Page 13 of The Last Dragon King
I pointed to the part that saidSign Hereand Kendal took her pen and drew a large X.
I looked at Regina for a split second and found that she watched me curiously.
What happened if I didn’t sign? Would it bring shame to Cinder Village? To my family? Would the king march in here himself and throw me over his saddle and take me by force? It didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. If I fought this, they might take me anyway but then refuse the offer of jade coins and food, and then where would I be?
I purposely didn’t look at my mother. I didn’t want to see her urgency for me to refuse.
I scanned the document to find that it said everything Regina had promised and it was signed by the king himself.
Five hundred jade coins.
I quickly did the math. We needed about fifteen jade coins per moon to get by. Five hundred meant that my mother and Adaline would have a full belly in a warm house for the nextthreewinters. It meant so many things for our life. And the contract said five hundred jade coinspermoon cycle. It didn’t say only one moon cycle. So I’d go there and I’d watch the king woo this Grim Hollow girl, all the while collecting my jade coins and yeasted breads. Then I’d come back fat and rich.
I grasped the pen and scribbled my name before I could convince myself to back out. My script was awful. I’d never practiced as much as the others in my scribe class, but my name was still legible on the line.
Arwen Novakson.
“Great. We should get going. We’d like to hit Gypsy Rock by nightfall.” Regina took the contracts from us and slipped them into her pouch. “Pack whatever you like. I’ll have the porter load the wagons.”
“It’s May Day! Can’t we have the dinner feast with them?” my mother asked, the disappointment apparent in her voice.
Regina sighed and faced my mother. “I’m really sorry, ma’am. We’ve been on the road for an entire moon. Traveled from Grim Hollow all the way up here. This is a matter of the crown, and cannot wait.”
With that, she clapped her hands as if to hurry us, and I strode across the room to my mother. When I reached her, she turned around and walked out, giving me her back. A pang of sadness and rejection rushed through me, and I trailed behind her.
“Follow them, Nox,” Regina told a fellow Drayken who was standing by the front door.
She didn’t trust me and I didn’t blame her. I’d tried to avoid this whole thing with a fake hunting trip, and my mother was being cagey and strange.
We didn’t speak the entire walk to our hut, and when we reached the door my mother asked Nox to wait outside, which he obliged.
When she finally walked back into my room and faced me, my gut tightened at the tears that ran down her face.
“I failed to protect you,” she said.
“What? No.” I rushed forward to console her. “Mother, I’m fine. There is some more powerful girl in Grim Hollow. He’ll marry her and forget about me and we’ll have five hundred jade coins!”
My mother shook her head. “What if your power grows each day? What if by the time your magic is tested you are more powerful than the Grim Hollow girl?”
“Then I’ll run away,” I murmured.
My mother looked at me disapprovingly. “He’s the dragon king of Embergate. There is nowhere you could go that he could not follow.”
Chills ran the length of my spine at her declaration.
My mother stepped forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. “If it looks like your power is discovered, and it’s clear that you might have a magic that is greater than even he contains—”
“Mother, that’s not possible!” She’d gone mad and was paranoid. Now I was really scared.
She leaned closer to me, her grip on my shoulders tightening. “Listen to me, Arwen. If itappearsto go that way, that your magic might be a threat to him somehow, then you make him fall in love with you so he won’t kill you. Understand?”
Kill me?Kill me because my power would be greater than his? Wasn’t that what he wanted?Maybe not. Maybe he wanted a woman with just enough power to give him an heir but not too much? Like Regina said, a man doesn’t want a woman stronger than him. Maybe that’s what had happened to the woman who’d birthed me.
For the first time since this whole thing started, I was genuinely terrified.
“How? How do I make him love me?”
Red colored my mother’s cheeks. “Your body can do certain things that a man craves. Make him think of that every time you are in the room, but don’t give it to him until you’re married.”
