My mouth falls open and shut, and then open and shut again. Finally, I turn and look over my shoulder to see if he is speaking to someone else, but we are alone. “What are you talking about, Golmarr?” I ask, thinking my hair might be confusing him, since it has been braided and piled on my head. I run my fingers through my waist-length hair and frown. It feels strange, so I hold a strand of it up and gasp. My hair has changed from kinky curls to glossy waves of brown. I lift my fingers to my face and try not to panic as I press on my skin and bones, wondering if my face has also changed.
Without lowering his sword, Golmarr leaps and hops down the rocks and stops in front of me, his eyes wary. I ask, “Do I look different?”
He examines my face for a moment and then stares intently into my eyes. “No, you look the same. But…” His gaze travels down my clothing and stops on my legs. Looking down, I almost choke.
I plop my butt onto the sand, with my legs stretched in front of me, and run my fingers over smooth, unscarred skin. Tears sting my eyes. I throw my head back and laugh. “Look at my legs, Golmarr!” I cry. “They’re perfect!”
Golmarr puts a hand on his right cheek, rubbing his skin. “My cut cheek is healed,” he says. I bite my bottom lip and nod. His cheek isn’t the only thing that has been healed. Holding his hands out, he examines his fingers. “Look, Sorrowlynn.” He steps up beside me so I can see his hands. They are wide, with long, narrow fingers that are the same golden tan as the rest of him, except for several small white scars on his knuckles. “Those are old scars from fighting,” he explains. “They didn’t go away like your scars.” He looks at his sword and then at the fire dragon, and back at me. “What happened?”
My vision glazes over as I remember. “He was hiding up there.” I point to the cave wall.
“He?” Golmarr asks, glancing around the dragon’s lair.
“The fire dragon was a he. His name was Zhun. When he came out of hiding, he blasted you with fire.” I look up to see if he remembers.
He runs a hand through his long hair, and it rains down around him like pieces of black straw. Next, he examines his stiff, blackened leather vest, the holes scorched into it, the missing metal armor plates, and below, the disintegrating once-white shirt. He lifts his shirt and inspects his suntanned chest. “Where are the burns?” he muses, looking at me. “Did you get burned?”
“Only a little. He ate my arm,” I whisper. Golmarr’s eyes take in my torn sleeve. “And the poison I was holding…and the knife from Melchior.” Pressing against my firm, hard ribs, I add, “He hurt me.” My body shudders with the remembered pain, and I pull my knees against my chest, glad that I am still sitting.
“And?” Golmarr prompts, kneeling in the sand in front of me.
“And the poison paralyzed him. He was helpless. You and I could have run, but you were unconscious, and I was too injured. I didn’t know what to do, so I took your sword and…” I swallow, remembering the glossy coating on the dragon’s eye. “I put it through his eye. He would have eaten you if I didn’t.” I lay my head down on my knees and shiver with cold.
Golmarr stands and walks to the lake, thrusting his sword into the water. He pulls it out and rubs it on his fire-stiffened leather pants. Holding it up to the light, he frowns, and a wave of regret makes my stomach hurt. Because of the dragon’s acid blood, by leaving his sword in Zhun’s eye, I have ruined it.
“Did his blood destroy it?” I ask. Golmarr is so intent on examining the weapon that he doesn’t hear me. I climb to my feet and sway back and forth, and then make my way to his side. “Did his blood destroy it?” I ask again.
He shakes his head and lays the blade across both his palms, holding it out for me to see. “Look at this!” The sword is so shiny it looks more like silver than steel. The emerald eyes of the dragon hilt catch the sunlight, making green orbs flicker on Golmarr’s bare chest where his vest and shirt are burned away.
“When a dragon dies,” I say, “its remaining energy and magic die with it in the form of fire. It is called death fire. Zhun’s death fire reforged your sword, changing the steel into something stronger than a human can make. This is a dragon death fire sword. A reforged sword.” I throw my fingers up over my mouth. “How do I know that?”
