I hear the laughter in my head once more. Poor little princess, trapped with nowhere to go. Are you not going to lift a hand to fight me, at least?
I look at my hands, feel the pressure of the hunting knife at my back and the weight of the dagger in my sleeve. Slowly, I pull the hunting knife free and look from it to the towering dragon. It is so big, and my weapon is so small; it is like agreeing to fight a lion with a sewing needle for a weapon. My hand begins to shake so badly I can barely keep my fingers wrapped around the knife hilt.
You disgust me. You possess no courage, no ability to fight. If you were courageous, you would try to dive through my fire barriers and run. If you knew how to fight, you would attack me with that puny blade, even though you would die trying. You deserve to be eaten, so I shall eat you now, and I will savor every excruciating moment of your pain.
Anger drives my fear away, and I scream and lunge for the dragon’s foot, stabbing the small scales just above the claw with every fiber of strength in my body. The blade jerks to a dead stop against the scales. I hear the laughter in my head again.
I guess you do possess one drop of courage in your weak, human body. I like the taste of courage. Show me your courage as I eat you!
Nona, my sweet Nona, pops into my head, and I can hear her voice as if she is standing beside me. It is better to be eaten dead than eaten alive. With that thought, I finally understand my birth prediction. The relief of it makes me weak in the knees. It is time to make the blessing come true. I throw the knife to the ground and take the flask of poison from where it hangs and clasp the lid between my thumb and finger. I am ready to die by my own hand.
By your own hand? No! The dragon’s wings burst open, and it shrieks. Before I can unscrew the lid from the poison, the creature lowers its head and lunges for me. I fling my arms up to protect myself as its sharp teeth snap down. A fang slides through the back of my hand, and I scream as the skin opens and my bones separate. The tooth comes out through my palm and shatters the dragon scale still clutched in it, and I think the pain alone might kill me. Other teeth close around my elbow and tear through flesh and bone, and with an agonizing snap and the sound of tearing fabric, my arm is in the dragon’s mouth, and the pain in my hand simply stops existing, being replaced by the agony in my elbow.
The dragon swallows my arm and sleeve—even the dagger still tied to my arm with the white handkerchief—without chewing, and I fall to my knees. Blood pours from the stump of my elbow, turning my shirt and skirt crimson. It drips onto the ground between my knees, and the sand soaks it up before it can spread. My mouth falls open, and I scream, not from the pain, or the fear, but from the shock, the horror, of not having an arm.
Princess, the dragon says, its voice battling with my scream. Hold up your wounded arm. I lift my stub of an arm to show the beast what it has done, and it spits a ball of flame at me. I stop screaming and turn my face away as fire hits the bleeding stump, sizzling my blood and searing my skin. There, little girl. My fire has cauterized your wound enough that you won’t bleed out before I am done with you. I look at my arm. The bleeding has changed from a torrent to a persistent trickle.
I turn to run from the dragon and leap through the wall of fire separating me from the lake. The fire barely scalds my skin as I pass through it, but before my feet touch down on the other side, the dragon’s tail slams into my ribs. The breath is wrenched from my lungs, and I am soaring through the hot, parched air. Icy water collides with my face and fills my nostrils, and I start sinking. My hair comes unbound and streams around my head. Firelight ripples in rings on the lake’s surface, and as I watch, the water around me turns cloudy with my blood, making everything appear red. My back thumps the lake bottom, and two bubbles trickle out of my nostrils.
The frigid water is a relief to my skin, and I don’t know how to get up to the surface, so I lie there, staring at the world through the wavering red lake, and wait to die. Two more bubbles escape my nose, and as they reach the surface, giant talons splash into the water. Claws close around my body and yank me up out of the lake, flinging me against the burning rocks, and the dragon—wings outspread—circles in the air above me.
I roll down the rocks and come to a stop on the sand path. I whimper, struggling to breathe. With gentle fingers, I push on my ribs. Instead of solid bone I feel a tangle of small shards. I look back at the dragon, still gliding through the air, but something is different. It appears too heavy for its own wings, with its body sagging beneath them. The creature tilts to the side, and its left wing collides with a white column. The wing collapses, and the beast falls sideways through the air before hitting the lake. Water explodes around it.
