“You took the Mayanchi’s knowledge? That’s…interesting, for lack of a better word,” Golmarr says. “And what about the fighting? How do you know how to fight all of a sudden? Fight like a human? If you got the fire dragon’s knowledge, wouldn’t you try to bite the Mayanchi to death, or gouge it with your fingernails, like a dragon would?”
Before I can answer, Golmarr grabs me from behind, one arm cinching around my throat, the other around my waist. Without conscious thought, I break his hold on my neck and ram my elbow into his ribs. I spin away from him and draw my blade, placing the tip at his chest.
“Whoa!” He jumps away from me and stumbles backward until he comes up against the cave wall.
My hand trembles as I slowly lower the hunting knife. “I didn’t think about what I was doing,” I say, shocked at my response to being restrained.
He grins and rubs his ribs. “That was intense. Do you remember what you did when I unhorsed you the day you tried to steal my father’s stallion?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “You squirmed and tried to scratch me! That, what you just did, is not how a dragon would fight. It is how a human would fight. How a soldier would fight. A warrior. That is not how a dragon fights. So how…”
I know the answer to his question, and he hasn’t even asked it. “I know how to fight like a human because Zhun stole the knowledge of every single person he ever killed—that was how he gathered his treasure: by killing. Every person he killed increased his treasure of knowledge. And it has all been transferred to me.”
“So your head is filled with the knowledge of every single warrior that fought Zhun and died by his fire?”
“Yes,” I say, and look at Golmarr with wide, shocked eyes. “I think I know everything there is to know.”
He steps up beside me. “You need to add this to your knowledge. I promise I will never hurt you. Just don’t accidentally kill me, all right?” He smiles, and it makes me feel soft and light and warm inside—a welcome change to how I was feeling.
I return his smile. “All right.”
We walk until we are too weary to take another step, and then sleep sitting up, side by side, with our backs against the cave wall and my head resting on Golmarr’s shoulder, or his head resting on mine. We do it a second time, walking until we can go no farther, then sleeping side by side again. When we wake, we discover that the tunnel veers up and the air turns from damp and musty to scented with plants. My bare feet, battered and bruised once more, slip against the steep ground, and I fall more than once, scraping my knees each time.
Up and up we walk, and even though I start sweating with the effort, my fingers are like ice, and my teeth start to chatter. My muscles tremble with weakness from lack of food, and when I stand up too fast, blackness fills my eyes, and I fall back down. Golmarr isn’t much better. I can see how his legs stumble beneath him, how his breathing is labored.
“Surely we will see light up ahead soon,” Golmarr pants as we continue our climb.
Our steps become slower and slower, and I start walking with my eyes narrowed to mere slits, so when we walk around a giant boulder, it isn’t until my feet step on plants, and drops of water splash against my face, that I realize, with a surge of pure joy, that we are out, and it is night, and the sky is merely concealed behind rain clouds. I fall to my bottom and run my hands over rain-soaked vegetation.
Golmarr plops down beside me and laughs a hoarse, weak laugh. “If I weren’t so exhausted, I would kiss you right now, I’m so happy to be out of there,” he says. “But I don’t even have the energy to kiss a pretty girl.”
“That’s good,” I say. “Because I am too tired to be kissed.”
He lifts my hand. “You don’t glow out here.”
“I only glow if I’m underground,” I blurt. Not caring that I am being rained on, I curl up on my side and close my eyes. Every time I start to drift to sleep, though, I shiver with cold and jerk awake, only to find Golmarr studying me with a frown on his face. Silently, he kneels beside me and lifts me into his arms. Cradling me against his chest, he walks back into the cave, leans against the stone wall, and sinks down to sitting. Holding me tight, with the warmth from his body easing my chills, I finally sleep.
I wake and the first things I see are my scabbed knees looped over Golmarr’s arm. And then I see my skirt, piled at the tops of my thighs, with my lacy bloomers hanging out, and have to fight the urge to jump out of his arms and yank it down. Carefully, I lift my head from his shoulder and peer at him. He is sleeping sitting up, his head tilted back against the cave wall, and he is snoring. Dark stubble that matches his eyebrows has grown on his face, giving him a very short beard that makes him look older than he is.
