The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)(24)
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.
Golmarr walks up to me, the lake sloshing around his ribs. His black hair is plastered to his scalp, and water is dripping down his face. He leans close and whispers, “Put your feet down. It isn’t too deep over here. But look.” He points to the farthest end of the lake, the direction all of the bubbles are moving, where the water is black. “Don’t go over there. It looks deep. I think this is the fire dragon’s lair,” he adds, his wary eyes scanning the fire. “Those flames are burning on solid rock. There is nothing to feed them, and there is no smoke.”
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?”