The Dragon's Curse by Bethany Wiggins
Remorse, mistrust, and compassion fire through me as I think of Melchior’s memory of Yassim. I do not want Yassim anywhere close to me. Or Nayadi, for that matter. Having them both down in the cargo hold has been wonderful. I lean my elbows on the railing and look south. “I will let her up on deck before the sun rises.”
Captain Yeb grabs my hand and lifts it to his forehead, pressing it on the exposed skin below his turban. “I thank you, Princess Sorrowlynn. I am in your debt and will repay you one day. This I swear.” He releases my hand. “We need to prepare for the possibility of the ship sinking. Before dawn, every person needs to be on deck. The lifeboat will hold us all if the ship sinks, so I need to make sure it is stalwart.”
“What should I do?”
“Nothing. There is nothing to do but wait and make peace with your life in case you die. It is all there is left.”
* * *
Time seems to stop when one is awaiting the unknown, especially when the unknown is very likely a watery grave. Captain Yeb stands motionless at the helm as the stars slowly move across the black sky, as if he has accepted his fate and is waiting for it.
As we glide across the silent ocean, Golmarr’s words from the inn begin replaying in my head: What we have—this love—it is beautiful, and wonderful, and I cherish it above anything I have ever known, but there is so much more we have to think about. A deep, wearying sorrow dulls my senses and makes my heart feel as if it is trying to break free from my body, so I give up waiting for fate and draw my sword. To block the things I do not want to think about, I fill my mind with the structure and discipline of sword-fighting.
I push my body through every sword-fighting routine I know. When I’ve run through them all, I quiet my mind and let my body move. Routines I’ve never done before take over my instincts, moving me in new ways and foreign patterns. My muscles conform to the routines as if they are ingrained there, and the routines mold to my body as if I am being shaped by an unseen sculptor. It is my subconscious controlling my actions, and the less I think, the more easily they come.
Midway through a routine, I hear the quiet groan of the hatch to the sleeping quarters being raised, and then the wind carries Golmarr’s scent to me. He is standing on the edge of the deck, watching, so I complete the routine. When I finish, I sheathe my sword and look at him—a dark shape against the starry horizon.
“What was that?” he asks, his voice deep with sleep.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “If I let my mind go blank, my body starts moving through routines I have never done before.”
He steps closer and rests his fingers on the sword hilt hanging at my waist. “When I…when I trust myself to wield a sword again, I want you to teach me that routine.”
“You still don’t trust yourself with it? Even though you trust yourself to touch me?”
“One step at a time,” he whispers. “I am learning to conquer this.”
I close the small space left between us and place my hand on his left arm, right above his elbow. I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. Beneath my fingers, his skin is firm and covered with bumps. Without a word, I untie the laces of his tunic and thrust my hand beneath the fabric, tracing his scales from his shoulder to his elbow.
“Twice now you’ve tried to tear my clothes off me. If I knew a few scales was all it would take, I would have grown them the first night we met and danced in your mother’s castle,” he says. “It would have spared us a lot of hardship.”
I swallow against a lump in my throat and blink threatening tears back into my eyes. Not even his teasing eases my fear. “The scales have spread so much!”
“Yes. I think they like the salty ocean air.” He is silent for a long moment while I study his shadowed face. And then he says, “I make a fiercely beautiful dragon, Sorrowlynn, with wings and scales as black as obsidian. When I am in the sun, the scales glow the deep blue of the evening sky right before it fades to black.”
“You have seen this?” My voice breaks.
He puts one arm around me and pulls me close. “I have seen it,” he whispers. He places his hand on my back, and I relax against him. The smell of him, the feel of him, and the sound of his beating heart soften a bit of the fear clawing through me. Golmarr slowly slides his hand down my spine to my lower back. His fingers probe my skin through the fabric of my tunic, and then, inch by inch, he starts lifting the fabric until his warm hand finds my bare skin. I cannot help my inhaled gasp of breath.
Golmarr freezes. “Sorrowlynn?”
“What?”
“You have scales.”
His words jolt me so hard I rock backward on my heels. “What?”
Kneeling at my feet, he turns me so my back is to him and rolls the hem of my long yellow tunic up around my ribs. I hold the fabric beneath my elbows and stare at the outline of mast against sky while Golmarr gently runs his now-frigid fingers over my skin.
“It’s only a tiny patch, smaller even than the palm of my hand. Nothing to worry about…too much.” I don’t know who he is trying to reassure—me or himself, but if it is me, it is not working. I reach back and touch my skin. In the very center of my back, right above the waistband of my leggings, the skin is hard to the touch and covered in small, rounded ovals.
My stomach twists at the feel of something so foreign growing on my body, and I have to swallow the urge to vomit. The tunic’s hem falls from my elbows and settles back around my hips. “Why?” I ask. “Why am I getting scales? What is happening to us?” Fear makes my voice as tiny and scared as a child’s.
Golmarr gathers me up in his arms again and presses his cheek against the top of my head. “I do not know why,” he whispers, “but together we will find out and fix it.”
I draw a trembling breath. “What if we don’t?”
