by Resa Nelson
Lumara hesitated, wanting to reveal the one secret Fiera had warned Lumara never to reveal for fear of scaring the mortal away.
I’ve loved him since the day we met. How can I let him suffer? How can I let him wallow in doubt for lack of knowing what I know?
Lumara took a leap of faith, hoping her instincts would prove her sister’s worries wrong.
“You don’t understand,” Lumara said. “It’s why I came into your life. It’s why my sister sent you in search of me at a time that would make it impossible for you to leave Gott. So that you and I would be stranded in Gott together.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lumara smiled in the fading twilight. “I came here to become your wife and bear your children. They are the ones who will have the power to save all mortal life from being erased from this world.”
CHAPTER 20
Skallagrim’s head swam with confusion. “My wife? Our children? But that’s impossible. How can a dragon and a man have children?”
He felt as if Lumara’s bizarre declaration snapped him out of the muddled fog that had enveloped him when he’d witnessed her transformation from dragon to woman. Skallagrim knew what he’d seen, and although Lumara first tried to deceive him, she admitted she wasn’t mortal. He remembered what he’d promised himself in childhood. He remembered what had always mattered most.
Proving his worth as a Scalding. Being the best Scalding ever to live in order to convince the Scalding clan of his worth.
With a quick step, Skallagrim retrieved his sword from the ground and pointed it at Lumara again. “I’m a Scalding. I must protect the Northlands from dragons.”
Lumara remained sitting on the log and corrected him. “Lizards.”
“Dragons are full of tricks. They hide and lie in wait for someone to walk along and then attack.” He gestured at Lumara with his sword. “Your claim of the difference between dragons and lizards could be one of those tricks. I won’t be fooled by you.”
“It’s not a trick.” Lumara stood and took a step toward him. “And I know you’re a Scalding. It’s why I chose you.”
Skallagrim braced himself in case her words held deception. “Chose me?”
Lumara took another step closer. “To love.”
Skallagrim scoffed. “No one can choose love.”
“Of course, you can.” Lumara shook her head as if in dismay. “You mortals. Always thinking things happen by happenstance. Always thinking you are victims of your own emotions. But you can choose to love just as you can choose to be happy.” She took another few steps forward until the point of Skallagrim’s sword rested against her chest. “It’s about making a decision and keeping that decision.”
Skallagrim felt her words wash around him like a soothing waterfall on a hot summer day. He wanted to give in to the sensation and let it swaddle him. Instead, he kept the sword steady and willed his mind to stay sharp. “Did you use some kind of dragon magic to make me love you?”
“There’s no such thing as dragon magic,” she said. “And I didn’t make you do anything. If you love me, it’s your choice, not mine.” Lumara tilted her head. “Do you love me, Skallagrim?”
Resist her. Maybe she lies. Maybe she does have dragon magic and is using it on you right now.
Part of Skallagrim wanted to trust Lumara and take her in his arms. But another part of him wanted answers.
“When we first met, you were the dragon I fought.” Skallagrim shook his head as he realized how everything he’d seen that day now made sense. “I saw your dress before I met you. You’d taken it off before you turned into a dragon.”
“I like clothing,” Lumara said. “And if I don’t take it off before I change, then my dragon body rips it to shreds. It’s such a dreadful waste.”
“You set me up. You manipulated me.”
“I did,” Lumara said. “Because we no longer have the luxury of time. We don’t know how much longer we can stall your gods. Now is the time to act.”
She eased back from the point of Skallagrim’s sword that still pressed against her chest. With a swift step, Lumara threw her forearms against the flat of the dragonslayer’s blade and knocked it free from Skallagrim’s hands.
With the same swiftness, she wrapped her arms around Skallagrim’s neck and kissed him.
Push her away! Find your sword!
Instead of listening to the panicked thoughts rushing through his head, Skallagrim paid attention to the perfect way Lumara fit inside his arms. For the first time in his life, he felt the peace he thought becoming the best Scalding would bring. Skallagrim forgot about being a Scalding and relaxed in the unexpected feeling of finding a place he never imagined could exist.
A place that made him feel alive and full of hope.
Lumara eased away from him and stared into his eyes. “I choose to love you, dragonslayer. For the good of the dragon gods and the good of all mortals.” She smiled. “And for myself, as well. What do you choose? Would you rather love me or kill me?”
Skallagrim felt so overwhelmed with emotion that he would have sworn his heart burst open. He remembered how the alchemist had warned him years ago, and that what she claimed would come to pass had finally happened.
Skallagrim knew the dragon Lumara had succeeded in quelling him.
CHAPTER 21
Skallagrim paced, too confounded to think straight. “What do we do now?”
Lumara answered without hesitation. “Travel your dragonslayer route. Live your normal life.”
Something about Lumara’s tone made Skallagrim suspicious. But considering that he’d just witnessed her turn from a dragon into a mortal and then insist their future children would have the power to save all mortals, Skallagrim didn’t know what to believe. “Normal life?”
“With me by your side.”
“Here in the Northlands? What about the Northlander gods? Do they know about your plans?”