What was in your flask? the dragon asks, its voice weak and hollow. It lifts its head out of the lake, its copper eyes intent on me. And then it coughs. The fire consuming the rocks dims and splutters, and for a minute the cave becomes quieter.
“My flask was filled with Strickbane poison,” I say. Every breath I take shoots fire into my lungs.
Strickbane?
A single tear slips out of the corner of my eye and drips down my cheek, and I nod and answer with a thought: You ate my poison.
The dragon opens its terrible mouth and shrieks. Its wings unfurl and snap against the air, lifting the massive creature out of the water, but one wing has been torn and barely holds any air. The dragon careens sideways and collides with a colossal white column stretched from the lake floor to the cave ceiling. The stone bursts into hundreds of pieces and crumbles into the lake, taking the dragon with it. The burning rocks flicker again.
A scale-covered foot reaches out of the water, and then another, as the dragon digs its claws into the settling pile of rubble and drags itself out of the lake. I struggle to my feet and watch. When the creature has reached the top of the wreckage, it opens its mouth and thrusts its head toward me, just like it did when it spewed fire at Golmarr. A wave of tepid air gusts into me, whipping my wet hair away from my face and nearly knocking me over. Around me, the fire shudders and shrinks to half its size, making the cave go dim. The dragon pulls its head back and roars its breath at me again, and everywhere its breath touches the fire, it goes out, so I am standing on the plain sand path with no walls of fire penning me in.
The creature shrieks and lifts its foot, and swipes its talons at me, but they don’t come close to where I am standing. Heaving its body forward, it drags itself out of the lake and crashes down on the rocks piled beside the sand path. I jump backward as the dragon snaps its massive jaws at my legs, but it is not close enough to reach me.
And then its head falls to the rocks, and its rib cage moves, rapidly expanding and deflating, but the rest of its body is motionless. I take another step back, and the dragon’s eyes follow my movement. I take two more steps, and still the dragon lies unmoving. Doubled over my crushed ribs, my stub of an arm dangling at my side, I turn my back to the dragon, turn toward the exit, and find Golmarr at my feet. He hasn’t moved, his eyes are closed, and his breathing is shallow. I look from him to my missing arm and wonder what to do. Even though my wound has been partially cauterized, it is still bleeding too much. Should I escape and leave him to die? I cannot move him—not in my state, and if I wait for him to wake up, I will probably bleed to death. If I run, I will probably bleed to death. If I do nothing, I will probably bleed to death. A wave of dizziness hits me, and I wobble from side to side. I can already feel the life draining out of me.
You are the greatest coward I have ever beheld, too scared even to run! Even in my head, spoken with my own thoughts, the dragon’s voice is barely more than a whisper. It is still staring at me with its luminous eyes. I am not an it, it says. I am a he. My name is Zhun. Run while you can, for Strickbane is dragon venom. It will not kill me like it will kill you.
I look at Golmarr again, and a sob tears at my throat, jarring my ruined ribs. I cannot leave him here with the fire dragon.
Leave him and run, you fool! Zhun commands. He breathed in my fire. It i
s burning him from the inside out. You cannot save him, even if you remove him from my presence! No man can survive dragon fire in his lungs.
“Will you eat him?” I ask.
Of course. But he will not feel it. Look at him. He is battling death already.
Zhun is right. Even I can see imminent death in the rapid rise and fall of Golmarr’s chest and the lack of color in his cheeks. Beside Golmarr lies his sword, the metal blackened by flame. For the first time I actually look at his weapon. The hilt is made of two intertwined dragons with emerald eyes. My heart starts hammering in my chest, and I take a small step toward it.
Come here, Princess! the fire dragon wails. For I can feel my blood clearing the poison as we speak! I am ready to eat you! His great copper-colored eyes dart from me to the sword. I hobble up to the weapon and wrap my left hand around the dragon hilt. The metal is warm against my palm. As I lift it from the ground, my ribs shoot agony into my lungs, and blackness threatens to overcome me. I wobble and wait for the dizziness to pass, and then, still hunched over, I walk to the rocks and look up at Zhun the fire dragon. Come here so I can eat you! I can already feel my body healing! Zhun shrieks, his voice filled with fury. I swallow and take a step up the rock pile. When Zhun doesn’t move, I slowly climb the boulders, making my awkward way up to stand beside the massive beast.
