The Dragon's Curse

by Bethany Wiggins

  “You mean, there used to be more than ‘the nine sons of King Marrkul’?”

  “Thirteen sons of Marrkul,” Golmarr whispers. “Now eight.” He looks down. His black lashes have fresh droplets of water in them.

  Wrapping my arms around Golmarr, I lay my head against his chest. His hand comes up, palm over my ear, and he holds me to him, resting his cheek on the crown of my head. Yerengul clears his throat and walks away, giving us a bit of privacy.

  The water dries on my skin, and still Golmarr holds me. The top of my damp head begins to warm from Golmarr’s skin pressing against it, and still he holds me. Finally, his arms grow slack, and he lifts his face from my head and releases me.

  “Thank you,” he says, caressing my cheek with the back of his hand. He smiles despite the grief still in his eyes. Every muscle in my body starts to quiver as I am filled with an overflowing emotion I am growing more and more familiar with: love.

  “I love you, Golmarr,” I say.

  He leans his forehead against mine. “I love you, too. I love you so much, it tears me up inside sometimes.” He kisses me again. “It also makes me want to spend the entire day alone on this beach with you in my arms.” He takes a step away. “But we have more important things to do right now. Let’s go find this woman from your dreams and see what we can learn about our scales and the dragons’ curses.”

  I turn and see Yerengul a little way down the beach, sitting with his back to us. Golmarr calls out to him, and his brother slowly gets to his feet. He has put his tunic back on, and his black leather boots are on and laced.

  “Are we ready to go and see what this island is hiding?” Yerengul asks.

  Golmarr gets his wet tunic from where he tossed it and pulls it on. He hands me my staff. “We are ready,” he says.

  The black gravel is perfect oval pebbles roughly the size of my thumbnail, just like in my visions. They look eerily similar to Golmarr’s scales. As we walk up the beach, the pebbles slowly merge with silky white sand. When we pass the tide line, there is only sand. It is so fine, I hardly feel it beneath my bare feet. The sand comes to an abrupt end at the base of a gleaming white cliff, and we start making our way up a slender path that leads to a narrow fissure.

  When we reach the fissure, my companions and I stop, and Yerengul and Golmarr draw their weapons. “I will go first. Wait here until I signal you to come in,” Yerengul says, and steps into the narrow slot cut deep into the cliff. He is swallowed by shadows, and my heart starts hammering. “Wow. You have got to come and see this!” he calls.

  I step into the shadow of the stone cleft, take five steps, and emerge into sunshine. I am standing above a valley shaped like a bowl. Nestled in the bowl is a small city made of white clay houses and buildings. None of the visible structures have doors, and those closest to us are hardly bigger than a Faodarian peasant’s meager one-room dwelling. The structures are larger farther in, with those in the center of the city rising two stories into the air. The air is free of wood smoke and devoid of any human noises. Even the sandy path leading into the valley is perfectly smooth, not a single footprint marking it.

  A breeze whistles through the valley and something rings out. Three strands of small blue shells have been hung from a bigger shell and nailed to the side of one of the buildings. When the wind blows, they sway into each other and make simple, rustic music. I have heard that wind chime many times before. I mean, Melchior has.

  “Look at that.” Golmarr points toward the very center of the city, to a building taller than any of the others, with gleaming white columns in front of it.

  “What is this place?” Yerengul quietly asks, wary eyes scanning the silent, doorless building closest to us. “I do not feel good about this.”

  “Let’s look in one of the buildings,” Golmarr suggests. He ducks into the nearest structure, a small, one-story shack. Yerengul and I follow.

  My eyes take a moment to adjust to the building’s shadowed interior. It is cool inside, and even with no door and several small windows, darkness seems to permeate the air.

  The first room has a sand-covered tile floor and nothing else. Yerengul’s boots make hollow thuds as we cross the room to a hall with a door on either side. The room on the left is tiny, and holds the remains of a pallet and a rotting blanket. The room on the right makes me pause. There is a pallet on the floor, just like the other room, but there is a giant, spiraled horn nailed to the wall above the pallet.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “A narwhal tusk,” Golmarr says, rubbing his thumb across it. “Whoever put this here took the time to polish it.”

