I shrugged as best I could in the cramped conditions. While Lilia had told me many stories about Rivelin and his dragons, I’d never set eyes on them myself. Rivelin had never wanted toleave Hearthaven to visit The Glass Peaks, and so his dragons had never ventured this far from home. Until now, at least.
Although if this dragon’s hoard was any indication, she’d been here a while.
If she wasn’t one of Rivelin’s dragons, my questions were endless. First—and most importantly—why did it look like there were some chocolate bars in one of the open trunks? But second, was she friendly? If I climbed out of this little crack in the wall, would she roast me, or would she listen to what I had to say?
Tormund’s thoughts seemed to follow a similar pattern. Maybe minus the chocolate. He tugged on my sleeve and jerked his chin in the direction we’d come. He wanted to get out of here.
No, thank you.
He’d been encouraging me to believe in myself. Well, now was the time to put his advice into practice. I grinned and patted his arm—awkwardly so, what with how we were crawling around on our bellies. Then I shoved myself forward, out of the tunnel, and right onto a very hard and pointy bed of gold coins.
They jingled a jaunty little tune, blending with the sound of my bells. I froze and held my breath, palms slick against the coins. The dragon didn’t flinch. She continued to sleep, her nostrils flaring with every breath. My fingers itched to rip the bells from my hair. I wore them so often, I’d sort of forgotten I’d left them there. And now it was too late to do a damn thing about them.
Tormund emphatically waved at me from the tunnel. Ignoring him, I pushed up onto my knees and released my hand from the ground. A few gold coins stuck to my palms, then fell. One by one.
Clink.
Clink.
CLIIIIIIINK.
I squeezed my eyes tight and braced myself for a fiery impact.
None came.
Biting the insides of my cheeks, I squinted open a single eye, like that would be safer than opening the both of them. Still, the dragon slept.
I craned my head over my shoulder, shuddering from the impact of my heart against my ribs. Tormund’s face was grim. He crawled forward, emerging from the tunnel. I shook my head at him, motioning for him to return to the shadows. I was much smaller than him, and my hair was a similar enough to the color of the sunstones. I might not stand out amongst her treasures if I remained still when the dragon opened her eyes.
Tormund, however, was unmissable. His shadows seemed to swallow up all the surrounding light, and his pale, midnight blue skin was a stark contrast to the gold of the coins. But instead of ducking back into the safety of the tunnel, he moved toward me. His heavy boots hit the treasure mountain, and the coins rushed sideways, tumbling over each other in a waterfall of gold.
I clenched my teeth, shooting daggers with my eyes. I swore to the gods, if he got himself eaten by a dragon, then I’d…well, I’d find a way to bring him back to life just so I could remind him just how monstrously large his ego was for coming in here like this.
I can handle this on my own!
I tried to send him that message with my eyes, but he was too focused on the dragon to notice—or too busy avoiding my gaze after the whole kiss thing. Maybe both.
I folded my arms. How utterly unsurprising. Not only had he immediately regretted our kiss, but now he couldn’t meet my eyes. When I continued shooting daggers—sharper this time—and he continued to avoid me, I loosed an exasperated sigh and elbowed him.
“Astrid,” he said in a soft whisper, “is nowreallythe time for this?”
“The time for what?” I hissed. “To talk about why you kissed me when you clearly didn’t want to?”
“Ididwant to,” he mouthed.
I rolled my eyes. “Right. Of course. And now you don’t want to, so you’re ignoring me even thoughI am standing right next to you inside a dragon’s lair.”
“I did try to stop you from coming in here, if you remember.”
“Oh, I remember everything,” I said bitterly. “The way you looked at me, the way you used your stupid shadow demon allure against me, and the way you turned it all off out of nowhere.”
“Astrid.” His eyes slid my way then. Regret and pain flared in their shadows. “You don’t want to get involved with me. Trust me. I’m sorry I got so carried away. You’re just…so damn beautiful I forgot myself.” He sighed and turned back to the dragon. “It won’t happen again.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t want.”
“Astrid.”
“No.” I took a step toward him, no longer caring about the clatter of the gold coins. “You can tell me you don’t want me or that you didn’t enjoy our kiss, though I know that’d be a lie. But what youcan’tdo is decide what I want.”
