The sound of muffled screams resonates through the clearing, and faces are pressed against wagon windows, watching.
The glass dragon’s black wings fold against its dark green back, and it blinks red eyes as it studies me. Instead of the spiraled horns the fire dragon had, a stag’s horns, black as midnight, shoot out from this dragon’s head like twin branches that touch the forest canopy. I hear its laughter in my head and want to run. You defeated Zhun? You? it croons, its words quiet and tempered. I quiver and cling to my staff, and wonder what to do. From the corner of my eye, I see Golmarr draw his sword and dart out of the wagon circle, so it is just me facing the glass dragon.
My knees tremble, and my hands grow damp against the wood of my staff. “You will die by your own hand, Sorrowlynn,” I whisper to myself. I find enough courage to call, “Leave me alone, and I will never breathe a word.”
The dragon hisses and swings its tail, slamming it into a canary-yellow wagon. The side of the wagon is smashed to bits, and it tips over. A man and woman and three children climb out of the ruined wagon and run to another, but the dragon’s eye doesn’t even glance toward them.
The problem with humans is they never keep their promises. Pain and money are the great tools to make a fool talk. If I have learned one thing in my long life, it is to never trust a human, it says, and my mind is filled with so much hatred that I gag on the vile taste of it.
The glass dragon’s muscles flex beneath its thick green scales, and it lashes its tail at me. I dive to the side and roll out of the way, and then spring back to my feet, brandishing my flimsy pine staff like it actually might be a formidable weapon against a dragon.
The creature laughs again, a sound so loud and grating that I throw my hands over my ears and whimper, but the laughter is coming from inside of my head. I cannot stop it no matter how I try. The laughter quiets, and I peer at the dragon just in time to see it pull its head backward and then thrust it at me, mouth open so wide I can see past its rows of fangs, deep into the blackness of its throat.
My body acts without a thought. I lift my arm over my shoulder and throw my staff as hard as I can, right at the deepest part of the dragon’s throat. As the weapon leaves my hand, I fall to the ground, swinging the cloak over me and pulling it tight around my head and shoulders.
The smell of winter engulfs me. Icy air whips at the cloak, blowing it from my ankles. Searing cold bites at my bare skin, and I scream. The cloak grows tighter, pressing on me, squeezing against my body until my bones want to crack, and I cannot move. The ground beneath my forehead turns frigid as a fine dusting of ice crawls over it like hair-thin veins, and then my hair freezes. I struggle to breathe against the pressure of the cloak but can barely inhale.
Someone yells something, and I recognize Golmarr’s voice. “Help!” I gasp. The sound stays trapped in the cloak. I dig my fingers into the frosty ground and push against the cloak with all my strength, but I cannot move.
The cloak shudders around me, and then I feel it crack and split, allowing me to gasp a breath of air so cold I feel it stab into the deepest part of my lungs. The cloak cracks again and is tugged away from my head. Warm hands claw at my shoulders, and I stare into the frantic face of Edemond. “Hurry, lass!” he barks. He is holding a frost-tipped ax in his hand.
I try to move, but my feet are stuck. Edemond pulls harder against my shoulders, and I feel ice scrape my bare, numb ankles, feel the leather shoes torn from my feet, and then I can move. I crawl out of the frozen cloak and let Edemond drag me to the wagon I slept in. He shoves me inside and pulls the door shut behind us, slipping a wooden bar in place to lock it. “The young Antharian horse lord,” Edemond says, his voice filled with excitement. He presses his face to the window and motions me over. “Look! The creature fears him!”
Trembling with cold, I stand beside Edemond at the small window. The clearing looks like something from a fairy tale. The foliage and wildflowers have been perfectly preserved beneath a thick layer of crystal-clear ice, and the trees look made of colored glass. I see my green cloak, frozen to the ground like the cracked shell of a turtle, and shudder.
At the farthest edge of the clearing, Golmarr is standing before the glass dragon, his curved sword held in both of his hands. The blade gleams a pale blue in the light of dawn. The beast’s head is lowered so it is level with Golmarr, and it is circling him, its massive claws shattering the ice with every step. It pulls its head back to blast him with cold air, but Golmarr uses the motion to his advantage, leaping forward and slashing.