“Partially,” I admit. He starts walking again, splashing his way downward.
“I’m sorry. After I teased you about it, I told you that only one Antharian heir has taken a second wife from your family before, and that is because his first wife died. I thought you would understand I was only teasing about multiple wives when I explained that.” He shakes his head and mumbles, “I guess I truly deserve to be down here with you.”
“But the Mountain Binding. The histories say that for it to remain in place, all Faodarian princesses have to offer to wed the heir of Anthar. If he’s already married, wouldn’t that make the binding obsolete?”
“Nowhere does the binding state that our heir has to marry yours, or that he has to be unwed. As long as the Faodarian virgin princess is offered, and we acknowledge it at the ceremony, and feed the dragon a lamb, the Mountain Binding retains its power whether or not we choose to wed her. No one from my clan was planning on marrying anyone from your kingdom.”
“Why?”
He shrugs, his shoulder muscles rolling beneath my arms. “Because we don’t like marrying genteel women.”
We walk in silence for a moment before I garner up the courage to ask, “So…who is Evay?”
Golmarr pauses for a heartbeat, and then continues walking. “Evay? How do you know about her?”
“You talked about her right before you passed out from the Mayanchi poison. You said that if you died, you wanted me to tell her that you would have married her if you made it back to Anthar.”
“I don’t remember that. Evay is—was—my sweetheart.”
When he doesn’t continue, I rest my chin on his shoulder. An uncomfortable surge of jealousy and hurt engulfs me, and I tighten my arms around Golmarr’s shoulders and for a moment savor the thought that right now, he is mine.
“Sometimes our lives turn out in ways we never imagined they would,” he says. “If we get out of here alive, I don’t think I can marry Evay—for the past few months, I thought I loved her, but now I’m not so certain. What are you going to do if we get out?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “All I know is I don’t want to go home.” If I return home I will get a beating worse than I have ever gotten before. But if we survive the cave, I will be penniless and homeless and have not even a pair of shoes to my name.
Golmarr stops walking. “Stay with me,” he says.
“What?”
“If we get out of here alive, stay with me. I will help you find a way to survive without returning to Faodara. I will protect you.”
I tighten my arms around his shoulders and whisper, “Thank you.”
After what feels like hours, Golmarr says, “I need you to get down now.” He helps me back into the water, and I notice his arms are trembling. Taking the bow and quiver from my back, he puts them onto his own and leans against the wall. I crouch, and the bottom of my skirt floats on top of the water. Filling my hands, I drink, and then refill them and hold them up to Golmarr. He puts his hands beneath mine and brings them to his mouth, drinking. The touch of his lips on my fingertips makes my body jump awake, and I have to force myself not to yank my hands away. “Thank you,” he says.
I stand on my toes and garner enough courage to quickly kiss him on the cheek. He presses on the spot where my lips touched his skin and asks, “What was that for?”
“You are a prince of Anthar. All of my life I have heard stories of how violent and aggressive your people are. But you…” He silently waits for me to continue. “You are kind and gentle.”
“And I always heard how soft and submissive your people were. I will admit you’re soft, but you are brave and strong-willed. There is a place and a time for violent and aggressive, and yes, my people are ferocious when they are fighting to protect their land and children and freedom. But there are also times to be gentle and kind.” The sides of his mouth turn up, and he flashes his white teeth. “Just don’t tell my brothers I said so. They’d beat me to a pulp.”
Taking my hand in his, we start walking again. We haven’t taken more than twenty steps when Golmarr pulls me to a stop. “Look,” he says.
Below us and far ahead, the darkness has changed. Instead of solid black, there is a hazy circle of orange, barely brighter than the dark. “What do you think that is?” Golmarr asks, taking his bow from his back.
My heart starts hammering against my ribs. “The fire dragon? Does the fire dragon glow?”
“The dragon’s scales glow, so the dragon itself must glow,” he whispers, and starts creeping down the stairs, bow in hand. The farther we descend, the bigger and brighter the orange haze becomes, and I barely notice my aching feet and throbbing legs or my empty belly. As the light grows, the cavern becomes louder—a dull roar I feel deep in my bones. The air also changes, clinging to my face and skin like icy fog.
Soon, we no longer have to look down to see the orange haze. We are level with it. I open my mouth to ask Golmarr what he thinks it is, but he comes to such an abrupt halt that I jerk to a stop to keep from running into him.
“Look!” he whispers. The ground is flat, and the stream we have been sloshing down is fanning out over the cave floor and merging into a giant pool of water. At the other end of the pool are the orange glow and the rumbling.
Golmarr steps into the water and turns to me, black brows drawn down. “Do you know how to swim?”
I shake my head. “I had never even seen a lake before last night.”
He takes my hand and guides me forward. “Hopefully, it won’t be too deep.” Together we splash through the water, and my teeth start to chatter as the cold that has been festering in my body takes full hold of me. The closer we get to the light, the louder the rumbling becomes and the wetter the air is. The pool laps around my thighs as I push my way through it. The jagged cave floor is agony on my feet. When we are more than halfway across the pool, I stop walking and stare, openmouthed, at the great glowing mass.