He holds me for a long time, water lapping at the ship’s hull the only sound in the night. Finally, he answers, “If we don’t fix it, we will become dragons.” His body grows rigid against mine. “I loathe the dragons,” he says between tightly clenched teeth. “I want to kill every single one!” With a burst of energy, he spins away and hammers his fist against the ship’s mast. “I hate them!”
A polite clearing of a throat draws my attention to Captain Yeb. He is holding something in his hand, and by the dim flicker of a candle, I see it is a gold pocket watch.
“What?” Golmarr snaps.
“I beg pardon, Prince Golmarr, but it is one hour before dawn. We need to get everyone above deck in case the ocean decides to open up and devour my ship or smash it against the reef.”
Golmarr nods. “I will wake my men.”
“I will get the princess and Nayadi,” I say.
An iron hand clamps down on my shoulder. “No,” Golmarr snaps. “Nayadi can come up, but Yassim stays in the bay.”
“But if the ship is dashed on the reef around Draykioch, she will drown,” I say.
“A fitting fate for trying to poison you after agreeing to a fair hand-to-hand match,” Golmarr growls. “In Anthar, she would have been hanged for the attempt on your life. She has no honor!”
He strides past me, but I grab the sleeve of his tunic and stop him as my own anger boils up inside me. I grip the front of his shirt and force him to turn and face me. “I will not leave her in the bay,” I say, glaring. “I am the one she tried to kill, so I will decide if she is or is not allowed on deck.”
Golmarr presses his lips together, as if forcing the thoughts swirling in his eyes to stay off his tongue. Finally, he grunts and pulls his tunic from my grasp. “Fine. But she’s tied to the mast!” Without a backward glance, he stomps to the hatch.
* * *
The cargo bay is dark and eerily still. The smells of pine tar, foreign spices, and eel are mixing with the aroma of a full chamber pot saturating the clammy air. My candle flickers as I wind my way among wooden crates. At
Nayadi is breathing so deeply the sound echoes off the walls. She is stretched out flat on her back, on the hard floor, and staring up at the ceiling with her white eyes. I gasp and jerk to such an abrupt halt, the candle splashes hot wax on my hand and almost goes out. Shoving my unease aside, I take a step closer to the old crone and peer down. Her face is slack with sleep, a trail of drool is trickling down one cheek, and her open eyes are slowly moving from side to side. Beneath her plain brown dress, her body looks as insubstantial as a pile of bones.
A few steps farther in sits Princess Yassim, back pressed against the ribs of the ship, her hands and her ankles tied together. Beside her is a chamber pot, and I wonder how she can stand the smell. She is watching me but doesn’t move a muscle—only her honey-brown eyes move. I step over Nayadi and crouch in front of Yassim. “We are moving you above deck,” I whisper, hoping to not wake Nayadi yet.
Yassim frowns and shakes her head. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out of it.
“What?” I mouth.
Yassim rolls her eyes and nods toward Nayadi. She opens her mouth and speaks again, but I cannot hear a thing; not even the sound her teeth make when she snaps them back together.
“Stop playing games or I will leave you down here to die!” I whisper. I reach forward, prepared to sever the rope connecting her hands and feet, but Yassim flinches and fervently shakes her head, pressing herself flat against the ship’s rib.
As my hand moves toward her, the tips of my fingers start to grow warm, and then hot. The air around Yassim ripples, and I draw my hand back. Pulling Golmarr’s borrowed sword from its scabbard, I bring the tip of the blade to the spot where my fingers got burned. The air presses against it, resisting. I put more pressure on the sword, and the blue blade slices through the air, leaving bright orange cut marks that slowly fade.
“What is that?” I whisper.
“It is how I have kept her quiet,” Nayadi says. I jump to my feet and almost step on her. She is sitting up, her face filled with amusement. “A simple wall of energy. I will teach you how to do it someday. There is so much you don’t know.” Her eyes narrow and the hair on my arms bristles at the hungry way she is looking at me. “Such a waste of power.”
I take a step away from Nayadi and put my sword back in its sheath. “We are moving Yassim up to the deck,” I say. “Remove the wall.”
Nayadi looks from me to Yassim and grins. “Or what? You’ll kill me?”
I pull the sword from its scabbard a second time and lift it so it rests just above Nayadi’s gaunt collarbone. “If I must, then I will kill you.” It is a lie. I won’t kill her simply because she will not do what I want. Nayadi rolls her eyes and mumbles something about me being overly grouchy from the poison, but she whips her hand through the air, and all of a sudden I can hear Yassim’s breathing and smell her unwashed clothing and full chamber pot.
For a moment, guilt softens me toward her—guilt at locking her down in this tight space with Nayadi. Then I look in her eyes. They are filled with anger and loathing, and focused on me, not Nayadi, who is the one ultimately responsible for keeping her down here.
“We are moving you up onto the deck, Yassim,” I say, and slide the hunting knife from my belt and sever the ropes binding her ankles. Beneath the ropes, her skin is raw. “I will have Yerengul see to your ankles.”
Princess Yassim tries to stand and teeters backward, falling against the ship. I take a step away from her, wondering if she is trying to manipulate me into coming closer. “I cannot get up,” she says, her voice hoarse. “I have not been able to move for days, and my body is stiff.”