  “I wonder what happened to him.”

  Golmarr shudders, and I have the sinking feeling that it has nothing to do with his damp clothing. “I am worried we are going to find out.”

  We leave the building and continue downhill, deeper into the maze of square white structures and pristine, untouched sand trails. We pass from small structures to bigger, fancier buildings. Some of the doorways here have doors attached, and several windows have glass panes in them. The crumbling remains of knee-high stone fences separate the buildings, and more wind chimes hang here—the only sound on the island attesting to the fact that it was once inhabited.

  “Let’s go inside that one,” Golmarr says, pointing to the biggest structure yet. It has a closed front door and glass window panes, and three shell wind chimes have been hung from the roof. Drapes hang in one of the windows, and some shattered pottery litters a tiled front porch.

  The door’s rusted hinges squeal in protest as Golmarr pushes it open. He and Yerengul share a look and then step through the door ahead of me. I tighten my hand on the staff, grateful for the familiar weapon as I step into the dim light.

  The first room contains broken, faded chairs and the ragged remains of a rug on the sandy tile floor. Drapes framing a dingy window flutter as we walk past and cross into a kitchen. Pottery sits whole on a shelf above a small stove. A solid wood table is centered in the room, with clay plates and cups still on it, as if someone left in the middle of a meal and never came back. The food, if there ever was any, is long gone and replaced with a fine dusting of sand.

  Next, we ascend a wooden staircase that moans and creaks beneath our feet. At the top of the stairs are three shut doors. Golmarr and Yerengul each take a door on the left, and I open the only door on the right.

  Sunlight slants into the room through a glass window, illuminating a small bed with faded blankets on it. There are two small bulges in the bed, so I step closer for a better look. Beneath my bare foot, something crunches. I look down and my heart leaps into my throat. I am standing on a skeletal human arm connected to hand bones, stark white against the dusty wood floor. Slowly, I lift my foot and take a step away from the bones. With a trembling hand, I pull the blankets away from the bed and stumble backward. The empty eye sockets of two small human skulls are staring up at the ceiling.

  “Get out! Now!” a deep voice yells.

  Feet thump in the hall outside the room. Golmarr slams the door of the room I am in against the wall, shattering it into a hundred fragile pieces of wood that scatter across the floor. He runs to my side, grips my wrist with his long fingers, and pulls me out into the hall. I take one more look at the two child-sized skeletons tucked lovingly beneath the blankets, and my blood runs cold.

  “Something killed them all!” Golmarr says as we sprint down the stairs and out the front door.

  Yerengul is already outside, his face ashen and covered with a sheen of sweat. “We need to get back to the ship and sail away from here now,” Yerengul says, his nostrils flaring with his accelerated breathing. “Something is horribly wrong with this place!”

  Anguish battles fear in Golmarr’s eyes. He looks from his brother deeper into the maze of buildings, and then rubs the patch of scales hidden beneath his shirt. “Not quite yet, Yerengul,” Golm
arr says. “Give me one hour to go to the building at the center of the city to try and find some answers.”

  Yerengul shudders and wipes his hands down the front of his damp tunic. “Golmarr, what if the whole island is contaminated with some kind of plague? Every bed was filled with skeletons. Even the baby cradle had a tiny skeleton in it! They’re all dead! Everybody is dead! That’s why this place is so quiet. It’s a tomb. A forgotten graveyard. We need to get away from here! Sorrowlynn?” His dark eyes are pleading, begging me to tell his brother to leave. Golmarr looks at me, his pale eyes defiant, daring me to tell him to leave, warning me that he is going to do this thing even if I do not want him to. But I do want him to find the answers we need. I want us to find the answers.

  “Please, just one hour,” I say to Yerengul.

  Yerengul groans. Golmarr steps up to his brother and puts his hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes there are things in life more important than life itself,” Golmarr quietly says. “I need to find answers. Keep a lookout from here, or go back to the beach. Make sure nothing follows us in.” Golmarr glances at the sun. “Besides, we can’t swim back to the ship right now, not with the tide still moving in. Yeb said we won’t be able to swim out to the boat until sunset.”