A giant waterfall is cascading down the sheer side of the cave and splashing into the very pool I am submerged in. White mist is surging up around it, and something on the other side of the waterfall is glowing, creating a half circle of orange light that is distorted by the falling water, and as tall as the castle I grew up in.
“Beautiful,” Golmarr says, his voice barely louder than the roaring water. He grips my hand more tightly and pulls me forward.
The closer we get to the waterfall, the softer the ground beneath my feet becomes; the uneven rock has been replaced with velvety mud. But the water is getting deeper and deeper, until it is up to Golmarr’s shoulders and lapping at my chin, and I have to cling to him to keep from falling under. The air is so saturated with mist that I can barely see anymore, and breathing is more like drinking. And then I notice something else. The water around my ankles is pulling me forward, dragging me toward the waterfall. I dig my feet into the ground, but they slide on the lake bottom. Frantic, I claw at Golmarr, grabbing his leather vest in my fists, but he is being pulled, too, and then I am under the water, and his vest is ripped from my grasp, and I am moving so fast that I cannot tell which way is up.
The water holds me tight. Rocks scrape my arms and legs, my clothes are suctioned to my skin, and my lungs ache to expand. Before my blinking eyes, the water changes from black, to gray, to bright gold. Without meaning to, without understanding how to move in the water, I am thrust up into the air. It is warm on my face, and so bright I can barely open my eyes. Something solid crashes into me, and I cling to it to keep from going back under.
Holding on to a stalagmite, gasping for air, I watch hundreds of tiny bubbles wash past me, away from the waterfall I just plunged under. I am in the middle of a massive, round lake. At one end is the dark, arched opening I came through. The rest of the lake is surrounded by fire that burns taller than I stand. The air is so hot that it hurts to breathe, and it is brighter than noonday. A deep, constant rumble fills the chamber, and I can’t tell if it is from the waterfall or from the raging fires.
I examine the cave for any sign of the fire dragon and realize Golmarr is right. There is no smoke in the air. It is clean and crisp, and wavering from the heat. High above in the rock ceiling is a giant crack. On the other side of it, orange clouds are streaming across a purple sky. It is either sundown or sunrise, but I can’t decide which. “If this is its lair, where is its treasure? The mountains of gold and jewels? Where are the piles of bones and rusting armor?”
“I don’t know. But something lit the fire, and there’s still air in the cave, even with the fires blazing, so it is possible for it to live in here. Look over there.” He points to my left, and I follow the line of his finger. On the lakeshore there is only one place where fire isn’t blazing: a wide, sandy path situated between two towering piles of burning rock—the perfect escape route out of the water.
“It’s got to be a trap,” Golmarr says. “I think it wants us to come out of the water.”
“Why?”
“So it can kill us?” He says it like a question, and he looks at me. His hazel eyes are dark, his mouth pulled into a tight frown. “I really hoped we could have snuck out without meeting the fire dragon.”
“You have three arrows left. Can’t you shoot it?”
“My bowstring was ruined by the water.” He reaches out and lifts the dragon scale flask. Pulling an arrow from his dripping quiver, he scrapes the metal tip across the scale. It doesn’t leave so much as a scratch. “I don’t think an arrow is going to pierce the dragon’s scales…but I could shoot it in the eye. At least, if my bow hadn’t lost its spring I could have tried.” He reaches an arm around my waist, and my heart flurries against my ribs. His hand finds the small of my back, and my breath catches in my throat as I stare at his lips. And then he wiggles the hunting knife, still securely held in place by my waistband. “Do you remember what I said about wielding this?”
I nod. “Stab forward, or hold it with both hands and swing with all my might. No chopping.”
A touch of a smile turns one corner of his mouth up. “Right. And go for the weak spots—eyes, throat, underbelly.” He slides his sword from its sheath, and it dawns on me why he is reminding me how to fight.
I grip his water-stiffened leather vest in both my hands and stare right into his eyes. “You’re going to fight the fire dragon now, aren’t you?” He nods. Tears spring into my eyes. Pain cinches around my heart at the thought that this might be the last time I see him alive. “Please…” I have nothing to say. Please don’t die? Please kill it? Please don’t leave me here alone because the thought of living without you hurts? Instead, I throw my arms around his neck and, once more, hug him to me as tight as I can. His arms encircle me and hold me firmly against him. There is no please, so I say, “Thank you.” He lets me go and before he can stride away to fight the dragon, I touch a finger to my forehead and then cross it with my other finger. A slow, sad smile graces his mouth, and he nods at me.
And then, with his sword still clutched in his hand, he silently drops beneath the water’s surface, legs splayed out like a frog’s, and glides away.
When Golmarr reaches the lake’s edge, only his dark head emerges from the water. He looks left and then right, and slowly, bit by bit, creeps out of the water, right in front of the sand pathway. His sword reflects firelight as he uncurls to his full height.
Behind me, I hear the snap of fabric catching the wind—the same sound I heard when I was looking down the well of light—and a gust of searing air pushes against my back, creating ripples on the lake’s surface. I whip around and look over my shoulder and forget to breathe.
