The Princess's Dragon (34 page)

She would find a way to love Derek again, but even if she couldn’t, she decided that she could still be the perfect wife and show him all the loyalty and devotion he showed her.

Once she’d made up her mind to accept Derek’s proposal, she realized she needed to convince him to propose. What if he didn’t want her anymore either?

Then she remembered his kiss, the barest pressure of his lips brushing hers and the way his own eyes glazed over immediately afterward. No, she decided, he did still want her, but he was being noble, allowing her to reacquaint herself with him and her life. She appreciated it, but now she was going to let him know that she wanted a new life, with him. If she had to be so bold as to actually tell him so, she would.

She pushed her love for Tolmac into a corner of her heart, locking it away, aware that she would never truly be free from it, but determined to move on

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anyway. She spent the remainder of the cycle planning her seduction of Derek, anxious to move forward now that she’d made her decision. That evening she made her way back to her chambers, her guards close behind.

When they reached her chambers she proceeded inside, leaving them to guard the doors. She imagined they were grateful to be away from her. Though her family accepted her transformation with remarkable calm, the rest of the citizens of Ariva, including the guards, soldiers, and servants, regarded her with mingled fear and awe. They appreciated what she had done for them but they feared her and no one had completely forgotten the black dragon that followed her, though he certainly forgot Sondra easily enough. She answered no questions about him and no one dared push the issue, but it left many citizens casting fearful glances at the sky though they tried to hide it from her.

Inside her room, Elona’s chambermaid waited for her with a message from Elona. Apparently her sister had something she wished to tell Sondra, but she didn’t want anyone to overhear it. She had devised a plan to sneak Sondra from her chambers by dressing her up as the maid. The guards never really looked at the maids, only at what they carried with them. The chambermaid brought with her a uniform and said she would meet Elona around the corner of the hall to take her to where her sister waited. She urged Sondra to hurry, and then slipped from the room.

Sondra thought the whole situation was a little bit silly and childish but the constant presence of her guards, the way she felt imprisoned in this castle, and the hunger for a new adventure to distract her saw her slipping awkwardly out of her own gown with Liliana’s disapproving assistance and into the maid’s uniform. She tucked her long braid under the maid’s cap, ducked her head, and snatched up the tray she’d finished eating from several hours before.

That was another unfortunate side effect of her new reputation—servants did not respond with the same speed as before. She imagined that they drew lots belowstairs to decide who had to serve as her chambermaid that cycle. Her old chambermaid had been reassigned after her funeral. Fortunately, Liliana, her lady’s maid, was returned to her from the post she had been assigned to assisting one of the lesser noblewoman that served as ladies-in-waiting to Sarai.

Liliana was the only servant who didn’t cringe or cower from Sondra, but that was hardly surprising since she was really more sister than servant.

This night she made her opinions quite clear; she wasn’t happy with this arrangement. Something didn’t seem right. Sondra waved away her reservations 204

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and slipped out the door laden with the tray, trying to carry herself as she felt a servant might. Sure enough, the two guards chatting outside her door barely glanced up as the short maid hustled by, plates and covers rattling. She heard one whisper something to the other, and they both broke into laughter behind her. Her cheeks burned as she tried not to imagine what they could have been discussing, and she started missing the layer of invisible armor that royalty afforded its women, protection from the lewd comments and actions of men, that servants and commoners did not have.

She met Elona’s maid around the corner and quietly set down the tray before hurrying after the girl. They moved away from Elona’s chamber and toward the servant’s stairs, and the girl only urged her onward at her whispered inquiry. Soon they moved through the same shadowed corridors that Sondra had once snuck out of on a night that seemed so far away, a night that had changed her entire life. She followed the slender girl down the stairs and out to the kitchen gardens. Just outside the door in the shadowed garden sheltered from the heat and chaos of the kitchen, the maid turned and took one last look at Sondra before hurrying off.

Sondra looked around for her sister and was just turning back to the kitchen, obeying the slight tingle of fear caused by the maid’s strange behavior, when a rough, filthy hand clapped over her mouth, cutting off her scream. She struggled in terror, kicking and trying to bite, her hands clawing at the heavy coarse fabric covering muscular arms that closed around her like bands on a barrel. The man knocked her out with one punch to the side of her head, and Sondra fell limp in his arms. He trussed her up and loaded her into the secret compartment on the smuggler’s cart, finished unloading the barrels he was ostensibly at the castle to deliver, and then hopped in the driver’s seat and slapped the reins. The horses kicked into a trot, pulling the cart, loaded with the princess, away from the castle.

That same night, Lord Derek received a note from Princess Elona to meet in the library. He debated ignoring the missive, with its single and uninformative line: I must speak with you about a matter of grave urgency. Still, Derek’s survival had often depended on him obeying a hunch and now he had a hunch that this message and this meeting were very important.

He made haste, throwing on a tunic and overcoat, and pulling on his boots before he raced from his chamber. He reached the royal library only a short time after the servant delivered the missive to him at his. He knocked softly

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at the library door and entered at Elona’s call. He was surprised to see her in a dressing gown, her hair bound up. He was even more surprised and increasingly alarmed to see the two guards he’d personally set on duty at Sondra’s room that day waiting with Elona and Sondra’s lady’s maid, Liliana. His alarm turned to full-scale panic when Liliana explained that Sondra had snuck out of her room to meet Elona but when Liliana bravely sought out the eldest princess with her concerns it was to discover that Elona had never sent her chambermaid with such a message. The guards knew nothing, and Lord Derek sent them to search the castle for the chambermaid, the traitorous bitch who was no doubt counting her gold and planning her escape.

