The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)(38)
I close my eyes and immediately feel the weight of sleep weighing on me. And then I see Ornald, my former guard, sitting in this very shelter, looking into my eyes, speaking to me, and I know what I am seeing is a memory passed on to the fire dragon by one of his victims.
“Is that why he forbids her to attend family functions?” Ornald asks, his eyes tight with anger.
“Did you suspect?” I am the one who says this, but it is not my voice. I look at my hands—large, thin, wrinkled hands—and a wave of shock ripples through me.
“I have suspected from the day she was born. She has my eyes and my height, and my darker hair. And she is not treated like a young princess should be treated.” His nostrils flare with anger. “He is awful to her, Melchior. Every chance I get, I pass my pay on to Nona and ask her to buy the child something nice so she doesn’t feel the pain of living like a wretch when her sisters are given every indulgence their hearts desire.” He runs his hand over his short beard. “Is he doing it to punish her, or to punish me?”
I think of the young Princess Sorrowlynn, always confined to her rooms, dressed in the worn castoffs of her sisters, eyes always shining with happiness and innocence despite her secluded life. “The child has known no other life, and Nona showers her with the sincere love of a mother. She is happy. Lord Damar treats her that way to punish you and her mother.”
Ornald growls and jumps to his feet, pacing back and forth across the small shelter, his hand on his sword hilt. “Her mother? She is the queen! That child is her daughter no matter who the father is! Why doesn’t she divorce her husband? She is miserable with him.”
“Because her husband will kill the child if she takes any type of action against him, and she knows it. I have seen all paths concerning your daughter, and the queen has picked the path that will afford the child the longest life possible. It is a tangled web, Ornald, a puzzle that does not yet have enough pieces fitted together to reveal the whole picture. That is why I am going to see the fire dragon.”
“What does a dragon have to do with any of this, Melchior?”
“He will give her the means to change the world. But she must know two things if she is to succeed.”
Ornald crouches across the fire from me, green eyes intent. “What?”
“Once Sorrowlynn has obtained the fire dragon’s treasure, the seven remaining dragons will hunt her down until they kill her, or she kills them. The reforged sword can cut through a dragon’s scales, and the man who wields it will give his life to her, no matter what trials of his own he faces. And the first dragon is very close!”
Ornald stands and draws his sword.
“Wake up, child!” the wizard hisses.
I gasp and lurch awake, pushing myself to sitting. Red coals are all that remain of the fire, and through the branches blocking the shelter’s entrance, the sky is one shade lighter than pitch-black.
Golmarr sits up beside me. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.
“The dragons are going to hunt me,” I say.
Golmarr stands. “I know.” He pulls his sword from its sheath, and it reflects the minuscule light from the embers.
“Your reforged sword. It can—”
“Cut through a dragon’s scales,” he says, finishing my sentence. Walking to the cave entrance, he peers out between the branches.
“How do you know that?” I ask. “Were you dreaming about Melchior, too?”
“Melchior?”
“My family’s old wizard,” I explain.
“No. Nayadi taught me everything she knows about dragons.” He sits down beside me and lays his sword across his knees. “When I was born, she gave me a birth blessing unlike any ever given to my brothers or ancestors. She said, This child shall be known as the first dragon slayer in a thousand years, and he shall wield a reforged sword.” He turns the sword over in his hands, studying it in the dim light. “That is why my father gifted me a sword with a dragon hilt when I turned thirteen—because I have been told my whole life that it will be reforged by dragon fire one day.” He laughs. “I think you can imagine my surprise to wake up and discover that you, Sorrowlynn, are the true dragon slayer. Suicide Sorrow, Dragon Slayer.”
I don’t laugh. “I wish I were not.”
“Me too,” Golmarr whispers. “Because now you are the one who will be hunted, not I.”
He sheathes the sword and throws a log onto the fire, and I replay my dream in my head. I am not Lord Damar’s daughter. I am the daughter of Ornald, the former captain of the guard, who got permanently demoted for intervening when Lord Damar whipped me. I always wondered why he stopped Lord Damar when no other man dared stand up to him. Now I know he was protecting his own child, and he paid a mighty high price.
I look at Golmarr and the reforged sword hanging at his hip. Melchior said the wielder of the reforged sword would give his life to me. Does that mean Golmarr will die protecting me? The thought makes my stomach feel emptier than ever, like the core of me has been carved out, but nothing is being put back in. How I wish I did not kill the fire dragon.
When the wood has caught the flame, lighting the shelter, Golmarr pulls the remaining scraps of leather from his belt. He sets them beside me and kneels at my feet. Placing his hand behind my bare calf, he looks up at me with a question in his eyes. “You’re not going to turn into a warrior and hold me at knifepoint for touching you, right?” he asks.