A massive dragon is soaring in the air behind me. Its body shimmers like glowing orange jewels catching the light from the fire. Giant feet are tucked up beneath it, tipped with curved gray claws. It flaps its wings of tattered gold, sending another burst of blistering wind through the cave that makes the fire sputter and dance. I gasp a breath of air to yell a warning, but it sears my lungs and silences me. I swallow and force my voice to scream, “Golmarr! Run!” Ducking behind the stalagmite nub I’ve been holding, I tremble as I watch the great beast soar over my head. The dragon glides on the air, its wings barely fitting between the stalagmite columns, and swoops toward Golmarr. “Run!” I shriek again.
Golmarr does not run. He turns toward the dragon and lifts his sword. His bare arms flex with muscle as he swings the sword around, slashing at the air with the grace of a warrior. “If you have any honor, you will land and fight me!” he yells. The dragon flies over Golmarr but turns in the air, circling back the way it came. “Fight me,” he yells again.
The dragon turns to Golmarr once more and soars toward him. He raises his sword, ready to charge, but before the dragon is close enough for him to use his weapon, a deluge of white fire bursts forth from its mouth, engulfing the horse lord. The fire passes him, hits the cave wall, and goes out, but Golmarr is covered in flames. They lap at his skin, cling to his clothing, and curl around his hair. He screams, and the sword drops from his hand. He falls to his knees, his scream replaced with silence. “Get in the water,” I cry. His body crumples to the ground, and he lies there, a smoldering pile of flesh and clothing.
I dig my feet into the ground and start pulling myself through the water, clawing against it, and finally slosh out of the lake. Stumbling onto shore, I throw my dripping body onto Golmarr’s. His flesh sears my skin, and steam hisses out between us as the flames consuming him trickle to nothing and die. I roll him onto his back, and his vest burns my hands. I gasp and pull away. The vest’s metal plating has burned the leather to white ash. I yank it open, and the metal squares fall out of the leather, sizzling against his chest. With hardly a thought for my fingers, I knock the plates off his body. Beneath them, his shirt is ash, and his skin is blistered. He smells much like a piece of meat that has been too long on the flames: burned to a crisp. I turn away and gag.
A gust of searing wind slaps me in the face. Sparks rain down from the nearest fire and singe my skin and burn tiny holes into my skirt. I look up, and then up some more, at a beast easily as tall as two houses stacked on top of each other. The fire dragon is perched atop the pile of rocks beside me, and the fire is blazing around it so it looks like a creature made of flame…yet it is immune to the fire.
I grab Golmarr’s ankles and start dragging him down the sand path, to the only exit I can see, but an arm of fire slithers across it and fences me in.
You think I will simply let the two of you walk away? You are the first living human beings I have seen in half a century. Entertain me for a spell before I eat you. I drop Golmarr’s legs and press on my forehead, wondering where that thought came from. Foolish girl. Surely you are not the one the wizard spoke of before I ate him.
Those words, spoken in my head, in my very voice, are not my words. Despite the heat making the air ripple, I shiver and look back up at the fire dragon, and then step between it and Golmarr’s unconscious body.
The beast is studying me with eyes that gleam like polished copper. Pearly, pale orange scales cover its body, scales twin to the one hanging on my necklace, and for the first time I wonder how this dragon scale became separated from its owner.
It was taken by the only person who fought me and did not die. She got the trophy she sought, but she paid dearly, the dragon explains, its words becoming my thoughts. It shakes its head, and a pair of spiraled horns catch the firelight. I shall eat you without burning you first. You deserve a most painful death to pa
y for your ancestors’ binding me under this mountain and cursing me to a life of boredom. I used to be magnificent, but look at my wings! The dragon opens its great wings, sending ripples of heat that burn my skin and sear my lungs when I breathe it in. They are shaped like a butterfly’s delicate wings, and look like glowing gold stretched taut between bone, but they are not beautiful. They are tattered, torn on the edges, and have holes in them. Bedraggled.
Bedraggled? This is what your family has done to me! They are rent by the rocks when I fly through the stifling closeness of this cave! I can hardly fly anymore. I have been stripped of my freedom and my dignity. Feelings of anger and sorrow accompany its words. It pulls its wings against its body once more. And so I shall eat you piece by piece, saving your head for last so you see it all, and you shall get stuck in my teeth, and I will like it. And when I get bored in the years to come, I will remember this day and replay it in my head over and over.
Its words freeze me in place and fill me with such dread that I can’t even draw breath. I hear its laughter buzzing in my head, and it lifts one massive clawed foot and steps down the side of the burning rock toward me.
I turn toward the lake and start running, but a wall of fire shoots up in front of me, blocking my way. The dragon lifts its other foot and boulders spill and topple, tumbling down onto the sand path and rolling to a stop at my feet. I leap out of the way to keep from getting burned, but the rocks aren’t on fire. They are as pale and clean as if newly hewn from the cave wall.
With one final step the dragon is before me, its razor-sharp talons sinking into the sand. I crane my neck to look at it, and it opens its mouth, showing me rows of curved yellow teeth. Are you not going to run? it asks.
“You have blocked all the pathways,” I say, amazed that I can speak at all. “I cannot run.”
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