With nimble fingers, I twist two-thirds of my waist-length hair into a bun at the crown of my head. The other third I braid and twist around the bun to hold it in place. It is sloppily done, but I have never before had to do my own hair for a formal occasion. And this is most definitely a formal occasion—one that could result in war if it is not handled properly.
Squaring my shoulders, I look into the small mirror above the basin and force my face into indifference, though my stomach is roiling at the thought of facing Lord Damar and the Faodarian army (even if they are only three hundred strong). Satisfied with what I see, I sit on the edge of my bed and wait.
* * *
It is long after the midday meal, when the aroma of supper makes its way to my chamber, that there is a quiet knock at the door. I open it and find Enzio dressed in full armor.
“Ingvar has asked us to join him in the foyer,” he says. “And bring a cloak.”
I retrieve a finely woven red wool cloak from the chest at the foot of my bed and swing it over my shoulders. “Are we meeting with Lord Damar?”
“I believe so.”
My gray boots are almost silent on the stone floor of the fortress, unlike my noisy heart against my ribs. As I descend the stairs, the air gets cooler and cooler, until I step from the stairwell to the foyer. Frigid air swirls beneath the hem of my skirt, and the evening sun is shining in through the open front door.
“Princess Sorrowlynn.” Ingvar, sweaty and windblown, wearing full chain mail, is striding toward me. His father is at his side, also dressed in armor. King Marrkul looks older at this moment than ever before, like a horse whose back is swayed from years of being burdened. His shoulders sag beneath an invisible weight.
“Have you intercepted the Faodarian army?” I ask.
Ingvar nods, face grim. “Your father asks that we meet him a half mile from the fortress, unarmed. Enzio has agreed to accompany us.”
“Lord Damar is not my father,” I remind him, my body stiffening with tension.
“I apologize. Your mother’s husband has asked us to meet him. He would like to talk. I believe he will ask you to return to Faodara.”
“Ask? He never asks for anything. He demands and takes and punishes when he does not receive.”
King Marrkul clears his throat and puts his hand on my elbow. Concern darkens his eyes. “I need to speak frankly. Considering everything that has happened with Golmarr…” He pulls his lips tight against his teeth and scowls. Since my son tried to kill you and has been gone nearly half a year without sending you so much as a letter, is what he means. “After everything that has happened with my son, do you wish to return to Faodara and your family? Do you want me to release you from your betrothal to Golmarr? As king of Anthar, it is in my power to do so.”
“No!” I shake my head vigorously. “I do not want that. I still have hope—” My voice catches in my throat. Swallowing, I continue, “I have hope that one day we will be married. I do not want the betrothal broken.”
King Marrkul smiles a smile that deepens the crow’s-feet around his eyes. He wraps me in his arms, hugging me against his cold, solid chain mail so tightly it imprints against my skin through my clothes. “That is what I hoped you would say,” he says. “Sometimes our hearts do not choose wisely, but I sincerely believe my son’s heart chose well when it attached itself to you. He was sensible to follow it, even if it did lead him into a dragon’s cave.” He pushes me to arm’s distance. “Dewdrop has been saddled for you.”
Ingvar rests his hand on his hip, and I realize there is something wrong. He is unarmed. A horse lord without weapons is like a porcupine without quills. I look at Enzio and realize he, too, has no weapons. Unease snakes through the pit of my stomach. Stored away in my head are the memories of dead men having meetings just like this. They almost never ended well. “Must we go unarmed?” I ask.
Ingvar nods. “It has already been agreed upon.”
“I do not trust Lord Damar.” I flex my calf, feeling the press of knife against skin. I never agreed to Lord Damar’s terms; therefore, I will not go unarmed. I simply will not tell anyone I am carrying a blade.
“I do not trust him, either, and that is why I am going and not my father,” Ingvar growls, pressing his hand to the spot on his hip where his sword should be hanging. “But we will grant him this audience and find out what he wants. And then, if we have to, we will fight. Even bare hands can be a formidable weapon when used properly.”