I ease my body out of his lap and he doesn’t stir, so I creep out of the cave into radiant, stunning sunlight. I close my eyes and turn my face up to the sky and pull fresh air into my lungs. My arms come away from my sides, and I hold them out wide. I know how it feels to fly, how it feels to open my wings and have the wind snap into them. My heart aches with the knowledge that I will never fly. With a start, I force the thought out of my head and lower my arms. “Please get out of my head,” I whisper. There is no response.
I am standing in a thick copse of dark green pines growing halfway up the side of a steep mountain. They are still wet from last night’s rain, and every drop of water that is touched by sunlight glows like a diamond. I walk to the trunk of one of the pines and squat down, picking up a prickly cone it has shed. Tapping the cone against my hand, three nuts come out. I put one pitch-covered seed into my mouth and break the shell with my teeth. Inside is a soft, sweet nut. I smile as I chew it and start humming.
Holding out the voluminous fabric of my shirt, I begin filling it with pine nuts until I have gathered enough for a meager meal. Next, I crouch and run my hands over the wet vegetation and wildflowers. A small green plant catches my eye, and I know it is edible. I pick several handfuls and take them to the cave.
While Golmarr sleeps, I sit in the cave’s entrance and shell the nuts. When I have nearly finished, I hear Golmarr stir. He steps behind me and rests his hand on my shoulder. I reach up to touch him and he gently squeezes my fingers. “What’s this?” he asks, voice deep and rumbly with sleep. I peer up at him and can’t help but smile. He can barely open his eyes to the sunlight, his sleeveless, burned clothing is a disgrace, and his dark hair is messier than a bird’s nest.
“This is breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I say. He sits down beside me, and we eat our paltry meal in silence.
“Being an Anthar prince, I have eaten the best steak that my kingdom has to offer,” Golmarr says, popping a green plant into his mouth. “No steak has ever tasted this good. Is this”—he motions to the remainder of our food—“something you were taught growing up in your cliffside castle, or is it part of the fire dragon’s treasure?”
“I was taught only important things,” I say with sarcasm in my voice, “like how to dance, how to walk with my shoulders squared, and how to smile without showing my teeth. When I wasn’t being taught, I would read a lot—sometimes two books a day, but those were books about knights and silly princesses who could never save themselves. Nothing about how to survive in the wild. This food, and the knowledge of how to get it, is part of the fire dragon’s treasure.”
“Just think. If his treasure had been gold or jewels, we would still be starving right now. I know how to forage and hunt for food in the grasslands, but I have never learned how to do it in the mountainous terrain of your lands.” Golmarr runs his hands through his hair, but they get stuck halfway. He winces. “Do you know anything about cutting hair?”
“I don’t think so, but I can try to cut yours.” I stand and pull my knife from its sheath, and Golmarr gets to his knees. I slide my hand between his neck and his hair, and he shudders.
“Why are you so cold?” he asks, clutching my icy fingers in his.
“I don’t know,” I say, and lift the fragile, burned strands of his hair. Placing my
knife at the nape of his neck, I slice. Strands of hair fall over his bare shoulders and arms, and Golmarr groans.
I pause. “Does that hurt?”
“In Anthar, a man’s strength is said to be tied to his hair. Faodarian men and Trevonan men have short hair. If I return home with short hair, I will be the laughingstock of the family. It hurts my pride to have it cut.”
I stand in front of him and run my fingers through his hair. “If it makes you feel any better, I think you look nice like this.”
“Nice?” he asks. “Not handsome? Or dashing? Or—didn’t you call me beautiful once? But now I just look nice?”
I roll my eyes. “Cutting your hair does not change who you are in your heart. And, yes, you are very beautiful. No need to worry about that, but it is still brittle around your face,” I add, hoping he can’t tell that admitting he is beautiful brings heat to my cheeks. “Do you want me to cut it shorter?”