“Death fire, hey?” Golmarr asks. There is laughter in his voice, as if having me spew a history lesson on a subject I don’t even know is incredibly amusing. I look up and he leans forward, pressing a quick kiss to my forehead. For a minute the cold shivering through me is chased away by warmth. “Thank you!” He looks around. “I wonder if there is any type of food in here.”
“The dark end of the lake has fish,” I blurt, and press my fingers to my forehead. “I don’t know how I know that, either. But a person can survive for weeks without food, as long as she has a source of water.”
Golmarr’s brow furrows, and he presses a hand to his stomach. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m not hungry. I feel…” He studies me a minute. “I feel like I just consumed a feast, only without the bellyache. I feel full. I feel like there is energy overflowing from me.” He shrugs his shoulders up and down a few times. “I feel better than I have ever felt in my life.” He looks right into my eyes and smiles. Dimples form in his cheeks, and I wonder how I never noticed them before. My gaze darts to his mouth, to his white teeth, to his lips, and I feel the overwhelming urge to grab his face in my hands and press my mouth to his. He might feed a hunger I never knew I had. The thought makes my head spin, and the ground seems to quiver beneath me, so I step away from him.
“So, Sorrowlynn,” Golmarr says, casually peering around the cave. “How did the fire dragon—Zhun—get in and out of here?”
Images of water flood my mind, of gliding through it, bubbles surging around me as the deep end of the lake presses upon my body. The water changes, growing brighter and brighter, and then I burst up out of it, and I am beneath blue sky, and my wings stretch wide as they catch the air in them. I soar up over snowcapped peaks. How I long for the open air!
I blink away the vision of sky and ice and wind and point to the far end of the lake. “He got out through the dark water. It connects to another lake surrounded by snowcapped peaks.” I stare at the water and whisper, “I know how to swim, Golmarr. How do I know how to swim?”
“Can we get out that way?” he asks, ignoring my question.
I shake my head. “It is too far for a person to swim.”
He peers up at the crack in the ceiling, but already I know we will not be able to get out that way. “Zhun melted the rock around the fissure until it was slippery smooth, making it impossible to escape.” I grab my head in my hands and moan. “I shouldn’t know that! What is wrong with me?”
“I am going to ask you one more thing,” Golmarr says, his voice gentle. He puts his arm over my shoulders and pulls me against his chest. I lean into his body and try to absorb the heat from it, try to fill my hunger for warmth. “Where,” he asks, “does the dragon keep its treasure?”
The answer to his question is in my head before I have time to think about it. “Zhun had two treasures. First, his knowledge. Second, his freedom. But our ancestors took his freedom from him.” I whimper. Pain and sorrow tear at my chest, so powerful that I can barely breathe. Tears flood my eyes, and I start shaking with sobs for the imprisonment my ancestors caused the fire dragon. Golmarr’s other arm comes around me and he holds me tight. The heat from his body radiates outward and clings to my skin, and after a short while, I stop crying. “What is wrong with me?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
He rubs his hands over my back. “According to Nayadi, my family’s witch, when someone kills a dragon, a transference occurs. Its treasure automatically transfers to the slayer. You, Princess Sorrowlynn, slayed the fire dragon. Therefore, you inherited its treasure.”
I inherited the fire dragon’s treasure. My brain fills with sparks of light and bursts of color with that realization, and everything around me seems to solidify and bind together more perfectly than it eve
r has before. My feet connect more firmly with the earth, and the earth connects with my feet, like I have grown roots. I know this cave, every rock, every column, and I love it. I pull away from Golmarr’s embrace and run to the lake, diving headfirst into the water. My arms cut through liquid, pulling me down. I trail my fingers over the sandy lake bottom and smile. When my lungs ache with need of air, I burst forth from the lake’s surface and lie on my back, staring at the cave ceiling as I float atop the surface.
Within moments, my body begins to shiver, my teeth knocking together, and I swim to the shore and climb out. “I can swim,” I say, grinning at Golmarr as water drips down my face and body.
He returns the smile, and wonder fills his eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he says.
