The Girl with the Dragon Heart

by Stephanie Burgis

  ‘Terrifying our children!’

  ‘Who knows how long until they start eating us?’

  ‘I heard the king’s thinking of giving them human sacrifices, all laid out on the palace steps.’

  ‘And you know where those will come from! Not from the fancy first district, oh no. They’ll –’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Aventurine yelled. She was panting as she stared around the semicircle of traders, her face creased in disbelief. ‘Are you idiots? They’re not going to hurt anybody! They’re defending this city. They don’t even eat humans any more!’

  Ow, ow, ow. I cringed, but it was too late. Everyone was yelling now, and this time they all yelled the same thing:

  ‘Any more?’

  Never, ever let a dragon handle diplomacy.

  I cleared my throat, putting on a desperate smile. ‘If you’d all –’

  But the sugar trader was already striding forward, his face flushing bright pink with fury as he pointed one beefy finger at Aventurine. ‘Call me an idiot, will you? Well, we all know you’re in league with those monsters! If you think you can –’

  ‘Wait!’ I yelped, and leaped in front of my friend. She growled, trying to get past me, but I kicked backwards, clipping her shin hard to stop her. ‘Listen to me, everyone! I wasn’t talking about the dragons!’

  I was tall for a girl – and tall for my age, too – but I still had to tip back my head to look the sugar trader in the eyes. My chest grew tighter and tighter as the circle of angry traders closed in around us, leaving no way out.

  Not again!

  I wouldn’t feel this helpless again. I had sworn that a long time ago.

  I’d been seven years old the first time I’d felt that taste of sick danger in the air: the feeling of an angry crowd transforming into a mob. By then, I’d already lost my parents and any illusions of safety. I’d spent that long winter night shivering beside my brother and our neighbours, all of us crammed behind a protective wall of city guards, while raging local citizens burned down our tents and smashed our market tables in front of us, blaming that winter’s food shortages on our arrival in their city.

  But I wasn’t that powerless little girl any more. I was not. I was the heroine of my own story, and I would make my story work.

  If my first threat hadn’t been intimidating enough then I only had one option left. There was just one person in Drachenburg who was more dangerous than any dragon.

  ‘I was talking about the crown princess!’ I said.

  The traders around me all stopped moving. For the first time, I could see hesitation in the eyes of the man who led them.

  There.

  I took a deep breath and prayed for my best friend to stay silent. It was time to make up a really good story, fast.

  CHAPTER 3

  The sugar trader scowled. ‘What about the crown princess?’ he demanded.

  If there was one thing I understood – one thing I’d spent the last six years learning – it was exactly how my city worked.

  People in every district rolled their eyes at the lord mayor’s vanity and his greed, as his new mansion in the third district grew more and more over the top, with new gold-plated furniture delivered every week. As for the king, he was liked well enough unless times were hard, and he was politely toasted on feast days … but from the highest of the nobles to the poorest of the poor, no one trusted him to look out for their best interests.

  Everyone loved the crown princess, though. She made certain of it.

  It wasn’t just that she was famous for speaking seven languages, or that she was the cleverest diplomat ever born into the royal family, winning allies and new trading partners from among our oldest enemies. That filled the merchants and the nobles with delight, as the coffers of the kingdom grew and the richest people in the kingdom grew even richer. But the crown princess didn’t only look out for them.

  She sent her own personal guard to the riverbank every year when the first blizzards came, carrying tinder and food and blankets to shield us against the cold.

  And when the peasants on the northern nobles’ estates had stopped their work in protest two years ago, their employers had demanded that the king send out his army, but the crown princess had visited the peasants to hear their stories first. Then she’d summoned the proudest and most influential of the nobles to a private conference at the royal palace. No one knew exactly what had been said there, but when those grand aristocrats came out again, looking stunned, a new decision was announced: all of their workers would be given pay rises for the first time in decades, along with real rights to their own land on the nobles’ estates. All the newspapers had claimed to be astonished, but I wasn’t surprised in the least.

  She was the most powerful person in the kingdom, and she always knew the right thing to say. She’d been my idol for nearly all of my life – until I’d finally met her a few months ago and realised just how ruthless she could be.

  No one became that powerful without being willing to sacrifice other people along the way. She’d come very close to sacrificing my best friend’s life in front of me when she’d thought it was necessary to save the city – and after I saw through her plans and saved Aventurine, I felt the full force of Princess Katrin’s cold, calculating attention turn to me. It had been one of the most frightening moments of my life.

  I never, ever wanted her to notice me again.

  But I still understood the power her name carried in this city, so I took full advantage of it now as a new story spun into place in my head.

  ‘Don’t you think she has a plan?’ I asked the trader. ‘Do you really think she would have bargained with the dragons without knowing exactly how to handle them?’

  ‘Well …’ His brows drew together. ‘But the king –’

  ‘I was there,’ I told him truthfully. ‘I watched her do all the real negotiations.’

  ‘You?’ A woman on my left let out a snort. ‘What would a girl like you be doing near royalty?’