  Yerengul shakes his head, his face grim. “Fine. One hour. But I am not going a step farther. I will keep watch.” He runs his hand down his face. “What have you gotten us into, little brother?”

  Golmarr grins and gives Yerengul’s shoulder a shake. “Just think of the stories we’ll be able to tell at the breakfast table when we return home. We’ve gone where no other horse lord has gone before. Our legend will live on forever.”

  Yerengul’s mouth softens, almost into a smile. He gently shoves his brother away. “Go. Take your hour. I will not let anything come in after you.”

  Golmarr inclines his head. “Thank you.” Yerengul and Golmarr clasp wrists, and then Golmarr turns to me. Together, he and I start walking deeper into the silent city.

  The sand seems to soak up the sun’s heat and reflect it back, making me grateful for my damp clothing as we walk deeper into the maze of buildings. “It’s going to be hard to go back north after basking in the sun,” I say, breathing in the balmy air.

  “Do you want to know what I love about you?”

  I peer sideways at Golmarr. “Yes?”

  He looks around. “We are out here on this godforsaken, eerie, possibly deadly island, and you manage to find the one good thing about our situation.” He turns his gaze to me. In the glaring light, the flaws in his face are more pronounced—a white scar on his temple, a slightly crooked tooth, several days’ growth of black beard on his face, hair stiff and disheveled from drying salt water—and I love them all. “If we get off this island alive,” he says, “I will be so glad to return to Anthar, I won’t care if the weather is bitter cold.” A roguish gleam enters his eyes, and a sly grin lifts the corners of his lips. “Do you know what I like about the cold?”

  The way he is looking at me makes my heart start beating like I am training. “What?” I ask, mesmerized.

  He takes a step closer and traces my jawline with his finger. “Wrapping myself around you to keep you warm.”

  My mouth drops open, and I step away from him. “You are absolutely scandalous, Golmarr! Are all Antharian men so bold?”

  “No. You just had the good luck to fall in love with one who is.” He grabs my hand, bringing it to his lips for a quick kiss. “Let’s hurry and see if we can find your dream lady. The sooner we do, the sooner we leave. I am suddenly craving cold weather.”

  “And if there is no one here?” I ask.

  “Then we look for the answers somewhere else. We sail with Yassim to Ilaad and kill the sandworm so we can cross the desert and search the abandoned library there.”

  * * *

  My feet shuffle through the hot sand and I almost wish I’d brought boots. By the time we reach the center of the city, the staff has grown damp beneath my hand, and my clothes have dried. As we approach the pillared building, the ground dips steeply downward, as if the building is so massive, the very ground beneath it has sunk. Each step we take causes a small landslide of sand as we descend.

  The building is spectacular, made of pristine white stone flecked with crystals that glitter in the sun. Ten shallow stairs span the front of it, and the number makes my head spin for a moment. Pain shoots between my ears and my skull feels like it is opening up. “Ten stairs. One for Relkinn, and nine for each person who took on Relkinn’s burden,” I say as my bare foot comes down on the bottom step.

  “What does that mean?” Golmarr asks.

  I press on the skin between my eyebrows, trying to push the pain out of my head. “I don’t know what that means, but I remember the names that go with each step. One for Relkinn.” I step onto the next step. “Two for Saphina. Three for Naphina.” A revelation is thrust upon me with so much force, it feels like a knife is being twisted in my brain. I whimper and clasp my head with my hands, and the pain immediately stops, but not the knowledge that caused it.

  Hands grip my shoulders. “Sorrowlynn, what’s wrong?”

  I swallow and look at Golmarr. “The two-headed dragon. That was Naphina and Saphina. The two sisters whose beauty outshone all others.” I see their faces—human faces: skin as smooth and dark as black tea, hair the color of raven feathers, eyes like gold. “The only thing that shone brighter than their beauty was their intellect.”

  “They were human?” he asks.