It took until sunbirth to find the girl, and she was indeed planning on escape. She’d already reached the city gates when the guards there, stopping everyone who went through, discovered her. They locked her in the castle dungeon, interrogated her, and it was discovered that she knew very little save that a rough-looking man approached her on the previous cycle while she was out shopping in the city. He promised her gold to perform a simple task for him. She swore tearfully that she didn’t know the princess would be in any danger and believed she led the princess to a secret assignation.

Lord Derek wanted the girl executed, but the king and queen chose banishment instead. The gold the girl received in payment provided them with the best clue, as it displayed Halidor’s priest king on the front and an image of Morbidon’s skull helm on the back.

Lord Derek set out that very same day in the hopes of catching up to the kidnappers before they reached the border, but it seemed hopeless; he had no idea who they were or how they would be traveling. He could only pray to the gods that the thieves would make a careless mistake and leave behind a clue.

He added that prayer to the others for Sondra’s safety and well being. The images of what might be done to her haunted him on his lonely ride. Worse, he had failed her a second time after vowing to protect her, and this time could be her last.

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CHAPTER 21

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Sondra awoke with a splitting headache to discover herself trapped within a wooden cart in some kind of compartment. Th e

bouncing of the cart slammed her back and forth into the walls, and she stifl ed her cries as each impact slammed spikes into her damaged skull. Th e

pain served the purpose of taking her mind off her fear. Abject terror would be a better description, and as Sondra ran her hands along the confi nes of the compartment she brought away splinters and the knowledge that only the top lifted up— and it appeared to be locked closed. She was trapped in this tiny space without food or water and, as always seems to happen while in mortal peril, an uncomfortably full bladder.

She barely discerned the sounds of a whip cracking over the cart horses and the sound of a man’s voice speaking with an uncultured and foreign accent.

The only other sounds she heard were the ceaseless and relentless rolling of the cartwheels over uneven roads, carrying her to an uncertain future. She didn’t hold out much hope of escape. She had no idea where she was, who held her captive, or why, but she could reason with certainty that whatever her captives wanted she wouldn’t want to give up willingly.

Sondra remained awake and tried to distract herself by employing logical formulas to her dilemma. She made mental lists, cataloguing the details of her situation, her potential enemies, what she might know that would put her in danger; whatever she could think of. Mainly she spent the time fighting back the fear and mind-numbing panic. By the time the cart halted and the trap door opened she was ready to do one of two things: scream in insane terror or wet herself.

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Fortunately, she managed to do neither, and a huge, grizzled man wearing homespun flaxweed tunic and trousers that hadn’t seen a wash bucket in ages, yanked her out and tied a rope around her hands. He dragged her over to some trees, and Sondra recognized the royal parklands just a cycle’s ride from Ariva.

They were heading south, but she was still in her home country; she might still escape.

“You use that tree; I don’t want you messin’ up my cart.” The man shoved her roughly and Sondra didn’t hesitate. She’d been a dragon; she could handle relieving herself crouching behind a tree while a pungent and shifty kidnapper waited on the other side. Besides, it felt so good to finally be free of the cramping pain that she almost forgot where she was, until the man jerked on the rope and yanked her back to reality.

She jumped up and quickly set the maid’s dress back to rights. The man shoved her toward the cart and she balked, unwilling to trade the relative freedom of the parklands for the cramped confines of the cart. She had no idea when or if he would let her out again. When she stopped he raised a meaty fist to punch her again, and Sondra moved on her own. She didn’t have a chance of escaping as long as she remained unconscious.

He lifted her back in the cart as effortlessly as if she were an empty barrel and tossed a hunk of moldy bread and a skin of water in after her. He leered down at her just before he closed the trap door. “You try anything, I’ll forget that I was ordered to bring you to my employer untouched, you understand me.” His eyes roved over her body in the maid’s uniform, his fat tongue licking lips, thick like sausages. Sondra shuddered and turned away from him. She heard the door slam and the meager twilight disappeared.

Sondra choked down the bread and took small sips of the warm water, determined to keep her strength up to face whoever employed this cretin to kidnap her and deliver her. She supposed she should be grateful that they’d insisted she remain untouched. She shivered with repulsion at the thought of that man molesting her in such a way. She didn’t know what her kidnappers planned for her, but she liked to think of herself as a realist. They may not want her touched because they may want to do something to her themselves. She spent the remainder of her cart ride promising herself she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of screaming, until she finally fell into an uneasy slumber.

Her captor let her out two more times on the journey before he finally declared that they’d arrived. She crouched awake in her compartment when 208

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the cart rolled to a stop the final time. She heard more men talking to the fat man then heard a thump as something struck the seat beside him. The man responded in the same language as the other man, and both men laughed, while the third moved around the side of the cart.

Sondra didn’t speak Halidorian but she’d heard diplomats from that country speak it, and this language sounded similar, if not the same. Judging by the length of the trip and the basic geography of the land she should be in …

“Oh gods, I’m going to scream,” she thought, her logical consideration failing to distract her when the third man opened the trapdoor and looked in.

He was dressed like a guard or a soldier, wearing the same lack of expression on his clean-cut face as any other soldier in her own castle. The uniform he wore identified him as a Halidorian, the Morbidion helm ghoulish on the black background. The soldier glanced down at her, turned and signaled the other man, and the two bodily lifted her from the cart. They set her down but didn’t release her arms, and she glanced back at her original kidnapper.

He waved mockingly then slapped the ribbons and his horses started forward.

Sondra stuck her tongue out at his back.

The soldiers escorted her roughly but dispassionately into a crumbling manor. Sondra didn’t get much opportunity to study the exterior or the interior, but she did note that the steps to the upper level had nearly disintegrated. The soldiers took her down a hall on the first floor and thrust her into a room furnished with a single cot, a chair, and barred windows. She turned just as they slammed the iron-studded door behind them and she heard the key turn in the lock.