I glare at Nayadi. “You have not let her move?”
Nayadi shrugs. “She moved when she squatted over the pot.”
“Have you fed her, at least?” I ask. When Nayadi doesn’t answer, I turn to Yassim. “Have you had food and water?”
“She gave me one cup of water per day. No food.” She stiffens and thrusts her chin forward. “We do not treat our prisoners as poorly as I have been treated. I consider this a declaration of war against Ilaad.”
“If I knew how she was treating you, I would have put a stop to it,” I say, and crouch down, helping Yassim to her knees.
“How could you not know? Why did you never come down and check to see how I was being treated? It is the responsibility of royalty to ensure their prisoners are treated humanely.”
I laugh under my breath. “Why have I not come to check on you?” I ask. Yassim nods and glares accusations. “I have been asleep for three days. That is how long it has taken my body to heal from the poison you put into it.”
Yassim blinks and lowers her blond-tipped lashes, studying the ground. “Oh.” She looks back up. “How did you heal? My poison is almost as deadly as Strickbane. You should be dead.”
I shrug. I do not have an answer. Gripping Yassim’s forearms, I lift her to her feet and wrinkle my nose. “I think the smell of the chamber pot has saturated your clothes.”
Yassim lifts her nose into the air and looks down on me, even though I am almost a head taller. “I do not want the Antharian prince to see me like this,” she whispers.
“Which one?” I ask warily. “Not Golmarr, right?”
“I couldn’t care less what that egotistical, hateful man thinks of me. But Yerengul…Please let me have a moment to wash and change before I have to face him.”
“As you wish. But I will inspect your clean clothing before you put it on to make sure you have no weapons, and no jewelry.”
Nayadi cackles and slaps her knee, and then follows us to the room with the hammocks.
* * *
When we come above deck, with Yassim smelling and looking a bit more like a princess, the eastern horizon has a thread-thin strip of red light cutting the ocean from the sky. Everyone is standing at the ship’s helm, staring south. I take the length of rope that had been tying Yassim’s wrists together and quickly retie them, marveling that even in the dark my nimble fingers know exactly how to make knots they have never made before, which the princess will not be able to undo.
When she is tied to the mast, I hurry to the helm and place my hand on Yerengul’s shoulder to get his attention. “Can you see to Yassim’s ankles and wrists? She has sores that need tending.”
Even in the near-darkness, I see the sly smile that splits Yerengul’s mouth. “My pleasure,” he says, and opens the small medic pouch he always has tied to his belt.
I take a place between Golmarr and my father and look south. My father’s arm comes around me and he squeezes my shoulders. “You are a good person,” he whispers. “I am proud to call you my daughter.”
“Thank you.” I lean my head on his shoulder and hope that this will not be the last time I see him. I am looking forward to spending years getting to know him better.
As the sky brightens, my heart starts hammering so hard, it feels like it is in my throat. “What is that?” I ask, craning my neck to look up. The sky seems to have a black triangular hole in it, where no stars gleam, and no light reflects off the ocean. The darkness reaches down to the water and is about to swallow the ship.
“That is Draykioch,” Golmarr says, leaning forward so his elbows rest on the railing and his dark hair falls across his forehead. “If this ship does not stop moving soon, we will be dashed upon the reef surrounding the island, and if it does stop, the two-headed dragon will catch us.”
“The sea serpent has been following us, too,” Captain Yeb adds. “Our situation is hopeless.” He touches the back of my hand with one finger. “Thank you for seeing to my niece. If the ship sinks, all I have to do is cut her from the mast instead of risk drowning in an effort to rescue her from belowdecks.”
“You are welcome,” I say, and the ship lurches. I am flung forward into the railing. Golmarr and O
Enzio grabs my shoulders to steady me. “Are you hurt?” he asks, peering into my eyes.
“No, I am fine. What just happened? Did we hit the reef?”
“We have stopped moving,” Yeb says, his voice filled with both wonder and dread. “Drop anchor!” Ornald and Enzio hurry away, and a moment later the anchor makes a deep splash as it hits the water. With every clank of the lowering chain, my heart accelerates. We have arrived.
The rising sun gleams off towering white cliffs that jut up out of the dark sea. Where the cliffs and the shore meet, the ground is black and merges with the water, making it look like ink has spilled around the island’s base and is bleeding into the ocean. Smaller islands trail out from the main island, separated by thin channels of dark water. Gnarled, stunted vegetation—small blurs of dull green—shoot out of cracks in the cliff. A steep pathway switches back and forth up the stone cliff face before disappearing into a wide, jagged split in the rock. It is the only sign of civilization.
I take the telescope from my eye, and the sharp details of Draykioch shrink. The ship is a good mile from shore, anchored a mere stone’s throw from a massive coral reef that surrounds the whole island as far as I can see from my perch in the crow’s nest.
The water is crystal clear here, as pristine and flawless as the finest glass windows in my mother’s castle, making the coral reef starkly visible. All around the reef sit the sunken remains of hundreds of ships. I am floating above a ship graveyard, and I can’t help but wonder if the ship beneath my feet will be the next addition.