Chapter 4 The Threshold
"No," Cherry says stubbornly for the eleventh time. "No. No. No."
In my head, I count them. Twelve. Thirteen.
Fourteen. Cherry stamps her foot terrifically to punctuate her latest refusal.
"It doesn't make any sense, Tarah. Why don't we just go home?
We could talk to my father—"
"The same father who wants me dead?
" I'm sitting upright at the foot of my bed in our tower room, watching as Cherry paces the floor.
Her hair is a pink tangle from the crown of her head to her tailbone, twining around her arms when she gestures.
"He doesn't want you dead.
He wants me married to a dragon. If we just explain—"
"The king has already dug himself—and both of us, by extension—too deeply into this lie.
He's publicly declared me a monster. If I show my face in the capital, I'm as good as dead.
" Or lots of other people are, if I defend myself.
"You don't know that!
" Cherry points at me with a long, skinny, accusing finger.
"And you don't know what will happen either.
" I lean forward on the bed, my feet braced on the floor.
"But this way we have some control over the outcome.
We give the king what he wants—"
"By marrying me off to the first male dragon we come across," Cherry notes acerbically.
I huff. "It's the same thing your father will want if you go home to him!
If that's a fate you want to avoid, say the word and I'll take you far away from here.
We can go anywhere you want." I almost hope she'll agree to it.
Travelling the world together—which is what she's itched to convince me we should be doing for years—suddenly seems like a splendid idea.
Much better than hunting down the kingdom's most eligible monsters or volunteering myself to be lynch mobbed.
But Cherry's face falls, her shoulders slumping.
I know what she'll say before she speaks the words aloud.
"I just want to go home."
"I know," I say quietly.
She wants to be a princess again. That's always been her real dream.
To have the world at her command once more.
"I could...try to sneak you back into the palace.
Or Marton could take you. If we—"
Cherry shakes her head.
She takes two steps closer to me, looking intently down into my face.
"I want you to come with me. When I go home.
Tarah...you're my best friend. You're my.
.." She doesn't have words for whatever it is.
I don't have them either. "I want you to come with me.
"
"I'll go with you," I promise.
"I'll go with you anywhere you have to go.
You know that. But I can't go back to the palace yet.
Not until we make it safe."
She sighs, crossing her arms over the loose bodice of her nightgown.
"By finding me a dragon husband."
"Yes.
It seems like our best option." I grimace.
"How do you feel about that?"
Cherry adjusts the fall of her nighty as if it's an evening gown.
"I'm a princess. I was always going to marry for duty, not love.
" She flicks a hand as if the notion of romantic love can be dusted away like lint.
"I thought I would marry a noble, maybe a rich merchant, or a foreign prince.
Whatever the kingdom needed." An elegant shrug.
"So we need a dragon bloodline instead of money, peace, or territory.
It's all the same to me."
I don't quite accept her easiness, but searching her face lends me nothing.
Her expression is carefully blank, cool as the breeze off the mountains.
"He'll be a creature...like me," I say carefully, watching her.
"A killer, maybe. Something with teeth and claws and slitted eyes and breath of fire—"
"Great skies," Cherry swears, "There's no need to give me the gory details.
Who knows dragons better than I?"
I frown, trying to detect hidden revulsion or fear in her expression, but there's just a hint of irritation.
"Fine," I sigh. "So you're the expert. Will you go along with this plan?
Can you accept it?"
"The plan," Cherry muses, "to travel to distant lands, meet many new people, and search out hidden creatures of legend to find one who will consent to marry me?
" Despite everything, there is amusement in her tone, and something like excitement rising in her eyes.
A slow smile creeps across my face.
This is Cherry at her best. Cherry with an appetite for life that has never been satisfied.
I've never been allowed to give into her wildest whims before, but there's nothing stopping us now.
"Yes," I agree, grinning. "That plan."
Cherry's amusement falters, and she heaves an enormous sigh.
She waves a magnanimous hand. "I suppose I will consent to it.
"
I'm on my feet at once.
"Start packing. Empty the foraging bags of anything on the point of spoiling—we'll eat it before we go.
Add clothes, only the sturdiest of our dresses.
And bring your fleece leggings. It will be a lot of riding.
And your old gloves. They still fit since you cut out the fingertips, right?
We'll need—"
"Alright, alright," Cherry snaps.
"I have a brain, too. I think I can manage packing on my own.
Where are you going?"
I'm already at the door of the room, and I hardly realize my own intentions before she asks.
I turn back with my hand poised over the knob.
"I'm going to tell Marton."
Cherry rolls her eyes, and then gives me a pointed look.
"The first man we've ever met, and you're staking prior claim?
"
"I'm not—that's—" I cut myself off when I realize I'm stammering like Marton when he's flustered.
