as the air grows so dense I can scarcely exhale. “No, I can’t marry your brother. I would rather die.”
He steps up to me and looks right into my eyes. “I choose you to be my wife, not my brother’s. I plight you my troth…I promise to be faithful and loyal to you. As your husband, Sorrowlynn.”
The crowd explodes with questions. My father steps between Golmarr and me, shoving the young horse lord aside even though he is a head taller and broader in the chest. “What is he talking about, King Marrkul?” my father demands.
“It is written in our history books,” King Marrkul explains, his voice loud enough to carry to the gathered crowd, “that the son who marries your daughter automatically becomes the heir. If…” He looks at the crone. “If the union is not one made out of greed for power.”
“I don’t understand,” my father growls.
King Marrkul puts his hand on Golmarr’s shoulder, and pride shines in the king’s hazel eyes. “If my boy’s motive in picking your daughter to wed is purely greed for the title of king, the match will not be approved. If his motivation is other, it will be approved.”
My father frowns. “And how can you tell the difference?”
“My son is a good and honorable young man, but I am not the judge of his motives. Nayadi?” King Marrkul calls.
At the word Nayadi, the crone shuffles forward. “Take her hand, Golmarr,” she instructs, pointing to me with a withered finger. Golmarr steps around my father and coils his fingers in mine. He pulls me out of my father’s shadow and holds our intertwined hands up to the crone. She takes them and runs a thick nail over our joined knuckles. My hand fills with warmth, and I don’t know if it is from the crone’s touch, or from Golmarr’s.
“Well?” my father demands, yanking my hand out of the horse lord’s. “Is this a union of greed?” He sounds hopeful. My heart sinks when I realize he doesn’t want me to marry the Antharian heir. He wants me to go home so he can whip me. The air presses harder, and all I want to do is melt into a puddle and be absorbed into the soil so that I don’t have to feel this pressure anymore.
“Or is this a union of love?” Marrkul asks, equally hopeful.
The crone shakes her head. “Not greed, but not love, either. There is a surprising amount of affection there—on both sides—but it is too soon to be love. It is a union of, shall we say, pity for the girl. He does not want her fed to the fire dragon. His motives are not spawned by greed.”
Anger fills me. I am to be a pity bride now? I look at Golmarr. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes dark with worry and something else. Maybe sorrow. Slowly, he lifts his hand and holds it out to me, and my anger melts away. By his actions, he has turned himself into an offering. He is willing to take me for a bride, to be stuck with me for the rest of his life, not because he loves me, but because he doesn’t want me given to the dragon. I look from his outstretched hand, to my father, to the cliff, and then I slowly place my hand in his. I can do this, I think. I can go back with him and be his wife.
“Do you accept?” King Marrkul asks, his voice practically pleading.
“Yes,” I say. “I accept.” All the weight pressing me down seems to lift. The air is thin again. I fill my lungs and feel like I might float away. Golmarr squeezes my hand as one of his brothers unties the lamb from the aspen tree and leads it over to us. I pity the tiny creature, obviously removed from its mother and trembling with fear.
“There is a problem.” The crone’s voice rings out loud and grating, and Golmarr’s hand turns frigid in mine. “The ceremony is already done. This princess has made her choice to be offered to the fire dragon. She has stated it three times, and three times is a number of binding. She has sealed her fate.” The crone looks at me. Her wrinkled mouth twitches up at the corners, and her eyes fill with an emotion I can’t quite put a name to. Need? Hunger? Anticipation? “Take the rope from the lamb and lower the princess down!”
Everyone freezes, staring at me with stricken faces. A moment later, Ingvar and King Marrkul step up beside me and pull me toward the cliff, tearing my hand out of Golmarr’s. I struggle against them and look over my shoulder. The Faodarian nobles look frozen in place. The Antharian women are looking at me as if they are proud of my choice. All three of my sisters are crying, and their husbands are trying to console them. My mother stands still, silent, eternally majestic. My father’s eyes meet mine. His mouth is a thin, hard line. It is how he looked when he whipped me. “So be it,” he says. “You have chosen your fate. And so ends the life of Princess Sorrowlynn of Faodara.”
He turns and walks away, and Diamanta throws herself at his feet. “Please, Father,” she cries. “Don’t let them put her down there!”
“She chose this for herself.” He pulls his legs from her grasp and together my mother and father walk to their ornate carriage and get in, not once looking back. I am not sad to see them go. They have never loved me. They have never known me.
A rope is slipped over my head, and I am too shocked to cry, or fight, or even protest. I look up into King Marrkul’s face. His tan skin has gone white, and unshed tears are glistening in his pale eyes. “I’m sorry, child,” he whispers. “I thought all Faodarian princesses were cowards. I thought we would be putting a lamb down in your place.” He swipes his eyes with the back of his hand and tightens the rope around my chest. The pearl-crusted corset acts as a shield against the rope, and I can barely feel it. I can barely feel anything. “Hold the rope as we lower you to take some of the pressure off your ribs. We’ll get you down as quickly as possible.” He pulls a long, sheathed hunting knife from his belt and hands it to me. Somehow I manage to take it from him. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
Eight of his sons come to help him lower me down. Golmarr is standing apart, staring at me. The Antharian king walks me to the edge of the cliff and helps me wrap the massive layers of white petticoats and skirts around my ankles so they won’t tangle with my feet. And then I am walking backward, and my sisters are wailing, and the sun is shining too brightly, and the ground under my feet is changing from flat to sloped, until I am leaning back and walking down
the sheer side of a cliff, and I am still too numb to even feel fear. After five steps, the cliff wall disappears, and I start to plummet.
The rope jerks taut, stealing my breath. It slides up under my armpits, popping pearl buttons off my corset, and I drop King Marrkul’s hunting knife. It clatters on the rock below. I gasp and cling to the rope with both hands and look at the opening in the cliff, and all at once, the numbness is torn from me and I start to scream. I am staring into a great, round mouth, filled with darkness and damp breath. I scream and scream, and squeeze my eyes shut. The more I scream, the more I begin to feel.
The rope stops being lowered and is yanked and shaken, making me swing back and forth. I suck in a breath of air and stop screaming, and crack my eyes open. Before me is a massive cave opening into the cliff face. Not a mouth.
Above, I hear raised voices. Men shouting. Arguing. Growling. The shouting increases, and the movement of the rope becomes jerky, pulsing to a tempo despite the fact that it still isn’t being lowered. Dirt and pebbles rain down on my head, so I look up. Someone is inching down the rope, his booted feet wrapped around it. It is the motion of him lowering himself, hand over hand, that is making the rope pulse. When he gets just above me, he stops and yells, “All right! Get us down quick!”
The rope is being lowered again, faster this time, until at last a small outcropping of rock touches my feet and I stand at the entrance of a cave. I peer over the side of the cliff, and my heart misses a beat. Far, far below, so far it looks like a piece of white embroidery floss, is the Glacier River flowing between jagged rocks. It springs from a glacier-fed lake cradled in the center of the mountains. Across from us is another sheer cliff face that rises up and turns into a snow-capped mountain peak.