  I drew myself up proudly. ‘I work at the Chocolate Heart,’ I said, ‘whose fabulous and one-of-a-kind choc-olate saved our whole city from the dragons’ rage!’ I heard Aventurine snort behind me, but I ignored it as I smiled brightly. ‘You may have read our story in the handbills? Once the dragons tasted our chocolate, they gave up their thirst for blood and swore allegiance to the throne. The king himself has been our particular patron ever since we saved the city from ruin and made the most powerful allies Drachenburg has ever known.’

  ‘Dragons …’ It was a hiss from nearby, and it could have come from any of the traders around me.

  I didn’t let it slow me down.

  ‘That’s right!’ I said. ‘We have dragons on our side now, which no other kingdom in the world can claim. And the crown princess has me to keep an eye on them! Why else do you think I’d be dressed like this? Have you ever seen any girl who looked like me?’ I threw back my shoulders, showing off my masculine jacket. ‘I’m her eyes and ears in this city. I can slip into any corner to bring her back the latest news. I can warn her of any danger that threatens, no matter how quietly her enemies try to whisper. Even the dragons like me now, because I bring them the chocolate they love. And I listen to everything they say. Honestly …’ I shook my head, tsking between my teeth in disappointment. ‘Did you really think the crown princess wouldn’t send a spy into their ranks, to report back everything she needs to know?’

  The traders were whispering among each other now, forming narrow holes in their ranks – holes that were very nearly wide enough for a skinny girl to run through if she took them by surprise.

  But I didn’t budge. I didn’t even blink.

  Confidence was everything.

  ‘You’re just a girl,’ the sugar trader said finally.

  But I heard the uncertainty in his voice, and I let my smile deepen.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I raised my eyebrows and nodded towards the back wall, where Aventurine’s shadow had risen to snarl at us all. ‘A
nd is my friend here just a girl? Really?’

  All around me I heard air being sucked in past clenched teeth. My muscles tensed. If this went the wrong way …

  The first few traders stepped back.

  ‘I always said the crown princess knew what she was doing,’ said the woman who’d challenged me before.

  ‘Can’t get anything past her,’ the woman’s neighbour agreed. ‘You remember how she tricked that ambassador from Villenne last year? Sent him home cursing and weeping into his wine. No one outwits our crown princess when it comes to negotiations.’

  ‘The battle mages are probably in on the whole thing, too. You know they’ll be working out how best to use the dragons.’

  ‘And how to attack them if they ever turn against us!’

  At that, Aventurine let out a low growl, but luckily no one was paying attention to her any more.

  The tight circle around us had dissolved into clumps of two or three as traders on every side shifted and moved back, arguing and gossiping as they started back towards their stalls.

  The market hall had been empty apart from the traders when I’d first arrived, during that slow period of early afternoon when all the restaurants in town were occupied with serving lunch. Now, a second round of apprentices started flooding through the doors with empty baskets, ready to pick up supplies for late-afternoon cakes, coffee and supper. Some of the apprentices were even younger than me and Aventurine, but they were all moving fast, their faces set in determination and their empty baskets slapping against their legs – because when you are lucky enough to have a real job in this city, you know the importance of a deadline.

  If we didn’t hurry, too, I would be late for our afternoon-rush shift at the Chocolate Heart, and Horst would worry himself into a stew. But I didn’t let myself look impatient, even as I felt the clock ticking. Instead, I tilted back my head to give the sugar trader who’d started this mess my sweetest and most dangerous smile.

  ‘So,’ I said, raising my eyebrows. ‘Do I have to report this little incident to the crown princess, too?’

  Dragons weren’t the only ones who enjoyed winning battles.

  Five minutes later, Aventurine and I were walking down the street with a fresh new sugar loaf and half a pound of vanilla pods, too. I laughed in delight as I scooped up one of the pods from the basket and tossed it up high into the air.

  ‘Careful!’ Aventurine caught the long, skinny pod in mid-air and tucked it neatly back into place. ‘That’s precious!’

  ‘It was free,’ I reminded her, ‘because of me. Aren’t you impressed?’

  ‘It was free because you’re a menace,’ Aventurine told me. ‘That ridiculous story!’ Her face crinkled up as if she were in pain. ‘I don’t know which is worse – that you made them think my family were idiots or that they actually believed it! As if a dragon would ever swear allegiance to a throne!’

  ‘My brilliant story saved us both.’ I twirled in a happy, dizzy spiral, holding my hands out around me as I spun on the toes of my shining black boots. This street was beautifully broad, nothing like the narrow, stinking alleyways I’d raced through on my way here. I swept an elegant bow as I finished, as if Aventurine were a queen. ‘You’re the public menace, remember?’

  ‘Pfft.’ She snorted like a horse, striding past an open warehouse doorway and cutting off a group of people who’d been about to step outside, as if they didn’t even exist in her vision. ‘I didn’t do anything to alarm them. Humans are –’

  ‘You didn’t have to do anything,’ I told her as I gave an apologetic wave to the people we’d blocked. ‘Not when you’ve got a thirty-foot shadow there to scare them for you.’

  ‘Shadow?’ Aventurine turned to frown at me. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You were about to shift bodies,’ I said. ‘Everyone could see it.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ She scowled, her steps speeding up. ‘I had perfect control.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I skipped in front of her to hold her golden gaze. ‘Then why was your shadow lashing its tail?’