He cringes but nods, and I take my knife to it, carefully trimming the worst of the burned parts off. “What baffles me,” Golmarr says, peering up at me as I work, “is how my hair is so burned if the rest of me isn’t.” He pats his chest. “And my clothes. How am I not charred nearly to…death?” Reaching up, he wraps his hand around my wrist, stopping the knife, and stands. “Sorrowlynn?”
I gulp. “Yes?”
With his hand still around my wrist, he narrows his eyes. “You said that before you killed the fire dragon, I was too injured to get out of the cave. Even with help. How injured was I? What exactly did the fire dragon do to me?”
“He flew at you. Do you remember that?”
Golmarr nods. “You screamed a warning. When I turned, the beast was nearly upon me.”
“Do you recall anything after that?”
His brow furrows. “I remember a burst of light, and then I woke up and the fire dragon was dead.”
“Did the burst of light hurt?”
Golmarr shakes his head, and his short hair swishes around his ears. “I don’t remember it hurting. What was the light?”
“He blew fire on you, and you started burning. I put it out before it killed you.”
“You put it out? How?”
“By lying on top of you,” I admit, even though it sounds horribly scandalous. “I was wet from the lake. It was the fastest way to smother the flames.”
His hand tightens on my wrist. “That was really brave. So, how injured was I? I have heard if you inhale dragon fire, you cook from the inside out.”
“Your chest was covered with blisters, and you could hardly breathe.”
He studies me with narrowed eyes and takes a deep breath of air. “If I was burned with dragon fire so badly that I can’t remember it, then how was I healed? How did I wake up without a single burn? How am I able to breathe so well?” He touches his cheek. “And how did this go away?” I don’t answer. “I assumed the dragon healed me like he healed you, but he didn’t, did he?”
I shrug and stare at the ground between our feet, and try to pull my wrist from his hand, but he won’t let go.
“You healed me.” It is a stated fact. When I don’t deny it, he puts his free hand beneath my chin and tips my head up, forcing me to look at him. “Did you truly heal me?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I admit.
“Thank you.” He pulls me against him and holds my head to his shoulder. “Thank you.” The sun shines down on us and warms my hair, and I slowly sink into Golmarr and press my hands against his back. My eyes slip shut, and the thump of his heart matches mine, and I imagine our blood is pumping in perfect unison. He puts his palm over my ear, so his fingers are splayed in my hair, and I feel his lips on my forehead, and the sun seems to shine so bright against my eyelids I wonder if I am on fire. He leaves his lips there, and every time he exhales, his breath washes over my face and I breathe it in.
Memories of hundreds of other people’s kisses fill my mind, and it is almost like I have experienced every single one of them. But I haven’t. The urge to grab Golmarr’s face, to tangle my hands in his chin-length hair and kiss him, makes my mouth water. I grip my hands tight behind his back and force them to stay still. I am a Faodarian princess. For me to initiate a kiss would be shameful—men are the ones who are supposed to do that. I think of the lace bloomers meant for my wedding night, which now hang below the level of my skirt, and giggle. I am shameful and scandalous and immodest and everything else I have been taught my whole life not to be. And I wish Golmarr would angle my face up and kiss me.
Golmarr releases me, and my hopes for a kiss are dashed. “Why are you laughing?” he asks, a touch of a smile on his mouth.
I look down at my clothing: the bloomers, the skirt that is more than halfway up my thighs—even my voluminous once-white shirt is missing the top two buttons. “I was just thinking how improper it would be for me to kiss you, but I think I have already crossed the line from improper to disgraceful.”
One of Golmarr’s eyebrows slowly rises, and he takes a long, slow look at my legs before meeting my eyes. “You were thinking about kissing me?”
I swallow and nod.