He smells like rotting meat and charcoal that has been doused with water. His scales look like orange opals the size of my palm, and spikes of pale gold jut up from the creature’s spine. I put my left elbow on the dragon’s shoulder to keep from falling and feel the heat coming off his body. Swallowing down a surge of fear at being so close to such a magnificent and deadly creature, I stumble to his head and stop beside his eye. His lone eye studies me, the pupil a long, narrow slit framed with gold. I will eat you! he screams inside my head, but lies motionless. I lift the sword and place the sharp tip against the filmy skin of the dragon’s eye. I will eat you! he shrieks again.
“Not if I kill you first,” I answer, and then tighten my hand on the sword hilt and thrust the blade forward with all the weight and strength left in my ruined body. Searing, scalding dragon blood splashes against my skin and coats the raw stump of flesh where my arm has been severed, mixing fire into my blood. With every beat of my heart, I feel the fire spread through my veins until it is burning my heart and my pulse doubles, thundering against my shattered ribs. Zhun bursts into golden flames, an explosion of light that encircles me. The fire surges, billowing against my skirt and whipping my hair away from my face, and I flinch. My brain feels like it is growing, pressing against my skull so hard that I moan and then scream. Images fill my mind, flashing past so quickly I cannot tell what they are. I let go of the sword and wobble, and my knees buckle. Head over heels, I tumble down the side of the rocks until I land on the sand. The fires blazing around the cave surge and flare all the way to the ceiling and then simply stop existing. Blackness smothers the cave and swallows me, and everything stops hurting as I cling to the darkness.
A man blinks at me, squeezing tears from his dark blue eyes. His crown tilts precariously atop his bald head, and his clothing is soiled and torn. “Please!” he begs, grabbing my arm. “Please! You have to stop the fire dragon!”
“So you finally realize that you are not the king who is destined to unite the six kingdoms, King Napier?” I ask, but my voice is not my own. I am speaking with the voice of a man.
“I would have ruled fairly!” he says.
Someone beside me curses, and I turn to him. His long black hair is matted with blood on the side of his head, and his left arm, covered with blistered and blackened skin, hangs limp at his side.
“You filthy son of a…” The black-haired man lunges at the bald king, swinging his good arm at the king’s head and flinging his crown across the room. I recognize the room. It is the throne room of my mother’s castle. “You started this war to satisfy your own greed, and now claim you would have ruled us fairly? We are a peaceful people! We farm and breed horses. Thousands upon thousands of my men have died because of you! When I return to Anthar, I will have a kingdom populated with widows and children and destroyed by dragon fire. Who will feed them? Who will take care of them? Who will protect them? I will have to teach my women to fight if we want to keep our land from the hands of the Trevonans! We will have to arm our children!” he rails.
I hold my hand up—my thin-fingered, wrinkled hand. For a brief moment, I look at the mirror on the wall behind my mother’s throne and see Melchior the wizard looking back at me. His hair is not as gray as I remember it, and his skin is smoother, but I recognize the twinkle in his eyes when they look into mine. I am seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears, speaking through his mouth, and sharing his body. “Yes, King Dargull, go back to your grasslands and teach your women to fight. Arm your children if you must. And…” I sigh. “I know a way we can bind the fire dragon under the mountain, but for it to work, you must pay two very high prices. First, all the gold and jewels in your treasuries. Second, your children, and your children’s children, will be bound by this pact for generations to come. Your two countries will have to live in peace.” I turn to King Napier. “Because you are the one who woke the fire dragon, the heavier burden will fall upon your progeny. Every Faodarian princess born under the binding will have to forfeit her own desires, or her life, in order for this to work. Is this something you can both agree to?”
King Dargull of Anthar nods eagerly. For a long moment King Napier of Faodara studies me. Finally, he closes his eyes and nods his head.
“If this is the only way to bind the fire dragon under the mountain, then I agree,” King Napier says.
“It is the only way,” Melchior says. “But it is also a very important piece to a puzzle that will eventually shape itself into the death of the fire dragon.”
The dream fades as consciousness slowly settles over me. My eyelids are red from the light shining on them, and I am warm. I fill my lungs with air and stretch my body until my arms are over my head and my toes curl. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. Except my stomach. Based on how hungry I am, I must have slept well past breakfast.
