To save everyone.
Even if it cost her everything.
After pulling on her trousers, she quickly dressed in her warmest frock coat and braided her hair down her back. She donned the breastplate of her armour, grabbed a dagger and some lamb strips, a roll of bandages and a waterskin, and stuffed them into her satchel.
With Elias leading the way, Greta slipped outside into the frigid morning air and hurried around the side of the palace. Candlelight flickered in the lower windows, as the servants rose to prepare for the king’s wedding. There was still much to do, and even though a part of Greta was afraid of the task that lay ahead of her, she was glad, at least, that she would not have to hear the violins serenading Princess Elva down the aisle or smell the midnight lilies that filled the halls.
The ground shook, scattering frost across her boots as they hurried across the front lawn. At a stern order from Elias, the palace guards opened the black gates, and they stalked on, towards the mountains, where mounds of fresh snow made a wall across the base of the slopes. They kicked their way through it, Greta’s teeth chattering viciously as she raised her oil lamp above her head.
After several minutes, they came to a familiar crevice on the other side of the wall. It was much wider than before. One of several that now sluiced through the vast mountainscape. Elias was right. The rock was splitting open, the peaks groaning as they began to cave in on themselves.
The beast had fallen quiet. It must have sensed they were drawing nearer.
‘How far down is it?’ she asked,as they slipped inside the mountain, giving themselves over to the damp, cloying dark.
‘That’s for you to figure out.’ Elias’s eyes flickered behind the flame of his lamp, as he stood back, ushering her in front of him. ‘Lead the way, wrangler.’
Greta frowned at the new edge in his voice. The fear in it had vanished, replaced by a strange kind of anticipation.
‘Move,’ he said, bouncing now on the balls of his feet. ‘Do your job.’
Unease trickled through Greta. For a moment, she thought about turning back. A part of her urged her to return to Grinstad, to wake Alarik and her brother, and tell them what she was planning, but then a familiar keening sounded from deep within the mountain.
The tunnel trembled.
Elias shifted, blocking the light from outside. ‘If you turn back now, you’ll damn us all.’
Steeling herself, Greta went into the darkness. Water dripped from the walls and plinked at her feet as she meandered through the tunnel, following the thread in her chest. They journeyed deeper and deeper, until the rest of the world faded away and the only light came from their flickering oil lamps.
When the tunnel narrowed and the ceiling sloped, Greta sensed they were close. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled. Elias followed her lead, his breath hitching in the silence. On and on, inch by inch, they went into the underside of the mountain, and further still, down into the frozen bowels of the earth, where the ground was so cold her fingers went numb.
‘Can you hear me,ancient one?’ she whispered to the squalid dark.
There came an answering huff from somewhere in the narrowing distance and then a burst of light so sudden and bright, Greta thought she was dreaming. It was followed by an immense blast of heat. It knocked her backwards, her head knocking against Elias’s chest.
She quickly righted herself, blinking through the pain to find the light was fading. But the warmth remained, and with it, curling plumes of silver smoke.
Dragon fire.
When she glanced at Elias over her shoulder, a terrible chill went through her.
The spymaster’s eyes were dark as midnight, his smile sharp and gleaming. ‘Regna was right about you,’ he said, with a low, silky chuckle. Gone was the mask of terror he had worn back in the palace, the worry he had feigned for his king. ‘You were the answer all along.’
‘What do you know of Regna’s opinions?’ she said, warily.
His smile grew. ‘I know she wants her dragon back. And you’re going to help me return it.’
Greta curled her fists to keep her hands from shaking. ‘And if I refuse?’
‘It’s not like anyone will find your body down here,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘Although I’m sure the mystery of your disappearance will haunt my arrogant brute of a cousin for life.’ A pause then, his expression turning thoughtful. ‘Until I find another way to end it, I suppose.’
Horror suffused Greta. As she sat crouched in the tunnel,with nowhere to go but into the fire, a startling thought occurred to her: here was another beast she had not counted on.
Elias, the spymaster.
Elias, the turncoat.
Danger faced her from both sides. Dragon and traitor. In that moment, she wasn’t sure which one she was more afraid of.