The unease snaking through my belly turns to cold, nauseating dread. “I don’t want to be the cause of a war.”
Ingvar puts his hands on my shoulders. “Why do you think Lord Damar wants you to return to Faodara so much that he has sent an army?”
“I assume he wants me for my ability to wield magic. If Lord Damar owns a wizard, Faodara will be the most powerful kingdom in the world. Lord Damar wants me because I will make him incredibly powerful.”
“That is the same thing I was thinking. Because you are magic, does that take away your freedom to choose where to live, whom to marry, and what to do with your life? Does that make it all right for Lord Damar to turn you into a slave?”
His words kindle anger. “No.”
“Then we go hear him out. If we have to fight for you, we fight. If it turns to war, so be it. Antharians do not fear dying for a worthy cause, Princess.”
A mounted army of one hundred fully armed men and women wait in the outer bailey. Most of them are the oldest trainees from the fortress, the rest are the trainers. Even Leogard is present, his ancient sword hanging at his hip. I mount Dewdrop and guide her beneath the raised portcullis. The small army follows me out but stops, spreading out in the shadow of the fortress wall, where they will wait for our safe return or heed the call to arms.
“The sun is going to set shortly,” I say. “Shouldn’t we wait until morning to meet?”
Ingvar quirks one eyebrow. “Antharians train to fight at night. This is our land, and we know it well. Do not fear, Sorrowlynn. Night gives us the advantage, not the Faodarian army.” He waves his hand at the mounted army. “If anything goes wrong, all I have to do is whistle and they will rush to our aid.”
“Whistle?” I ask, skeptical.
Ingvar nods, and I can tell he is trying not to smile. “My whistle carries. They will hear it, even from half a mile away. Have faith. Be brave.”
I sit taller, more confident, as we leave the small Antharian army behind, and proceed to our meeting. The horses gallop through grass painted with the orange glow of evening. Half a mile ahead, a small blue tent has been erected. Half a mile beyond, a line of black and shimmering silver divides the grass from the sky. It is the Faodarian army, the sun gleaming off their armor. I turn my attention from them to the blue tent. A red flag hangs limp above it. Were the wind to blow, the flag would spread open to show a rearing griffin with its wings unfurled, as I recall from my life before the dragon transformed it.
As we cover the last stretch of ground, a tall man with pale hair that gleams in the sunset exits the tent. Though he is unarmed (as far as I can tell), the way his body moves and flows makes me think one word: lethal. He is nearly as wide from front to back as he is from side to side, and his arms are so thick they don’t hang straight down against his ribs, but bow out slightly. Despite his bulk, he doesn’t merely walk toward us; he swaggers with the grace of a man half his size.
Ingvar dismounts beside me. “Who is that man? He looks familiar,” he says, voice hushed.
I shake my head and dismount without taking my eyes from the stranger. “I have never seen him before, but I lived most of my life confined to my chambers. I don’t think I would forget him if I ever saw him.” Enzio takes Dewdrop’s reins from me, and Ingvar’s reins from him.
“You wait here,” Ingvar instructs Enzio, and then he positions himself between me and the stranger and slowly takes the man
’s measure, his eyes probing for weapons hidden in his finely made clothing as thoroughly as his hands would.
The man stops beside Ingvar and glares back at us. This stranger is as tall as an Antharian horse lord. He points at Enzio. “Lord Damar asks that your man stand twenty paces from the tent.” My eyes narrow. His accent is not Faodarian.
Enzio’s eyes take on a slightly panicked look. “Why?”
“He would like to discuss things with Princess Sorrowlynn in privacy,” the foreigner says.
Ingvar and Enzio look at each other, and then Ingvar gives a reluctant nod. “Twenty paces, but not a step more,” Ingvar instructs. Enzio mutters something under his breath, but walks the horses twenty paces away.
The stranger flexes and closes his fingers before asking Ingvar, “Are you unarmed, as per Lord Damar’s agreement?”