"There's no claim," I enunciate. "He's just a man.
A friend. And we're trying to find you a dragon husband.
What could you possibly want with Marton?
"
"Fun, Tarah," Cherry lifts her eyes to the ceiling as if beseeching a deity to intervene on my behalf.
"I could want fun." She lowers her eyes to berate me with them.
I'm almost offended on Marton's behalf.
"Marton is not for fun. He's not—"
"He's not for me, you mean.
" Cherry smirks.
"Stop that.
" I point at her. "He's helping us. He's...nice.
" And sweet, and clever, and brave, and—
Get a grip, Terror.
If he's not for Cherry, he's certainly not for me.
Cherry spreads her hands.
"I want you to remember this moment later on, when I flirt with him and you're crawling with jealousy.
"
I make an inarticulate noise.
Jealousy. I've never been jealous of anything. I'm not about to start over a man.
I bang out of the tower room, leaving Cherry's snickers far behind.
In dragon form, I locate Marton on the far side of the chasm.
He's leaning down over the edge of the plateau, fingers grappling at empty air.
He looks about five seconds from plummeting over the edge, which is a drop that probably wouldn't kill him, but it could still wound him pretty significantly. And hurt. A lot.
I open my dragon's maw to roar my displeasure without thinking.
Marton jumps at the sound, losing his hold.
He goes tumbling—and I swoop low and pinch the fabric of his tunic in my claws.
I deposit him back on solid grown, then land myself, several feet away.
I give Marton the draconic equivalent of a glare, which mostly just involves smoke puffing from my nostrils and my pupils dilating into slits.
Marton gawps at me, his lips parted, breathing uneven. His hair is disheveled gold around his face, and he presses a fist to his chest, as if trying to steady his heart. He speaks, rattling something off that I forget to listen to.
I tip my head closer, huffing at him irritably. I mean to remind him to speak slower, but Marton doesn't seem to understand. He doesn't speak at all, just gazes at me in fixation. One of his hands lifts, then falls again.
Like he did last night when he wanted to touch me.
Oh.
Experimenting again, I inch my monstrous head closer, all snout full of teeth, snake eyes, scales, horns, and breath like campfires on the air.
And Marton, as always, looks like this is the best thing he has ever seen.
His hand eases up once more, and he lays it gently across the scales of my snout.
His flesh is a small spot of warmth, penetrating into my scales, cool from the wind.
He looks into my eyes as if they are not monstrous, and smiles.
He is so beautiful that for a moment I want to nuzzle him.
But I don't do that, because that would be strange.
Instead I pull back, snorting pointedly.
I aim my snout in the direction of the ledge, then look back at him.
A question. Understanding dawns on his face, and he speaks clearly, gesturing to his waist, "My weapons.
My belt."
Oh. I forgot he dropped them over the ledge yesterday.
And he'll need them if we're to go travelling.
I lean my long neck over the edge of the shallow cliff, scanning.
I see his weapons belt at the bottom of the gulley, where it has slid several feet in the loose shale, nearly burying itself from sight.
There's no way he could have reached it from here, and what he was doing didn't look like climbing.
Turning back to give him an incredulous look, I launch myself over the ledge.
It takes only a matter of seconds for me to swoop down, scooping up his weapons belt with ease.
I'm back on the ridge next to him in the same motion, banking swiftly and dropping to the ground.
Marton just grins and extends his hand for the belt.
I give it over, and he doesn't blink an eye at my clawed foreleg.
In the same way, I suppose, that I don't blink at him holding an arsenal of blades.
There isn't a part of me that thinks that he would hurt us, and the knowledge is astonishing.
Almost upsetting. It can't possibly be a good thing that I have come to trust him so quickly.
But I have, and there's nothing for it now.
Marton dusts off and buckles on the belt, straightening his tunic around it.
When he turns towards the bridge over the chasm, I curl my tail into his path to stop him.
His footsteps falter, and he glances up at me, confused.
I'm confused too. Because I'm...worried.
About watching him cross that unstable bridge again.
It would be safer if he let me fly him across.
But how to communicate that when I'm in my dragon form?
I look to the bridge, then sway my head slowly from side to side.
No.
Marton cocks his head, a golden lock falling into his eyes.
I step closer to him, watching carefully to see if he tenses up, then gently lower my body to the ground, my back close to him.
Climb on.
Marton's eyes widen into moons, and he looks from my back to my face several times, questioning.
I huff. Yes.
He approaches hesitantly, then touches a hand to one of the pointed spines along my back.
Glances at me again. When I do nothing, he wraps his hand around the spine, then uses it to lever himself up.
He fits himself easily into Cherry's accustomed spot.
He's seen her ride there twice now.