  “I think so,” I say, and step up onto the fourth step. “Four for Feäd. Five for Grinndoar. Six for Mordecai. Seven for Moyana.” The eighth step plunges us into the shadow of a stone overhang. The stair is cool beneath my foot. “Eight is Melchior the wizard. Nine is Corritha.” Again, piercing knowledge assaults my brain as the face of a woman with gleaming red hair and green eyes is thrust upon me. “Corritha was the glass dragon,” I whisper. Stepping up onto the final step, I say, “Ten for King Zhun, ruler of the entire land, from Faodara to the Antharian grasslands, to Trevon, to the Ilaadi desert, and even the icy north. King Zhun was not named after the fire dragon. He was the fire dragon. They were all human once, Golmarr.”

  We are standing before two massive stone doors that are cool to the touch and seem to make the air temperature drop. There are no handles, so I push the door on the right. It swings open slowly, like a great yawning beast. I start to step inside, but Golmarr stops me, putting himself in front of me and creeping silently forward. I open my mouth to protest but think better of it. Speaking would alert someone to our arrival—if anyone is here.

  The inside of the building is more spectacular than the outside, with a glass roof overhead, making it as bright as the outside world. We are standing in a large, hexagon-shaped room. It is at least three stories tall. At the far end of the room is a staircase that leads forward, but halfway up, splits, going to the left and the right. At the top of the stairs is a balcony with a stone railing carved to look like mermaids holding bowls of water in their hands. The bowls connect to each other, joining the top railing.

  I spin in a slow circle, taking in the enormity of the room. The floor—polished stone—is completely free of sand, save where my and Golmarr’s feet have trod it in from outside. The six walls forming the room’s hexagon shape have each been carved with pictures, and there is a crest above each picture. I gasp and point to the wall on my left. It has a carving of the wolf cliffs of Faodara, with the Faodarian griffin crest carved above it, like a sentinel keeping watch.

  “Look at that,” Golmarr whispers, and points to another wall and the picture carved into it—grass that appears to be waving in the wind. Above it is the ancient Antharian seal.

  On the third wall is a carving of the building that houses the Royal Library of Trevon, with the Trevonan crest above it. The fourth wall depicts the sand dunes of Ilaad, the Ilaadi serpent crest
above. On the fifth wall is a mountain with a city carved in its face, and a stone knife crest above it.

  “The great mountain city of Satar,” I say. “And look. The sixth wall is the lost kingdom of Belldarr.” A square castle with a mountain behind it is carved into the wall. Above is the Belldarrian crest: an eagle and a sword. Belldarr used to sit northwest of Anthar, at the base of the mountains, before King Vaunn conquered it and absorbed the land into Trevon. “What is this place?”

  Golmarr raises his eyebrows. “I was hoping you could tell me. You don’t know it? No knowledge of it stored in your brain? No dreams about it? Surely, Melchior has been here before.”

  I tilt my head back, taking in the beauty of the room and trying to recall any memories of it. My mind stays infuriatingly blank, as if everything inside it has been smothered. “There are no memories of this place.”

  “But you remember the stairs leading to it, and the name of each stair. There must be something you remember about it.”

  “I don’t remember anything,” I snap, frustration bleeding into my words. “It’s like there is a wall in my head, and nothing is getting past it!”

  “Hey.” Golmarr steps in front of me and rests his free hand on my biceps. “No pressure, okay? Let’s take a quick look around and see what we can find. Maybe see if we discover anything about the woman from your dream.”

  I shove my frustration aside and nod. Golmarr’s hand trails down my arm and finds mine. He lifts the sword, and we cross the glossy floor to the stairs. When the staircase divides, we turn to the right. At the top of the stairs is the balcony, with a single door on either end.

  “Is any of this looking familiar yet?” Golmarr asks.

  “No. My mind feels empty.”

  Golmarr makes a small sound of frustration and then turns to the closer door. “Let’s go in.” He puts his hand on the brass door handle and whispers, “Staff ready, and just in case I never get to tell you again, I think you are the most spectacular person alive.”