“Of course I am unarmed! I am Ingvar, son of King Marrkul. I am a man of honor,” he growls. “Not a slippery Trevonan. Are you unarmed? And why are you at this meeting? I did not know the Faodarian queen was on speaking terms with royal Trevonan swine.”
Trevonan swine? This man is from the kingdom of Trevon, yet he is with Lord Damar? My mouth goes dry. This cannot be good.
The stranger’s face hardens. “I am Prince Treyose, heir of Trevon.”
I gasp and take a small step back. Prince Treyose is the only living heir of the ruthless King Vaunn, ruler of Trevon. When I was a child, my history teachers taught me of King Vaunn’s merciless rampages and victories against the kingdoms that bordered his. Under his grandfather’s instruction, Treyose led the army that conquered the small kingdom of Belldarr and forced its people to pledge fealty to Trevon and King Vaunn. Treyose was fifteen when he conquered Belldarr a decade ago. It is his army of one thousand approaching from the west. I try to swallow the lump of fear forming in my throat.
Without thinking about it, I center my weight over my feet as the knowledge of how to engage in combat with someone of Prince Treyose’s stature bursts into my conscious mind. Were I to engage him, my best chance at winning would be to throw my knife directly at his heart. If I have to engage him in hand-to-hand combat, the only way I could win would be to take him by surprise, outsmart him, or kill him before he has a chance to retaliate. Never could I match his brute strength, no matter how skilled a fighter I became.
I step around Ingvar and crane my neck to look the Trevonan man in the face. “What are you doing here, Treyose, with Lord Damar and the Faodarian army? And why is your army approaching from the west?”
His dark blond eyebrows slowly crawl up his forehead as he lets his gaze peruse my figure. “You must be Princess Sorrowlynn. I have come to escort you to Trevon.”
“I will not go anywhere with you. I am betrothed to Prince Golmarr of Anthar, and I will go where I please.”
He shakes his head and grins, showing big, straight teeth. “Betrothed but not married. That won’t keep us apart, Princess Sorrowlynn.”
I put my hands on my hips and tilt my head to the side. “You are mistaken. I am bound by an oath that cannot be broken.”
He takes a tiny step closer to me, and his breath moves against my face when he says, “You cannot be betrothed to another man if you are already my wife.”
My hands grow damp and frigid all at once, so I curl my fingers into my palms. Beside me, Ingvar shifts uneasily. Letting my eyes lazily travel down and then up the length of Treyose, I say, “No. You are mistaken. Sorely mistaken, Prince Treyose. I have never seen you before. I wouldn’t forget a face as cruel as yours. Especially if I spoke wedding vows to it!”
He grins and reaches a hand toward my face. I slap it away, hard and fast, before he can touch me. Prince Treyose’s eyes widen. “Your father warned me you don’t act like a Faodarian lady, but I didn’t believe him. He says you are a pigheaded rule-breaker, and you do not know when to hold your tongue.”
“I will speak when I want to speak,” I snap. “And I will only follow the rules I want to keep.”
He shrugs. “Then let us talk with your father, shall we?” In two long strides he is at the blue tent, lifting the flap aside.
Chin held high, I walk past Treyose and glance at his hand holding the tent flap open. It is covered with scars, and the littlest finger is missing just above the first knuckle.
The last rays of sun shining against the blue fabric of the tent have turned the air a dismal gray. A small table has been erected, with a lit oil lamp on it and two wooden chairs facing each other on either side. Lord Damar sits in the chair facing the tent door. “Sorrow,” he says without standing. He speaks my name like an insult, and for the first time in months, I feel the weight of it and the suicide prophecy that shadowed my youth. Lord Damar motions to the chair across from him. I peer over my shoulder, meeting Treyose’s gaze, and then turn back to Lord Damar. When I don’t move toward the chair, he sighs and says, “You may bring one escort inside with you.”
Ingvar enters the tent, scanning the flattened grass floor, the fabric walls, the table, and Lord Damar. Satisfied with what he sees, he nods for me to proceed and stands to my right. Treyose moves to the left side of the tent and glowers at Ingvar. The tension brewing between the two practically makes the air crackle.