His arms slip around my neck, thicker than Cherry's, and I bare my teeth in a draconic grin he can't see.
Without giving any kind of warning, I launch myself into the sky at full speed, and Marton's cry is blown away on the wind.
I don't know if it's startlement or delight.
We're thirty feet up in a heartbeat, then a hundred.
We're above the height of the tower, and I take him on a sweeping tour of the grounds.
Darting low over the chasm, rushing and wild, and the gardens, glistening with morning light and dew drops.
Soaring high over the pits and edges of the castle structure, stark with age and destruction.
Marton's arms are tight around my neck, and I can feel his chest rise and fall with quickened breath.
For a few dazzling moments, we're together above the world, and it's a kind of connectedness I've only ever felt with Cherry before.
But we have places to be, so after only a few minutes of flying, I bring us in for a landing before the entry hall where Marton camped last night.
I touch down gently, but Marton doesn't immediately move to release me.
He just holds on, his breath growing slower.
I can hear his heartbeat pounding behind his ribs, now that the wind isn't rushing around us.
I shift on my feet, growing worried by his stillness, and Marton is spurred into action.
He releases his hold, scrambling down from my back with the same determined capability he showed in crossing the chasm and ruins yesterday.
I swing my head around to face him, and he stares at me with widened eyes.
His hair is windblown, tangled, but his hazel eyes are brighter than I've seen them yet.
Alive like the morning.
Not terrified, then.
He liked it.
I bare my teeth, and Marton laughs aloud, face glowing.
He pushes my snout away playfully as he passes towards the entryway, and I snap my teeth at him.
Marton laughs again, perfectly at ease as he goes to retrieve his things from his campsite.
And my chest feels warm and.
..odd.
It is strange, to be comfortable and playful in my dragon form with someone whom I hardly know.
Cherry and I had moments like this, back when I used to take her foraging with me.
But she grew tired of the forest and the bugs and the muck after a time, and didn't come out flying with me anymore.
She wanted new places and new sights, or she wanted to go home.
Everything around us lost interest for her, and she retreated deep inside herself, into a dark depression.
It was a few months later that she cut herself.
The memory makes me shiver, and I quickly search for my dress among the ruins.
I need to relay my message to Marton so I can return to Cherry.
I know she's fine right now. I know she doesn't need me with her all the time.
My head knows that, but my heart is in a panic, remembering that time.
I locate my dress and step outside the walls to shift and don it.
Dressed, I step back inside in my human form, and Marton glances up at me from where he crouches over his bag.
"I—" He doesn't finish the thought, just watches me as I approach, taking in every movement as if it is of vital import.
"You're—human—" His cheeks flame crimson, and he drops his attention back to his bag, busily shifting things around.
"Yes." My brows furrow.
Why wouldn't I be human? He's seen me in this form before.
He saw it just last night. "I wanted to tell you that Cherry has agreed to our plans.
She wants to go dragon hunting. Husband hunting," I amend.
"Ah," says Marton, his attention redirected with eagerness.
"That's excellent," he smiles. "I've compiled the list of all the legends I can think of.
All the places we can check."
"That's good," I nod.
"You'll need to give me detailed directions, so I can fly us there.
And we'll probably need to devise a system for you directing me while we're in the air.
Do you think you'll be able to navigate, without roads?
" It occurs to me belatedly that the map he held last night was mostly a map of roads.
Marton frowns. "I hadn't thought of that.
I guess I...hadn't thought much about flying.
..at all." His eyes dart to me and away.
He seems suddenly embarrassed, which I can't understand.
He was excited about flying before. "The map I have doesn't contain many details in the way of topography.
" Marton rubs his jaw. "Perhaps it will be best if we follow the roads for now, from above.
And we can purchase a better map when we get to a settled town.
"
"Cherry and I don't have any money," I warn.
Marton pats a pocket of his satchel, which jangles in answer.
"I have a bit. But we should be sparing where we can.
Hunting instead of buying rations, that kind of thing.
"
"Hunting I can do."
"Yes, I suppose you can.
" That pulls a shy smile from him, and I rejoice to see it.
Then tell myself to stop rejoicing. It's just a smile.
"When did you want to leave?
" Marton asks.
"As soon as Cherry's done packing.
There's no sense in waiting around."
Marton opens his mouth to respond, and a female shout splits the air.
"TA-RAH!"
I laugh at her timing, hooking a thumb over my shoulder.
"I think she's done." I'm in a buoyant mood, looking forward to travel and friends and freedom.
It's a better list of things to look forward to than I've had in a long time.
I shift in a rush, and my dress falls to pieces in the dirt.
Good riddance. I wasn't planning to take that tattered thing with me anyway.
I heave myself into the sky, going to retrieve my princess.