Gold Flame (Dragons of Oblivion #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

LARELLIN

“It is a great honor.” The prioress pulls my dark hair back tightly, making my scalp flare with pain. “One you don’t deserve.”

“Then give the honor to someone else.” I let my tongue get the better of me.

Prioress Thani’s eyes flash in the bleary mirror, and she raises her hand.

“Father said no visible marks lest the monster refuse to take her,” Kanelden, Lord Rayid’s son, says in a bored tone.

He slurps down more of his wine, spilling some on his stained white tunic.

“It’s particularly difficult to find virgins in this town.

” He smirks in what he must think is a rakish way. “Thanks to me.”

All I feel for him is the same thing I’ve felt from the first moment we met so long ago at the market: disgust. Back then he’d been watching with delight as his guards beat a fruit seller for daring to ask for payment when Kanelden took nearly a bushel of apples for himself and his lordling friends.

Now, he’s an even bigger codpiece than he was then, and that’s saying something.

“You know, Larellin, I’ve never liked the way you look at me.” He narrows his eyes on me in the mirror.

I should drop my gaze. That’s the smart move. People like me aren’t supposed to do anything except serve. My mother tried to teach me that all my life. People like Kanelden are our betters, she’d tell me. They take care of us, make sure we’re safe from all the dangers outside our town walls.

So, no, I shouldn’t stare right back at him. But I do as the prioress continues to abuse my scalp. What do I have to lose now?

“There it is. That look right there.” He points at me with his wine glass. “As if somehow, despite being a gutter rat that’s one time on her back away from being a gutter whore, you think you’re better than me. Is that what’s going on in your peasant brain?”

I glare at him. But there’s no point to it. No way I can hurt him, no way for me to get out of this.

“Answer the lord,” Prioress Thani snaps.

“No,” I lie and finally give way, dropping my gaze and inspecting the splintery board at my feet. Even though it’s worn and gray, it’s still finer than the flooring of any house in the village.

Kanelden rises and sidles over to us as the prioress finishes my braid.

“Leave us.” He gestures to her.

“My lord, it is not appropriate for the sacrifice to be unchaperoned—”

“I’m not going to fuck her,” he barks. “Now get out!”

“Of course, my lord.” Prioress Thani, paling, curtseys and hurries from the room, the latch clicking as the air goes still.

Leaning over, Kanelden wafts the scent of wine and body odor into my nose, his hot breath on my cheek. “I’m glad the high priest drew your name from the Eternal Chalice.”

I look straight ahead, meeting my own eyes in the mirror as I try not to inhale his stench.

He moves closer, his mouth almost at my ear. “You know what I like to think about ever since that happy day? The way your mother wailed and had to be dragged from the cathedral.”

Her cry reverberates in my mind as he says it, and I can still see her teary face—both the day I was chosen and yesterday, when I was taken from her embrace and thrown into Lord Rayid’s carriage, then whisked to the palace under guard.

My heart rampages, desperate and angry, as he runs the back of his index finger down my cheek. It takes everything in me not to flinch away, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. I won’t let him know the depths of my fear.

He sighs. “It was wonderful. The entire scene a fantasy. I enjoyed every last bit of it. Her screams, the way she called your name. Too bad your father wasn’t there—too busy rotting in the ground, I suppose.”

“Don’t speak of my father.” My chin quivers.

“Why not?” He sneers. “A traitor like him deserv—”

I throw my elbow to the side, glancing off his chest. “He’s not a traitor!”

He grunts as I rise from my chair, fury in my blood, but he grabs me before I can take even a step away from him.

Yanking me into the seat, he grips my braids and forces my head back until I look into his beady eyes, his mouth in a snarl.

“Fucking bitch! You’re getting what you deserve.

Do you have any idea what the beast is going to do to you?

” His snarl turns into a sadistic grin. “I’m just glad I’ll get to see it.

When it comes to take you, I’ll get to see you piss yourself with fear.

And then, if I’m lucky, it’ll rip you apart in midair, your guts raining down on your mother’s roof.

What a pretty picture.” He tightens his hold until I think my hair might rip from my head.

“Or perhaps it will burn you to nothing but ash. Even better, it will devour you slowly like a snake, your mind alive while it crushes you down its gullet.”

“Let go!” I reach for his face, aiming to scratch him. I miss, but my nails glance off his throat, tearing against his flesh for a short moment before he shoves me back.

I fall over the side of the chair, then scramble to my feet, whirling on him.

“Feral rat.” He smiles and touches the scratches on his throat, his fingers coming away with a hint of blood on them. “You should pray the monster kills you quickly.” Apparently satisfied, he turns and strides away. “But I won’t.” With that, he walks out.

I wrap my arms around myself to keep from shaking.

Awash in anger and fear, my heart beating so hard I can feel its wild rhythm in my ears, I stand there and drag in deep breaths.

Knees shaking. Everything inside me gone tight and frail.

The emotion has drained away like water from a leaf.

I’m left cold and empty, too aware of all the horrid details—the pain in my scalp, the sting of Kanelden’s words, the inevitability of my fate.

Soon enough, Prioress Thani returns, her face schooled to reveal no emotion. She pretends she heard nothing of what just happened as she points to the chair. “You’ve ruined your hair. I need to redo the braids,” she says with a sigh.

I want to snap at her, to say, ‘I’m so sorry my being abused by a lordling and soon-to-be eaten by a monster is such a burden for you.’ But I say nothing. My voice is silenced, my mouth gone dry.

I sit, my shoulders shaking despite my efforts to calm myself. But I don’t cry. I refuse to let any of the people in this village see that they’ve won a single tear from me. They’re already getting plenty from this bargain without adding my sorrow onto the pile.

The prioress works quickly, her fingers nimble as she re-braids my hair into two long ropes down my back.

Once completed, she steps away and inspects her work. “This will have to do. Come, the feast is about to start.”

“I’m not hungry.” I hate the way my voice trembles.

“It doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t. You are expected. Lord Rayid demands it.”

Just as he demands my life. I rise, the blood-red gown draping down to the floor over my thin shoes. My last few hours in Raingreen will be spent at a feast where the crowd whets its appetite for my destruction.

The monster will come at midnight, its claws sharp and its teeth sharper. The Bargain was struck long ago. Every twenty years, there is a sacrifice.

This time, the sacrifice is me.