I unclasp my cloak and toss it to the side. The air is uncomfortably cold, but if I need to fight, I do not want to be burdened by the cloak’s bulk. Crossing the uneven ground, I sit in the chair across from the man I used to think was my father. He is short in stature and narrowly built, with soft hands and slender wrists. Were I to face him in hand-to-hand combat, I would overpower him easily. He stares at me, his jaw muscles pulsing as if he’s gnashing his teeth.
“A Faodarian princess should not be wearing Antharian peasant clothing. Those sleeves are too revealing. You look like a barbarian,” he says.
“Your rules no longer apply to me,” I answer, slowly folding my bare arms atop the table so he gets a thorough view of them.
“You never did follow my rules.”
I clench my teeth and shake my head in disgust. “Of course I didn’t follow your rules! You told me I wasn’t allowed to hug my own mother, and when I did—when I broke that rule—you whipped my legs. I was only five years old! How could you do that to me?” I lean closer to him and lower my voice. “You whipped me because Melchior the wizard left, as if I was the one who made his choices for him. You sawed grooves into the willow branch so it would tear my skin!” I do not mean to yell, but waves of long-repressed anger are coursing through me, and my mouth is the only release I have. “You are a vile man!” The sun chooses that moment to set, bleeding darkness into the tent as if my memories have blackened the air.
Lord Damar clears his throat. “Are you finished having your tantrum?” He reaches for the ornate copper-and-glass lamp with trembling hands and turns the flame higher, chasing out the worst of the shadows. “I have made an alliance with the kingdom of Trevon,” he says, and snaps his mouth shut. I stare at him, waiting for him to proceed. After a drawn-out moment, he continues, “We heard you survived the fire dragon, and Prince Golmarr killed it. We also received reports that Prince Golmarr tried to kill you, and when he did not succeed, he fled.” A mocking smile stretches across Lord Damar’s face, and my cheeks start to burn. “Several months after the embarrassing news reached us, Prince Treyose came to me. He asked for my permission to take you to his kingdom since your betrothed obviously wants nothing to do with you.”
I shake my head. “I am not your property to give anymore.”
Lord Damar smirks and his eyes bore into mine. “You are my daughter and your mother’s daughter. You are a subject of your mother the queen. You are mine to do with as I please.”
Placing my hands flat on the table, I lean forward, until the heat from the lamp warms my face. “I am not your daughter. My father is Ornald, the Satari guard. I never have been your daughter, and I never wil
l be. I am betrothed to Golmarr, son of King Marrkul of Anthar, and you cannot change that no matter what rumors you have heard. I will choose where I go and with whom.” To my left, Prince Treyose shifts.
A slow leer twists Lord Damar’s face. “Because I am wed to the queen of Faodara, you are my subject and I have the authority to break every promise you made to the Antharian prince no matter whose daughter you are. Do you not realize that? You have no authority. You spoke simple words of love to a boy, and then he tried to kill you. When he fled, you remained unmarried, leaving you a pawn in my hands, Sorrowlynn. You may have been betrothed to the horse lord once, but now you are wed to Prince Treyose of Trevon. Now he holds your fate.”
I frown in confusion and look at Prince Treyose. His eyes meet mine, his face impassive. “I have never seen this man before in my life! And I most certainly never spoke vows with him. I would remember being wed to an oversized, overbearing Trevonan prince,” I say.
“Despite your less-than-stellar reputation, Prince Treyose asked for the right to take you to his castle in exchange for”—he glances at Ingvar and his eyes narrow—“peace between our two kingdoms, not to mention he paid highly for you. Faodara’s coffers are well padded, thanks to the kingdom of Trevon. I agreed to his proposition, but I wasn’t willing to send you off with a man again unless you were wed.” He sighs and shakes his head. “The rumors of you and the barbarian prince are already bad enough. I couldn’t have more rumors of you and Prince Treyose sullying Faodarian royalty, could I? So I insisted Treyose wed you first. We held the ceremony four days ago, the morning we set out to find you.”
The Dragon's Curse Page 4