My grin falters, and my heart pounds against my healed ribs. “So are you,” I admit.
Golmarr tilts his head to the side, and his eyes turn fierce. “I’m beautiful? I thought only women were beautiful.”
I shrug and shiver and laugh all at once. “Come on. I might know a way out of here.” I bend and pick up the hunting knife from the sand path, securing it against my back.
“But we don’t have a light.”
“I don’t need a light. I can find my way in the dark,” I whisper, and take his hand in mine.
We leave the dragon’s chamber by way of the sand path. It leads to a narrow tunnel barely wide enough for Golmarr and me to stand abreast. When we have gotten far enough away from the sunlight streaming through the dragon lair ceiling that the cave is almost pitch-black, I stop walking and close my eyes. Somewhere, deep in my mind, is the knowledge of how to get out of this cave. I can feel it in there. My thoughts grasp on to a memory, and a face flashes in my mind’s eye.
His blue eyes are what I remember, always twinkling and always far away, as if he lived somewhere else in his head—somewhere wonderful and bright, not the confining walls of my mother’s castle. But they are not twinkling now. No, Melchior the wizard’s eyes are flashing with determination as he hurries through the very tunnel I am standing in, a ball of brown light held in his outstretched hand. The ground beneath his feet rumbles, and he lengthens his stride. “Do not torch me yet, Zhun,” he hollers. “I wish to see you face to face first, you vile worm. I have a message that needs to be passed on to someone.”
Melchior? The word is spoken in the wizard’s head, and I know it is the fire dragon. Come to me, slayer, and speak. And then I shall eat you alive for killing my mate and locking me under this mountain!
“Yes, you shall,” Melchior whispers, and I feel the wave of apprehension that makes his old bones quiver.
“Sorrowlynn?” Golmarr grips my upper arm and gives it a shake, pulling me away from the memory of my old friend.
“Wait,” I say, focusing on Melchior. Finally, I know why he disappeared. He was eaten by the fire dragon.
“Sorrowlynn! We are not alone,” Golmarr hisses, and I hear the familiar swish of steel sliding against a scabbard. Melchior vanishes as my eyes open, and without so much as a thought, I pull the hunting knife from my waistband and center my weight over my feet. The weapon feels perfect in my hand, like it has always been there. I slash the air with it, swinging it from side to side to test the balance, and smile. The horse king gave me a very well-made weapon.
Ahead, in the black depths of the tunnel, orange orbs are moving toward us: hundreds of them, a river of them flowing along the curve of the narrow passage. “Mayanchi,” I whisper. “If you thrust your weapon into their hide, their scales close around it, holding it in like barbs. That is why your sword got stuck in one,” I explain. “Strike the underbelly. It is soft, with no scales.”
Golmarr coughs. “All right,” he says, voice unbelieving. He assumes a fighter’s stance and waits for the Mayanchi to come to him, where there is just enough light by which to fight them. I do not wait. I charge the glowing eyes, blade grasped in my hand, my bare feet pounding the sandy ground, and for a split second I wonder what in the world I am doing. I don’t know how to fight! Yet I do not slow.
I reach the nearest creature and my weapon blurs through the air as I roll to the ground, slicing the Mayanchi’s underbelly. One slice with enough force will kill it instantly. I know this like I have killed a hundred of these creatures. But this one does not die. I lift my arm to swing again, confused, and my muscles shudder and fail to do what I want. What I need them to do. I am weak.
Golmarr slides to a stop at my side, his blade dancing through the near-black tunnel as he battles the little Mayanchi. His muscles and body, unlike mine, are doing just what they should: fighting with strength and precision. For a heartbeat I watch him, silhouetted against the distant entrance to the dragon’s lair, and reverence settles over me. He is well taught, his movements those of a disciplined warrior.
I roll to my knees and thrust my dagger into the Mayanchi’s underbelly. For a split second, I feel a blade pierce my belly, and a surge of desperate fear chokes me. My mind expands as the Mayanchi’s intelligence fills my brain, and all of a sudden, I know this small creature that I have just killed. Tears prick my eyes, and I drop my blade.
