Chapter 20
M y heart continued to rebel as I packed up a few belongings the next morning, placing them in the same cloth bag I’d brought with me. I paused as I considered the blue gown. Should I take it? It might give me something to do in the evenings, as I sat with my family in the cottage.
My fingers brushed the lovely blue satin…then released it.
No. Leaving it here would signal to the dragon that I intended to come back. Which I did. For now. Also, I’d no notion of how many evenings I would spend with my family. The dragon had not said. One day? Two? Three? A fortnight? I would not know until I was there and then the beast came for me.
I will leave it here, I decided and finished stuffing a few personal items into my cloth bag.
Finished, I took a cloak from a peg in the wardrobe and placed both the bag and the cloak on the bed .
“I am ready, Dragon,” I announced, glancing about the stone room, empty except for myself. Yet I had no doubts he could somehow hear me. “Whenever you are.”
Which was no time soon. In fact, the dragon did not come at all that day. Neither did his human counterpart. I paced the bedchamber impatiently, waiting for him to join me and keep his promise. Finally, sadly, as the evening meal had appeared and then vanished away and the lights in my room began to dim, signaling it was bedtime, I acknowledged I had been duped. The dragon had no intention of keeping his word and taking me home.
Try as I might, I couldn’t forget how he’d clasped my hand in his, or how his thumb had rubbed against my knuckle—caressing, soothing.
He said he would do it, a stubborn part of my heart vouched. He will come.
“When?” I grumbled aloud, picking up my kit and cloak from the bed and dropping it heartlessly onto the floor. “Next week? Month? Year? Ten years from now?”
Exasperated, exhausted by rising and smothered hope, I collapsed onto the bed, turned my face into the pillow, and sniffed away tears.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I am not powerless. I wrung the promise from him. He will keep it. I will not cry. I will not…
I fell asleep.
“Lorna.”
A voice. An audible voice, low and clear, loud enough to wrest me from my dreams.
“Lorna.”
“Who is it?” I gasped, sitting upright. My head whipped from side to side, seeking the speaker, but all I saw were the deep shadows of my room.
“Follow me, Lorna,” spoke the voice .
The dragon.
“Where are you?” I demanded, for his human form was not in my bed and the dragon would not fit inside this chamber.
Rather than a man or beast, I saw a light. A glow.
“Lorna, follow me,” the voice insisted.
The light moved. Was I to follow it? Was this what he meant?
Hope charged my heart like electricity charging a storm. I leapt from my bed, ignoring the cold floor on my bare feet as I ran into the curtained-off corner of my room where I’d left a change of clothes hanging, just in case. My fingers trembled, slipping as I tied laces and fastened buttons. They slipped worse as I fought to bind my hair into a braid. I’m sure the resulting effort was as messy as could be, but it was dark and who was to see?
Dashing out, I slipped on my shoes, donned the cloak, and grabbed my bag. Sliding my arm through the strap, I secured it across my chest and ran towards the light.
“I am ready,” I announced breathlessly, as if the dragon, the light, the magic—whoever was speaking to me and guiding me—didn’t know. “Let us go.”
There was no verbal reply, but the light led me down cool corridors, dank from the smell of stone and underground. We trod mazes that would have left me spinning in circles if I’d attempted them solo. The journey took so long that a niggling fear crept into my mind—that he was leading me astray and not into freedom, as I’d hoped.
Suppose this is a rouse? Suppose he’s moving your prison rather than taking you home? Suppose…
No. Stop supposing, I told myself firmly. Fear does you no good.
Encouraged, I clung to the knowledge that, frightening as he may be and unpleasant as my predicament may have been, the dragon had not hurt me. And then I saw a path of shimmering darkness, illuminated by the moon shining on a frosty, sparkling landscape.
I stopped, cold prickling my skin. My lips parted in awe at a sight that I’d seen a million times in my life and taken for granted.
The sky. The moon. Stars, millions of them, twinkling their joy at my first breath of freedom.
I’m out of the cave! He told the truth. He’s taking me home.
Intense joy welled up from the bottom of my heart, spiraling from my core and throughout my entire being.
He’s taking me home!
“Lorna.”
The light bobbed impatiently, gleaming on the powdery white snow.
Oh!
Dashing away the tears with the edge of my hand, I sped after it to a shape that emerged from the shadow of the hillside, darker than the landscape itself.
The dragon.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I ran to the dragon. As I stepped onto his knee to clamber onto his back, I couldn’t help recalling the first time I’d had to unwillingly mount this beast, when he’d flown me from my island and into the unknown. How full of fear I’d been then, of both the dragon and the future. Now, I settled myself onto his spine without a twinge of fear towards the beast, and only relief and happiness for the future.
The immediate future.
In the back of my mind was a piercing sadness as the dragon flapped his wings to catch the wind. I turned my head, glancing over my shoulder at the looming darkness of the snow-covered cave from which I’d emerged. I’d have to come back. I knew I couldn’t rely on the dragon’s generosity to free me.
Not yet.
Nevertheless, even if I were compelled to come back, it wouldn’t be permanent.
I made this vow as the dragon rose into the air, climbing higher and higher on invisible updrafts, heading into the boundless night pierced by limitless stars.
I am Lorna of the Jeweled Isles, I told myself, as I clutched the dragon’s neck to dispel any fears of falling, and I will not live forever a prisoner to a dragon or a mysterious man. I will forge my own destiny.