The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)
Bethany Wiggins
This story is dedicated to my son, GRW, for the gift of the dragon’s scale.
Today is my sixteenth birthday. I am wearing a gown I can barely walk in, my artfully styled hair is giving me a headache, and I feel like I am going to throw up.
“Hurry! Bend down!” Nona snaps, tugging on my shoulder with frigid fingers. “I can hear them marching down the hall!” I lean forward and she quickly fastens a gold tiara in my hair just as the chamber door swings open. I jump as four armed guards stride in.
“Princess Sorrowlynn, we are hereby ordered to escort you to the opening ceremony of the Mountain Binding,” says the tallest guard, Ornald. It sounds like a death sentence, and my hands begin to tremble, so I clutch the delicate fabric of my skirt in them and square my shoulders.
The guards studiously do not look at me, staring instead at the gray stone wall behind me. I glance from them to Nona, who is slouching in the corner of my bedchamber and chewing on her thumbnail. She stops chewing long enough to nod and wave me toward the guards.
“I don’t want to go.” My voice quivers like I am on the verge of tears, and I take a tiny step backward.
Ornald scowls and stops studying the wall to look at me. “If you don’t come by choice, my lady, I have been instructed to drag you to the courtyard. Please don’t make me do that. That’s no way for a Faodarian princess to make her grand entrance into society, is it?” he asks, his eyes pleading.
“Instructed by whom?” I ask.
Ornald frowns. “Beg pardon, my lady?”
“Who instructed you to drag me? My mother or my father?”
The guard clears his throat and puckers his mouth like he is about to spit, but then stops himself. He tugs on the collar of his red uniform and says, “Lord Damar, your father, instructed me to drag you if you don’t comply. Let’s show him you’ve grown into a lady and can follow orders.” A small smile softens Ornald’s square face. “You look like a lady today, my lady.”
I glance into the mirror. My light brown hair is braided in a crown around my head, the golden tiara gleaming in front of it. The sapphire-blue dress I have been stuffed into is low-cut, and the corset gives me double the curves that I normally have. The eyes staring back at me are on the verge of panic. I do not know this woman I am looking at. I feel trapped in her body.
“Princess Sorrowlynn?” I blink and turn away from my reflection. Ornald holds his arm out to me even though it is forbidden for guards to touch royalty. It is a gesture that would get him demoted if he weren’t already the lowest man in the guard despite his being one of the older men. But somehow that tiny gesture offering human contact sends a bit of courage through my trembling body.
I swallow, put my frigid hand on the red sleeve of his uniform, and nod. “Ready,” I whisper, and together we walk into the shadowed passage.
The walk through the palace goes by too fast, even with me tripping on my skirts every three steps. My mother and father are waiting for me by the palace doors. Both of their gazes go directly to my hand, resting on the arm of a lowly guard, and my father’s face turns crimson. My mother purses her lips and her blue eyes narrow. I quickly clasp my hands behind my back as Ornald steps away from me.
“Who dressed you?” my mother snaps, eyeing my gown. Her perfume is so strong that I can barely breathe.
“Nona,” I say. She is the only person who has dressed me since the day I was born.
“Your corset is too loose. Has she forgotten how to string a corset?” Her eyes flash accusations at me.
Probably, considering this is the first time I have ever worn one in my life, I think, but hold my tongue. One does not talk back to the queen.
Outside, a horn blares, a clarion call announcing the looming arrival of our guests of honor, and the irritation disappears from my mother’s face and is replaced with majestic indifference. She lifts her chin and grasps her silver-and-gray skirt in one hand, and lays her other hand on my father’s proffered arm.
Two guards throw open the massive double doors leading out to the palace’s courtyard, and my mother and father walk outside into evening sunlight. They are greeted by the cheering and applause of a massive crowd. Ornald gives me a small shove forward, and I stumble from the shadows into sunshine. Regaining my balance, I grasp my skirts in both my hands and climb a small staircase that leads to a raised dais.