I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could see his face, if only so I could properly glare at him. “Just tell me, Tormund.”
A beat passed. “There will be a reason you were cursed, and a fairly simple way to undo it.”
A hectic drumming sounded in my ears, and after a moment, I realized it was the thunder of my beating heart. An eerie chill seemed to sweep through the cavern, lingering on the back of my neck like icy fingers. Tormund’s words seemed to cut to my very bone. They made me want to leave him in the pit and flee from this place, though I had no idea why they’d caused this kind of reaction.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I eventually said. “I wasyou knowas a babe. I did nothing to cause this.”
“Curses don’t happen for no reason, Astrid. Whoever did it did so for a reason, especially if you were so young you can’t even remember it.”
I threw up my hands. “Perhaps I cried too loudly, I don’t know. Maybe someone got annoyed by all the noise and wanted to punish me.”
“It could be that, I’ll admit,” said Tormund. “But often, there’s some kind of lesson involved. Learn it. Accept it. And I bet your curse will break.”
“Let me guess. You think I should stop wanting to go outside.”
“You said it. Not me,” came the reply.
I was starting to get tired of having a conversation with a pit of darkness. Sighing, I wrapped my hands around the rope and eased back. The emptiness yawned beneath me, beckoning me to leap into its less-than-gentle embrace. Tormund had said he’d catch me if I fell, but what if the boulder rolled in after me, like I’d worried it would do to him?
“You’ve got this, Astrid. Easily. Believe in your damn self for once,” he called up.
He was right. I could do this. Without letting my thoughts talk me out of it, I pushed off the ledge. The ground opened up beneath me. I swung to the left, my feet dangling. Then I twisted the rope between my thighs and began my descent. Hand over hand, I went down. Only seconds later, my feet made contact with the ground, and all the tension flooded from my body. That had been easy. What had I been so worried about?
“See?” Tormund appeared before me, beaming. “You’re incredible.”
I flushed. “Thank you.”
“You can do anything you put your mind to,” he murmured.
“Like leave this mountain?”
“You don’t like what I said. I thought that might be the case.” He rubbed the base of his horns, then sighed. “It would make things so much simpler for you if you understood what I’m trying to tell you, but I suppose that’s the entire point. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a curse. No matter. We’ll find another way.”
“If what you’re saying is true, it probably wouldn’t even work now. To give up on going outside so that I can then go outside is kind of the opposite of what needs to happen. I would actually have to give up.”
“Ah, but there you’re wrong.” He tapped me on the nose. “It’s not giving up anything. It’s embracing what you have. Now, come on.”
He took off across the cavern. The low cave stretched far in every direction, and over a dozen tunnels forked off from this area. Water gushed from a large crack, pouring into a river that snaked through the room toward a pond. The scent of ash overwhelmed the moss and stone, tempting my attention toward a low crack in the wall, barely large enough for one person if they were on their belly in a crawl. A glowing ember light spilled from it, flashing dancing shadows on the wall.
I pointed at said crack. “There’s a dragon through there, isn’t there?”
“That or someone has made themselves a camp in the middle of this cave system. Which I suppose is possible, though highly unlikely.”
“All right.” I squared my shoulders. “Let’s go.”
“Astrid, wait.” Tormund grabbed my hand, stopping me before I got more than a few steps away from him. He pulled me back and tugged me up against him. My hands squashed between my breasts and his chest because I had no idea what else to do with them. I couldn’t very wellwrap them around his waist, now could I?
“What is it?” My words came out in a whisper.
“This could be dangerous. I don’t know if we should go in there without knowing what we’ll find.”
Right. That was what this was about. Safety. Not kissing me.
I pulled out of his arms. “It’s just an adolescent dragon. One of Rivelin’s, probably. And his dragons are friendly.”
“What if it’s not one of his? What if it’s something else?”
“What else could it be?” I shook my head at him. He’d been so determined to come down here, I hadn’t expected this sudden uncertainty.