“Stop!” I wail, grabbing Golmarr’s arm midswing to prevent him from killing again. “They mean us no harm!” Golmarr shoves me behind him to protect me, but I shove back, thrusting myself between him and the mass of glowing-eyed Mayanchi. “Stop it, Golmarr! I know what I’m doing!” The Mayanchi gather at my feet and hiss at Golmarr. “They mean us no harm,” I say again, pressing my hands against Golmarr’s chest to hold him back. “They mean me no harm,” I add, turning my back to him—a human shield to keep him safe. “They served Zhun. Now I am…the one they serve,” I whisper, and shudder at the thought. I crouch down so my eyes are level with the little dragons’ eyes and hope they can understand me. “I know I can’t speak to your thoughts like the fire dragon did, but I forbid you to hurt him. Hurting him would be like hurting me. Go from here and be at peace.” The mass of Mayanchi back away from us and then turn and disappear into the dark tunnel.
Warm fingers trail over my arm, and Golmarr turns me to face him. He stares at me with wide eyes, and his hand comes up to my face, his palm warm against my cheek. “Look at you,” he whispers. He lifts my hair away from my neck and leans close, so his warm breath touches the skin below my ear. “You are glowing, Sorrowlynn. Your skin…” His thumb brushes my collarbone, and my blood tingles in my veins. As he looks into my eyes, his hands trail down my arms and find my hands, and our fingers intertwine. When he lifts them between us, my fingers glow a pale gold between his shadowed fingers.
The light from my skin illuminates his face. He squeezes my hands and moistens his lips with his tongue, and I want to grab him and press my mouth against his, hard. I tear one hand from his and wrap it around the back of his warm neck, and pull his face toward mine, so close that I can feel the heat of his skin on my lips. He stares right into my eyes, and I can feel his breath quicken. And then I think of what is proper and what is not, and shrink away, pulling my hand from his.
I gasp, utterly mortified. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Golmarr clears his throat and brings his hand up to the back of his neck, and then a smile stretches his mouth wide. He shakes his head in obvious disbelief and lets out a big breath of air. Picking up the hunting knife from the ground, he presses the hilt into my hand, and his fingers linger on mine. “You need to clean that,” he says. “Before the blood ruins it.”
I nod and cut two pieces of bloodstained fabric from my skirt, handing one to Golmarr. As I run the material over my blade, I say, “If we follow this tunnel, we will come out on the side of a mountain overlooking the Glass Forest.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Golmarr stand a little bit taller. “Really?” he asks, voice filled with wonder. “We are going to get out of here?”
I think of the blue sky and snowcapped peaks I saw through the dragon’s eyes. “Really,” I whisper, yearning for the freedom of open spaces, for the cha
nce to see colors again.
His brow furrows. “How far is the exit? We don’t have a food or water source.”
The entire tunnel system takes shape in my head. It reaches as far north as the Wolf Cliffs, where my mother’s castle is, and as far south as the mountains that create the northwest border of the Anthar grasslands. “It takes the Mayanchi two days. I know where water is along the way.”
“What do the Mayanchi eat?” Golmarr asks, sheathing his sword.
“Little critters. Rodents, mostly, that live close to the cave’s exits. For three centuries they have been bringing the fire dragon deer and elk, and anything else they could kill in the mountains. Sometimes they would eat part of that, but if Zhun got mad or too hungry, he ate them, so they brought the best food to him.” I cover my eyes with my hand. “This is so weird to know so much.”
“Here is what I don’t understand. How do you know so much about the Mayanchi?”
“When I killed her—the Mayanchi—her knowledge merged into my mind like the dragon’s. I know everything she knew.” The soiled cloth I’ve been cleaning my blade with drops from my hand. “Not only did I inherit Zhun’s treasured knowledge, I also inherited the means to gather it the same way he did. Every time Zhun killed something, he stole its knowledge. Now I have that ability.” With that understanding comes the feeling of being filthy. I cringe and wish I could take a bath.