The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)(14)
“That is what I was told.”
“Well, then let’s get going. We don’t have any food or water, so we need to find a way out of the mountain fast.”
He starts walking back into the cave, but again I blurt, “Wait!” I unsheathe the hunting knife and hand it to Golmarr. Turning my back to him, I put my chin down and say, “Please cut this stupid corset off of me. I would like to spend my last living minutes breathing freely.” He takes the knife but pauses. I peer at him over my shoulder. “What?”
“This could have been our wedding night.” His face is so close that I can feel his breath on my skin. His fingers brush the back of my neck, and my cheeks start to burn. Carefully, he pops the corset’s laces with the knife, and it falls away from me, leaving a wrinkled, voluminous white shirt tucked into my skirt. I kick the corset over the side of the cliff and then pull the pearl tiara from my hair and throw it down, too. Taking a deep breath, I turn to the mouth of the cave.
“I am ready,” I say, tucking the hunting knife into the back waistband of my skirt. Together we walk inside. When the cave entrance is far enough behind us that it gives off no light, the dragon scale starts to glow.
Golmarr puts his hand on his sword. “It looks like the fire dragon is still alive.”
To say the dragon scale glows is like saying the moon lights the night. The moon does light the night…sort of. But not well enough to go on a walk through rocks and gravel and boulders without stubbing your toes every other step.
The air is damp and cool, and it stinks like animals—like a chicken coop that has never been cleaned out. I am a mess, tripping over my skirts, crawling over boulders on my hands and knees, tearing my nails and scraping my arms and legs. Golmarr gets ahead every few minutes, and then pauses for me to catch up. I can see his patience waning in the way he taps his toe and keeps looking over his shoulder, leading us deeper into the blackness of the cave.
“You’re not very strong, are you?” He says it like it is an accusation and frowns as I slide down a rock on my butt.
I glare at him. “I’ve never climbed on rocks before.”
“Not even when you were a child?”
I brush my hands together, ridding them of lingering grit. “I have never been allowed to leave my chambers except to attend private family events, and for dancing and riding lessons.”
“You’re not allowed to leave your chambers?” he asks.
“Not without my father’s permission. And he rarely gives it.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Why?”
“Because the queen doesn’t like to see me,” I admit, my voice quiet.
“The queen, as in your own mother?”
“Yes. She doesn’t like seeing me because I have brought her nothing but sorrow since I was born.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, looking into my eyes.
I shrug, pretending like it is not a big deal, pretending like talking about it doesn’t make it hard to swallow. “Don’t be sorry,” I whisper, looking away from him. “I hardly know her.”
We keep making our way deeper into the cave, and Golmarr isn’t as impatient when he stops to wait for me.
“If this is a dragon’s cave, then where are all the bones and treasure?” I ask, swinging down from a grime-covered boulder taller than me. I wipe my hands on my shirt, leaving two dark smudges down the front.
“If a dragon truly lives in this mountain, if this is one of its caves, it isn’t going to keep its treasure here. It is going to hide it as deep as possible. Look.” He points up. I crane my neck and squint. The ceiling seems to be moving. Squirming. I hold the dragon scale above my head and shudder. A dense canopy of bats covers the cave’s roof, making it impossible to see the stone they are hanging from.
“I guess that explains the smell and the stuff all over the boulders,” Golmarr adds, his voice amused.
I cringe and look at my filthy palms.
“The legends say the fire dragon is as tall as a two-story house. There is no way it could fit in this cave. The ceiling is too low.”
I shudder, still intent on the brown smears on my hands, and wipe them down the front of my shirt again. Where I’ve wiped, my shirt is brown and red.
Golmarr lifts one of my hands, uncurling my fingers to look at my palm. “You’re bleeding.” Without another word, he reaches behind me, takes the hunting knife from the back of my skirt, and unsheathes it. “I’m going to cut your skirt shorter so you don’t have to crawl over the boulders,” he explains, kneeling in front of me and lifting the fabric.
I gasp and pull away from him and shake my head. “No, please! That wouldn’t be…proper,” I blurt. My cheeks start to burn at the thought of having my legs exposed.
He groans and looks up at me. “We are about to be eaten by a dragon, you’re crawling on bleeding hands through bat droppings, and you’re worried about being proper?” I bite my lower lip and nod. I really don’t want him to see my legs. He stands and presses the knife into my hand a little too roughly. “Suit yourself.”
We keep moving deeper into the cave—Golmarr leaping over boulders and me crawling and stumbling after him. In the darkness there is no way to measure time, except by how thirsty I am. The longer we wander, the thirstier I become. I lick my dry lips and keep going.