I crack one eye open and the sun is shining directly into it, so I squeeze it shut and call, “Nona?” She doesn’t answer. The only things I hear are the ticking clock and birds chirping. I push myself to sitting and pause, closing my hands. Lifting my fists, I open them and watch as damp sand falls in clumps onto a short, bloodstained skirt.
I am sitting on sand, in a perfect, jagged slash of sunlight. I peer up and see a stone ceiling cracked to the sky, and birds flying in and out of the opening to land in the little mud nests they’ve built on the cave ceiling. Water drips from stalactites, ticking onto the cave floor….
In a massive, gut-wrenching burst, my mind recalls the fire dragon, the cave, and Golmarr. I suck in a breath of air and realize it doesn’t hurt to breathe. Pressing on my ribs—strong, whole ribs—I gasp again and hold my right hand up to my face. Sunlight gleams off of my perfect, clean skin, and my filthy shirt is torn off just above my elbow. I wiggle my fingers and then hold my left hand up beside my right. They are different. My left hand is filthy with dried blood and dirt. My right hand looks like it was just soaked in a tub and scrubbed with soap. It is clean and whole and…not bitten off at the elbow.
Something beside me gurgles and gasps, and I leap to my feet, expecting the dragon. Golmarr is lying in the sand, in the exact position I last saw him. He looks carved from stone, he is so still.
I rush to his side and fall to my knees. “Golmarr!” Blisters have formed on his chest where his vest burned it. His black hair and eyebrows are a stark contrast to his ashen face. He gasps a small, shallow breath of air, and I can hear it gurgle deep down behind his ribs. I know, with complete certainty, that he is mere moments from death. Tears sting my eyes and drip down my cheeks, splattering on the sand beside his head.
“I am so sorry,” I whisper, and put my hand on his cold chee
k. As I stare down at him, my thoughts begin to swirl out of control, and the sunlight seems to grow brighter. I sway and close my eyes, and a scrap of knowledge surfaces in my mind like a bubble working its way to the lake’s surface. My eyes fly open, and I stare at Golmarr in silent, breathless shock. I know how to help him.
I put my other hand on his other cheek so I am holding his face, then use my thumbs to gently pull his chin down so his mouth is wide open. Moving my face directly above his, I summon all the good things I am made of—love, innocence, agency, joy, and a thousand other things—and then exhale them into his open mouth. They float out of me as a trickle of light, brighter even than the sunlight warming my shoulders, and pool at the back of Golmarr’s throat. I have to force myself not to recoil from the shock of seeing a part of me enter him. A moment later, when he inhales a tiny sip of air into his lungs, the light moves into him with his breath. As it slips down his airway, I shiver and pull away. My hands lose all their warmth and begin to tremble. Cold sweat beads on my brow as I stare at him, waiting to see what happens.
Golmarr gasps a massive breath of air and rolls onto his side, coughing out a big puff of orange smoke that smells like wet charcoal and blood. His eyes flicker open and focus on me, and he leaps to his feet, hand reaching for the sword that always hangs at his hip. But the sword is gone. He spins around searching for it, and then his eyes grow wide as he stares at something over my shoulder.
I turn and see him—the fire dragon, Zhun—where he lies dead atop the pile of rocks. His body looks like rusted stone, and his wings have been burned off so only the bones remain. My heart aches at the sight of him, and it takes me a moment to realize I am feeling sorrow for the great beast.
“Did I kill it?” Golmarr asks, scratching his head. Handfuls of hair break off in his fingers. He shakes the hair from his hand and strides up the rock mound. I gape at him, at his perfect golden skin, at the missing burns. Only his brittle hair and blackened, ruined clothing show the memory of fire. “Look at this thing!” he says, running his hands along the dragon’s dim scales. At the creature’s head, he pauses and scratches his head again. Where there should be an eyeball there is a dried, bloody mess with a dragon-and-emerald-decorated sword hilt sticking out of it. He pulls the weapon free. “My sword? But I don’t remember…” He turns and looks at me, his brow furrowed. His eyes take me in for the first time, studying my long hair, my bloodstained shirt and skirt, and stop on my legs. He lifts his sword between the two of us and snarls, “Who are you, and what did you do with Princess Sorrowlynn?”