The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)(48)

Golmarr wobbles and collapses to his knees. I slip my way toward him and slide to a stop at his side. Dragon blood streaks his sword blade, and on the tip is a gleaming emerald dragon scale with a small patch of bloody skin still attached. Taking his head in my hands, I gently probe the back of his skull. A bump as big as a chicken egg has already formed beneath his scalp. Careful not to cause him more pain, I part his thick black hair over the wound to make sure it isn’t bleeding, but yelp and lurch away, pulling my leg from his grasp. Pain is pulsing up my calf.

Golmarr reaches out and wraps his fingers around my ankle again, and the pain intensifies. His fingers are as hot as live coals. “Stop!” I hiss, and look down at his hand to see what is wrong with it. My skin is pale blue between his fingers.

“We need a fire as quickly as possible!” Golmarr yells. People are poking their heads out of their wagon doors, warily peering between us and the sky. “Please, someone help us! We need a fire as quickly as possible!” he calls again. No one leaves their wagons. “We just risked our lives to save you,” Golmarr growls. “If you help her, I promise that we will leave your camp as soon as we are well enough to.”

Edemond, still holding the ax he used to break me free from the ice, comes out of the pink wagon. “Alfenzo, Matteus, start breaking the ice so we can light a fire. Stefano, get kindling! I will get the wood.” Still barefoot, he hurries outside of the wagon circle, and a moment later, I hear the rhythmic thumping of an ax.

“I need blankets!” Golmarr shouts. “Jayah needs to warm up!” His voice is panicked.

“I’m fine,” I say. Golmarr lifts the skirt up to my knees. Blue veins are creeping up my legs beneath my skin. When I touch one, it is as cold as ice. And then I realize I cannot feel the ice beneath my bare feet. “My feet are numb,” I whisper. Golmarr pales and lifts me off the ice.

Wagon doors open and women laden with piles of blankets in their arms come out. Not giving a care about the ice, they all make their unsteady way toward me and, one by one, place the blankets at Golmarr’s feet. He grabs one and swings it around his shoulders and me, hugging me to him.

“I’m fine,” I protest, and try to push the blanket away, but my fingers are numb with cold and too stiff to bend. My heart begins pounding with fear, and when it does, I can feel the ice start speeding through my body. “Golmarr?” I whisper. “I can feel it in my blood.”

Frantically, Golmarr starts rubbing my arms with his hands, trying to force warmth into my skin as a group of Satari women circles us.

Mama puts her frail, wrinkled hand on Golmarr’s bare forearm. “We have bed-warming pans in several of the wagons. Melisande is getting them. Can you get the girl indoors, young horse lord? We can warm her better inside.”

He presses on the back of his head. “I’m too dizzy to walk with her.” The words come out in a sob. “Is she dying?”

I shake my head vehemently, but the old woman nods. “Her flesh was touched by dragon breath. Your wife is going to slowly freeze to death.”

Golmarr’s arms start trembling. “How can we save her? There has to be a way!”

“Fire,” I whisper, and yearn for the scorching heat of flames against my skin.

“We have to melt it out of her before it freezes her blood. It is going to hurt, but it has to be done,” the woman explains, her dark eyes filled with sympathy. She pats Golmarr on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad.” Turning from him she calls, “Enzio, come help this young man carry his wife to a wagon.”

A gangly boy about my age, with narrow shoulders and curly, dark hair, steps forward and carefully walks across the ice to us. He holds his arms out for me, but Golmarr doesn’t let me go. “Golmarr, I’ll be all right,” I whisper, running my stiff fingers through his hair. With a pained groan, he lets Enzio take me.

Despite his narrow frame, Enzio easily carries me to one of the biggest wagons. As the door shuts behind us, I can hear Mama giving orders to bring more blankets and hot broth to the wagon. Gently, Enzio lays me down on a bed and wraps the blanket securely around me, tucking it tightly beneath my feet. A woman enters the wagon with a brass bed-warming pan in her hands. She smiles at me and places the pan beside my feet. Another woman enters with a warming pan and puts it by my calves. More women come, each with a bed-warming pan, until I am surrounded on all sides. Next, they bring blankets and start layering them over me.

Enzio returns with Golmarr and helps him sit at a chair that has been moved beside the bed. Golmarr reaches beneath the covers and takes my hand in his.

“Your fingers are a little warmer,” he says. “How are your feet?”

I wiggle my toes and whimper as a gush of hot blood circulates through them. “They’re burning,” I say. Tears fill my eyes and trickle out of the corners. Each tear feels like fire on my skin. The scorching heat in my feet starts slowly flowing upward, making my legs feel as if the skin is melting from them. More tears fill my eyes, and then I start quietly crying. “It hurts,” I moan. “Get the covers off of me!” I start struggling against the blankets, but Golmarr stands and pins my shoulders down.

“You have to warm up,” he says, his eyes severe. I fight against him, but my body is still stiff with cold, and I can barely move. I wail and moan, and more tears burn their way down my temples and into my hair.