“Not yet,” Lumara said. “But it might help for them to see you with me. They could take it as a sign of hope for a dragonslayer to marry a dragon. They might be more inclined to be forgiving of Northlanders.”
“Could that turn them around? Convince them not to kill us?”
“No. It’s our children who will have that power. A power that comes from our blood that runs in their veins. If the Northlands ever face danger, both the light and dark that comes from their blood will help our children save the Northlands.” Before Skallagrim could pepper her with more questions, Lumara said, “No children with the combined blood of dragon and mortal have existed yet, but they’ll have enough power to make a difference.”
Skallagrim kept pacing while his mind raced. “Traveling the dragonslayer’s route is no life for a wife and children. I should take you to Tower Island.”
“No.”
Her tone stopped Skallagrim in his tracks. When he looked at her, the black look in Lumara’s eyes terrified him. He mustered up the courage to ask a question. “Why not?”
“The Scaldings are murderers.”
Something shattered inside Skallagrim. With a vehement protest, he said, “Not my parents. My mother has blue eyes. So does my father.”
Lumara nodded. “They are the best of the Scaldings.” She reached out and touched his face. “But you are not one of them. The parents you know might be Scaldings, but you don’t share their blood. Even if you were to commit an act of murder, your eyes would remain blue.”
All those years Frandulane claimed I wasn’t his brother. Claimed Mother and Father don’t share my blood. Claimed I didn’t belong.
The confirmation didn’t surprise Skallagrim. He knew he’d spent his life pretending to forget the day his parents admitted they’d adopted him from a friend. He knew some of the truth about his past but wanted to find out what Lumara knew.
“If the Scaldings aren’t my family, then who is?”
“Your mother died when you were born,” Lumara said. “But I can’t tell you anything about your father. If you know who he is,
it will put your life at risk.”
“Why would knowing put my life at risk? Does my father want to kill me?”
“No. Your father loves you.”
Skallagrim snorted in disbelief. “If he loves me, then where has he been?”
“Protecting you. Loving you.”
“I don’t believe you.” But when Skallagrim looked in Lumara’s eyes, he saw no trace of deception.
I have to know who my father is. If I’m not a Scalding, does that mean I’ve wasted my life by striving to become the best of the Scaldings? By doing everything within my power to bring honor to the Scalding name?
If I’m not a Scalding, then what am I?
“Tell me,” Skallagrim said. “I’m willing to accept whatever risk is involved.”
“I’m not.”
Skallagrim stared at her in disbelief. “You talk about choice. The choice to kill. The choice to love. The choice to be happy. It seems to me this is my choice, not yours.”
“That may be,” Lumara said. “But if you put yourself at risk, you also put our future children at risk. If they can’t be born because you are killed today, you are putting the life of every mortal in this world at risk. If we don’t have children, there will be no one here to protect everyone else. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
In that moment, Skallagrim realized she had given him an answer to the most desperate question that had haunted him since childhood: did he have Scalding blood? Could his father be a Scalding? Did he truly belong to the Scalding clan?
I don’t need to be a Scalding. I’m the only man who can father the children who will have the power to save the mortal race. That’s better than being a Scalding.
That thought gave Skallagrim the same peace he’d felt when Lumara first kissed him.
For the first time, Skallagrim believed he understood his life and what he needed to do with it.
More important, what he wanted to do with it.
It’s far more important to be a good father to children with the power to save mortals.
Answering Lumara’s question, Skallagrim said, “No. I’m not willing to risk our children’s existence for the sake of satisfying my curiosity.”
At the same time, Skallagrim had a difficult time believing all that had just happened in the course of a single evening.
Have I gone mad? Could it be that my eyes played tricks on me and that Lumara isn’t a dragon? Could she be confounding me because she’s a brigand who plans to rob me?
Lumara laughed. “Stop thinking such silly thoughts!”
Skallagrim froze.
Did she read my mind?
“I can’t read your mind,” Lumara continued. “But it’s impossible for you to hide your thoughts. They’re all over your face.”
That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.
Skallagrim relaxed, thinking about all the times his friends had said the same thing.
Maybe it’s real. Maybe all of this is real.
“Of course, it’s real,” Lumara said. “But we must take care. I could claim to be a Scalding.”
Skallagrim laughed. “You? A Scalding?”
“If I say I’m a distant cousin, how will they know that I’m not?” Lumara smiled. “Claiming to be a Scalding will let me hide in plain sight.” Her voice took a more serious tone. “But we must take even greater care with the children. We shouldn’t tell them the truth about who we are—who they are—until they’re old enough to understand it’s a secret they must keep at all costs. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Skallagrim chuckled.
“Why do you laugh?”
“I imagine,” Skallagrim said with a grin, “I’ll be the first dragonslayer to ever marry a dragon.”
CHAPTER 22
With every year that passed, Frandulane felt more claustrophobic on Tower Island.
He didn’t mind until the day his cousins Einarr and Tungu stopped talking when they saw him approach.
Frandulane had spent the afternoon with his young son Mandulane in the farmland circling the Scalding homes near the island’s golden tower. Frandulane delighted in listening to the questions his son asked the farmers and the way Mandulane liked to pet the cows.