He leans in to me, so close that I feel his every exhaled breath on my face. “One of these days, you should give it a try,” he whispers. “Probably sooner than later.” He freezes there, his lips so close to mine that all I would have to do to kiss him is pucker. His lips thin and quiver, like he is fighting the urge to smile, and then he throws his head back and laughs. “I swear, Sorrowlynn of Faodara, you have more self-control than any woman I have ever known, and you are teaching me things I never knew I didn’t know.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like I really don’t know as much as I thought I did. Especially when it comes to women.” He cups the side of my face and says, “You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and you make me want things I never thought I would want.”
“Like what?” I ask again, mesmerized by his imperfections—the scruffy black beard that frames his lips, his tangled hair, the dirt smudged down the bridge of his nose.
“Like the kiss of a Faodarian princess. I think I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything before.” He smiles a crooked smile, and I catch my bottom lip in my teeth. “I’m looking forward to the moment you finally give in to that carnal nature of yours and get up the nerve to kiss me. Because in Anthar, the woman always kisses the man first.” He winks, drops his hand, and turns away from me.
I press a trembling hand to my heart and force myself to take a deep, slow breath.
“We need to find water and shelter, and we need to get off this mountain. With the season starting to change, the nights will be cold at this elevation, as we discovered last night.” He shrugs his quiver and unstrung bow onto his back. “How are your feet? Can you handle an afternoon of hard travel?”
“They are tougher than they used to be.”
“Good.” Without another word, he intertwines his fingers in mine, and we start down the mountain.
My progress down the mountain is painfully slow. No matter how carefully I pick my way through strewn pine needles and lush undergrowth, something sharp or jagged always manages to find the soft arch of my foot.
Golmarr doesn’t say anything about our pace. He stops every time we come to a stream and lets me rest as long as I want while we drink water and eat the watercress that grows along the streambed. Twice, he finds a snake sunning itself close to the water. He kills them both and guts them, then loops them over his belt.
The farther down the mountain we go, the steeper the path becomes, and the pine trees grow farther apart. And then, without warning, the trees end, and I am balancing on the edge of a cliff with Golmarr standing silent at my side.
The sky opens up—a spectacular blue dotted with patches of clouds—and seems to go on forever, stretching over the deep, uneven green of a forest far below: the Glass Forest. My heart seems to double in size as I stare at a sight more captivating than the costliest paintings hanging in my mother’s cas
tle, more breathtaking than the finest jewelry I have ever seen. I want to reach out and grab the scene in front of me, and hold it to my heart so that I never forget it. I yearn for wings so that I can fall forward from this cliff and glide on the air above the forest. I shake my head. That is what Zhun wanted, not me. Even so, tears of yearning fill my eyes and coat my lashes, blurring the scene below. I wipe them away and study the endless green. Something dark is circling above the forest, something that makes my nerves shiver a warning. From where I stand, I cannot tell what I am looking at, but my mind keeps whispering one word: dragon. My instincts tell me to hide or run. I grip Golmarr’s shoulder and pull him into the shelter of the pines.
“Did you see that?” I whisper, too on edge to raise my voice.
Golmarr frowns. “See what?”
“There is something down there.” I point to the Glass Forest. Golmarr lowers himself to his belly and crawls to the edge of the cliff. He stays there a long time while I hide in the shadows and watch. Finally, he creeps back.
“I didn’t see anything,” he says. “But we need to hurry and find shelter. There are tales of creatures living in the mountains above the Glass Forest. No one enters these mountains unless they have to.”
“I have an idea,” I say, and start searching the underbrush. After a few minutes, I find a pine bough as thick as my wrist and a little taller than my head lying on the ground. Taking the knife from my waist, I whittle away a patch of the spiky, sappy bark, just big enough for a handhold, and then use it as a walking staff.
“Brilliant,” Golmarr says. “Now, let’s hurry on and see if we can find some shelter for the night.”
Shortly before sunset, the trail loops beneath the base of a steep gray cliff. Two giant rock slabs rest balanced against the cliff, their tops tipped against each other, making a triangular shelter that is closed on three sides. Already there is a shallow hole dug out of the shelter floor, with a few blackened sticks inside of it. I remember seeing a fire there before…except that is impossible, since I have lived my entire life behind castle walls.
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