She looked away. Her slim shoulders sagged.
He disliked seeing her bright spirit flagging. He watched her for a moment, then another and another, puzzled that one of her kind could captivate him so much. His wily dragon mind twisted and turned.
He nudged her with his snout. “What if I was wounded?”
Her gaze snapped to his, hope blooming in her amber eyes. She was just as arresting with her face softened as she’d been with her look of fierce concentration when she charged into battle.
Draknart handed her knife back, his blood on the blade, then rummaged through the dry leaves that covered the ground, tossed aside a couple of old bones until he found the talon he’d torn out when he’d enlarged the cave a century ago.
“You tell them you fought the dragon and injured him. Let them celebrate.”
Happy people worked harder. They took risks and tried new ways, which more often than not led to success. In no time, the village would thrive again, and they would leave him alone for another couple of decades. Although, if the old gods saw fit to favor him, Draknart’s firm preference was for the next plague to take the whole village.
As Einin of Downwood reached for the talon he held out for her, her slim fingers brushed against the tip of Draknart’s extended wing, sending warmth skittering over his leathery skin.
Einin’s voice wavered with disbelief as she asked, “You would allow me to leave?”
As a raven called outside, Draknart stilled.
He was dreaded. He was the ancient dragon, the great devil in the hills. He consumed his enemies. He did not return a sacrifice.
For certain, he did not wish to let her go. He shouldn’t. Sooner or later, she would tell someone the truth, then they would think he’d grown old and feeble. Or worse, soft and fond of people.
Next he knew, they’d be asking him to help with bringing in the harvest and raising barns. They’d be up at the cave with one request or another, not leaving him a moment of peace. The thought of all the caterwauling was enough to make him shudder.
And yet…
He looked her hard in the eyes. “In exchange for the talon, you must swear to return to me, of your own will, in a fortnight. Are you, Einin of Downwood, willing to pay the dragon’s price?”
Chapter Two
Half a dozen womensurrounded the stone lip of the village well, chattering as they took turns drawing water. A raven circled high above them.
“You seen the weddin’ cakes?” Esbeth, the miller’s daughter asked the other two new wives next to her, heads bent together. “A full dozen. ’Nough to feed the whole village.”
“You seen the dowry?” Dorin replied. “Two goose-down pillows, a wool blanket, a cast iron pot, and a skillet, six tin plates. Six!” She rolled her eyes. “And who are they expectin’ to dinner? The queen?”
Einin stood next to them, but they didn’t include her in the conversation. If they looked at her at all, it was to shoot her wary glances. Having returned from the dragon a fortnight before—with a talon!—set her apart.
Virgins went to the dragon to die as sacrifice. They did not return, not one, not ever before. Einin stuck out of order, like a protruding nail from a sitting bench. People’s gazes and thoughts snagged on her every time she passed by. ’Twas as if the dragon had tainted her somehow.
As the matron in front of her finished with the well, picked up her buckets, and hurried away, Einin stepped up to the stone lip. She did not intend to go back to the great beast. In time, people would forget about her unusual adventure, and everything would go back to normal.
The dragon had likely already forgotten her. Einin was but a no-account village maiden, small prey. The beast would have fed by now and gone back to sleep.
His kind could sleep a decade at a time, the old folks said. Who knew, by the time he awakened again and remembered her, if he remembered, Einin could be married and long gone to another village. He’d never find her.
Or would he? Would he come in wrath and destroy Downwood and everyone in it? That was the thought that kept Einin up at night. Her heart clenched. She had given her word.
She bit her lip as she drew water, feeling as wretched as when she’d first volunteered to be the sacrifice. She’d gone to the cave that once, had worked up the nerve. She didn’t think she could do it again. She’d changed her mind at least twice a day in the past two weeks.
She drew another bucket of water, then stepped back.
Agna, who had been a friend to Einin’s mother moved up to the well’s lip next. She was swollen with her twelfth child, a woman considered lucky in the village as all but five of her children were living. As Agna reached for the well’s bucket, the sleeve of her worn brown dress rode up, revealing the imprint of her husband’s fingers. As she leaned forward a little more, she flinched, as if she had other, hidden injuries.
Einin leaped to help. “Let me.”
With a grateful smile and a tired nod, Agna shuffled aside, just as her youngest daughter ran up to her with a bruised knee, crying.