  Aventurine didn’t say a word, but her scowl deepened.

  ‘You’ve got to be more careful,’ I said as I fell back into step beside her. ‘Did you hear what they were saying about dragons back there?’

  ‘I heard,’ Aventurine muttered. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Well, of course she didn’t. If it couldn’t be fixed with chocolate or with violence, why would she be interested?

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t set the problem aside so easily. It kept twisting around in my head, casting a sickly pall over my victory, as we hurried from the grey, warehouse-filled sixth district into the bustling fifth district, where the house colours shifted to timbered black and white, and red-and-yellow flowers bloomed in all the windows. A clock was chiming in the distance, and I knew I’d have to work hard to calm Horst when we finally reached the Chocolate Heart, at least fifteen minutes later than I was due.

  Horst would get over his annoyance once he understood the circumstances. But I clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention. How could I not have noticed that people were worrying so much about the dragons? And why hadn’t I predicted it in the first place?

  If there was one thing I was supposed to be good at, it was riding the mood of my city. It kept me safe. It kept me strong.

  From the moment I’d sneaked out of our family tent, while Dieter was sleeping, on our very first morning in Drachenburg all those years ago, I’d felt the whole city calling out to me – and it was exactly what I’d needed to put my broken pieces back together. Maybe our parents weren’t here to protect us any more, and I would never again see the home I’d been born into …

  But every cobblestoned square and smelly corner of Drachenburg had been just waiting for me to come and make it my own, from the ancient tumbledown city walls that still circled the fourteenth district to the massive golden palace that sprawled across the city’s centre, as unbreakable as a promise set in stone. There was a whole world beyond the riverbank, a world of colour and excitement, where no one ever seemed to be afraid.

  I wanted it all. No, more than that: I needed it.

  Dieter might think that the whole world revolved around our tiny market stall, but I had bigger dreams. I was getting ready to take charge of my own story, even if my older brother could never understand it …

  And the Chocolate Heart could not be the end of it.

  I’d spent the last six years of my life living in patchwork tents on the riverbank, replacing one after another whenever a raging windstorm or a human riot stole the last one away from me. I was ready for a real home with walls that could never be broken or burned down again. That was why I’d turned down Horst’s offer of a full-time job two months ago, even though the salary he’d offered had been dangerously tempting.

  The Chocolate Heart had nearly gone out of business just before I’d got involved with it. The next time that Marina offended the wrong person, the whole shop could disappear, just like grains of sand swept away by the muddy brown river. I would not anchor myself to yet another home that could be taken away from me at any moment.

  I had bigger plans … or at least, I was supposed to.

  How many hours had I spent working on those handbills when I should have been out roaming the city, searching for new and better opportunities?

  How many times had I lingered in the Chocolate Heart after my official work was done, just hanging about the kitchen, washing dishes for free and sampling all the different kinds of chocolates that they made?

  I wasn’t a dragon, but I still had wings to stretch. I couldn’t let myself get so distracted any more … not even by the gorgeous smell of chocolate and a place that felt dangerously like mine. That was a story I could never let myself believe.

  Aventurine startled me, just as we reached the third district, by turning to give me a knowing look from her gleaming golden eyes. ‘I can feel you chewing on your own scales,’ she said. ‘What are
you worrying about now?’

  ‘Me? Worry?’ I snorted, putting an extra swing into my step, so that my scarlet coat-tails billowed magnificently around me. ‘Why would I? I’ve got everything under control.’

  And I almost believed it …

  Until the crown princess’s soldiers came for me the next day.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was my least favourite day of the week: the day I worked at my family’s market stall.

  ‘Finally!’ said Dieter when I arrived that morning.

  Of course, I was a full three minutes early. I always was, every week, when I arrived for my promised shift. But I didn’t argue. Why bother, when it came to my older brother? He’d only find something else to criticise – and I’d promised myself that morning, when I’d first woken up, that no matter what he said, I wouldn’t let him under my skin.

  Not this time.

  So instead of pointing out the time on the massive clock tower that loomed in the distance, I smiled at him in exactly the way that I knew would annoy him most.

  ‘Things to do, places to be,’ I told him breezily as I slipped into place behind the rickety wooden table.

  There was a snapping chill in the air, like a foretaste of winter on its way, and I rubbed my hands together for warmth as I ran an eye over the clothes stacked in front of me.

  Then I raised my eyebrows just to torment him. ‘Not much new since last week, is there?’

  ‘Since I don’t have anyone here to help me nowadays …’ He glowered at me through his spectacles as he refolded a twice-mended cotton shirt that had been left crumpled at the side of the stall by the last customers. ‘I barely see you any more now that you’ve run off to play with those chocolate-making loons in the third district.’

  Oh, I was not about to let that one pass! No one criticised my friends in front of me.

  I crossed my arms and gave him a sweet, interrogating look. ‘What exactly do you think is paying for our meals this week, Dieter, and putting savings for the future in our moneybag? Your little market stall? Or my work at the best chocolate house in Drachenburg, serving the king himself?’