After leaving the farmers to their work, the Scalding father and son took their time walking through a lush green pasture toward home. “Whatever you want to do when you grow up is fine with me,” Frandulane told his boy. “If you like the work that farmers do, you can join them in the fields.”
Mandulane looked down and dragged his feet through the soft grass. “They’d make fun of me.”
“Who would make fun of you?”
“Everybody.”
“I wouldn’t make fun. Your mother wouldn’t either. Did you know she was a milkmaid before she married me?”
Mandulane looked up with brightness in his eyes. “Truly?”
“You can ask her when we get home. She could teach you how to milk a cow if you want.”
The brightness in Mandulane’s eyes faded, and he looked down again. “I don’t want Mama to be sad.”
Frandulane understood his son’s trepidation. Although Mandulane’s birth had happened with ease, Frandulane’s wife had failed to conceive during the following years. Pregnant once more, she worried every day about her unborn child. “I don’t want her to be sad either. But teaching you how to milk a cow might cheer her up.”
Mandulane gave a serious nod but didn’t look up.
When they reached the Scalding settlement and walked across the stone courtyard, Frandulane spotted his cousins, deep in conversation.
But when they looked up and saw him, they stopped talking.
“Run home and help your mama,” Frandulane said to his son.
The boy’s eyebrows knit into a quizzical expression. “Help her with what?”
“Whatever she’s doing.”
Quick to obey, Mandulane ran toward their home at the opposite end of the courtyard.
Watching to make sure his son ran out of earshot, Frandulane approached Einarr and Tungu. “What kind of trouble are you getting into now?”
The cousins stared in silence for a few moments and then burst into laughter.
“Look who’s talking about trouble,” Einarr snickered. “The former scoundrel of Tower Island who let his wife turn him into a pussycat.”
Tungu made mewing sounds like a hungry tabby.
Einarr gave his mewing brother a pat on the head. “Good kitty. Nice kitty.”
Shame wrenched Frandulane’s heart. In an attempt to defend himself, he said, “I care about my wife. Nothing wrong with that.”
Einarr guffawed. “Not unless you like being led around Tower Island by the nose!”
Tungu waved his hands as if shooing a fly away. “Go home to your woman. The big boys are busy.”
They wouldn’t have dismissed me so easily before I got married.
It didn’t seem so long ago that Einarr and Tungu had accompanied Frandulane on a mission to find his brother Skallagrim and end his days as a dragonslayer. If he’d succeeded in killing Skallagrim, Frandulane believed he’d be the one living the enviable life of a dragonslayer today.
Instead I’m stuck on this island where no one respects me.
In the past, Frandulane had brushed aside any cruel comment about his devotion to his family because he cared for them and wanted his wife and child to be happy. But today he felt like a man who’d been walking in hip-deep snow for weeks on end without food or shelter. Weariness overcame him. Frandulane felt as if he couldn’t take one more step.
What kind of man am I if all of the Scaldings laugh at me? What value can I be to my family if no one on this island takes me seriously?
“I can do as I please,” Frandulane said. “And if I please, I can come into your home when you sleep and do what I did to Skallagrim.”
Einarr and Tungu exchanged glances.
“Do you mean what you failed to do to Skallagrim in Gott?” Tungu said. “When you failed to kill him
in his sleep because you mistook a pile of bedding for him?” He nudged Einarr in the ribs. “If you think you can kill us, you’ll first have to learn how to tell the difference between a mortal and his bed!”
Frandulane relaxed his thoughts into the way he used to think before he became a married man.
He remembered who he used to be before a beautiful milkmaid and a son softened his heart.
No wonder they ridicule me. I’ve forgotten how to talk to them.
Frandulane smiled at his cousins. “Lock your doors before you go to sleep tonight. Or your own wives may wake up widows tomorrow morning.” He paused for effect. “And once your dead bodies are dragged out of your beds, I’ll show your widows what they’ve been missing.”
Einarr yawned. “No one’s afraid of you anymore, Frandulane. Those days are long gone.”
Now steeped in remembering who he used to be, Frandulane drew the dagger from beneath his belt and held it at Einarr’s throat before either cousin could blink. “Those days,” Frandulane said, “are back. Tell me what you were discussing when you saw me with my son.”
Einarr held still, but Tungu moved for his own dagger.
Before Tungu could touch his weapon, Frandulane threw his elbow into his cousin’s eye while still keeping the knife at Einarr’s throat.
Tungu yelled in pain and collapsed on the ground.
Frandulane kicked him in the face for good measure.
“The Boglands,” Einarr said. “We were talking about the Boglands.”
Frandulane shook his head as if trying to make sense of Einarr’s words. “Why?”
Tungu grabbed Frandulane’s leg with both hands, but Frandulane kicked him away. His action jostled the hand holding the knife, and the blade nicked Einarr’s neck. Moments later, a thin line of blood trickled from the cut.
“Let me go,” Einarr said with a wince. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Frandulane tucked his dagger back under his belt and then offered a hand to Tungu and helped him stand up.
Einarr pressed the edge of his sleeve against his neck until it stopped bleeding. “It’s all about the iron,” he said.