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Several times, I think I hear light footsteps behind me, too light for a dragon, too heavy for a rabbit or fox. But when I glance back, I don’t see anyone.
At last I venture close to a bubbling spring that empties into a shaded pool. I creep toward it, staying beneath the overhanging boughs of a huge oak so no dragon flying overhead can spot me.
My heart pounds from exertion, and my body is damp with sweat. I braid my hair swiftly and tie it off with a long piece of tough grass. Then I sink to my knees by the pool, bathing my skin with the cool water. It smells fresh, so once I’ve caught my breath, I bend over to drink from the rippling surface.
A scuffle of running feet. A hand slams against the back of my neck and shoves my face into the water. I choke out a garbled cry of surprise, bubbles slipping from my mouth.
I fight to sit up, but the hand holding me down carries the frenzied strength of anger. I feel it in the violent clutch of the fingers, the rigid force of the arm that’s drowning me. I claw backward, behind me, but I can’t seem to find my attacker’s face.
Frantically I lurch and try to roll aside, but my attacker flings their entire weight on me, pinning me down.
I have precious little air left, and my panic is a force of its own. But through sheer strength of will, I stop fighting. I make myself go utterly limp, even as my body demands that I struggle. My killer needs to think I have already drowned.
In my head I count the seconds. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine—
The weight on my back lifts, and the hand disappears from the back of my neck.
I spring up instantly, gasp a raw breath, and fling myself aside to avoid the attacker as she yells with shock and lunges for me again. Choking and coughing, I dodge behind the great oak and seize a dead limb above me. My weight makes the branch crack free, and I swing my new weapon on sheer instinct, with all the strength of both my arms in the blow. The branch smashes into my attacker’s face as she rounds the tree.
Blood spurts from her mouth. She reels and crashes to the ground.
She’s spasming, twitching, while blood drains from her mouth into the soil. My blow mauled the lower right half of her face, broke her cheekbone and her upper jaw. I can see white teeth and bone protruding through torn red flesh. Her skull is probably fractured.
“Oh fuck.” I drop the branch and kneel beside her. I vaguely remember seeing her among the girls who wanted to run. “Why did you do this?”
Grief and rage leak through the pain in her eyes.
“My mother,” I whisper. “That’s why, isn’t it? You lost someone in the war, maybe more than one person, and you blame the royals. This was vengeance.”
Her head moves a little. Almost a nod. Her hand forms a claw against the ground. Blood is flooding her right eye, and her body continues to jerk as her damaged nervous system tries to cope with the wound.
“I’m sorry,” I manage through my tears, through my clenched teeth. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not enough. I can never atone for everything my mother did—for everything I failed to do. I can tell myself it wasn’t my fault, that my mother pushed me aside and wouldn’t let me get involved—but I allowed her to push me aside. I amused myself with babies, horses, dogs, and various domestic tasks, like a child at play, while she sent droves of citizens into the jaws of death.
But I wasn’t a child. I was a fucking adult. I kept myself busy in my own world, and I did nothing to stop the carnage.
I should have tried harder. No… I should have tried. But I didn’t. Not at all. I thought my private conflict with my mother’s policies was enough, that I was being subversive by quietly agreeing with the servants and guards when they condemned her rule. What must they have thought of me, the spoiled princess who thought herself powerless to enact change, when in reality I always had more power than any of them—I just didn’t claim it, or use it. I used my privilege to express mild dissent or to stay out of the way.
“I’ve been a lazy fucking cunt,” I whisper to the dying girl. “I didn’t fight my mother on any of it. Just sulked about things occasionally, and that did no one any good. It’s too late to fix what happened, but I swear—I vow to you, I will never again stand idly by and watch someone be harmed without trying to stop it. I wish you’d talked to me, before it came to this.”
Why did I swing that branch so hard? Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t think. I just survived.
All I can do now is witness her passing.
I don’t hold her hand. She wouldn’t want that. But I stay beside her until her spirit goes, leaving her eyes empty.
I cover her body with branches as best I can. Then I wash my hands in the stream, drink my fill, and keep running.
Nausea bubbles in my stomach when I think of the dying girl’s smashed face. But she’s gone now—she’s not the immediate threat. I need to find the coastline, locate a place to hide, and start thinking about how I can make a seaworthy raft. The horror of what I’ve done will have to wait.
The dragons will come for us, that much is certain. I will hide, scheme, struggle, and do everything I can to stay out of their grasp. If I escape the effects of the enchantress’s spell, I will live in the deepest thickets of the forest until I figure out a way to cross the stretch of sea between this island and the mainland. If they change me into a dragon, I will fight them tooth and claw until they regret that choice.
It strikes me that perhaps the males haven’t considered the potential danger to themselves once the women become dragons. They assume that once the change is complete, we’ll be resigned to our fate, happy to join the clan. As dragons, the females will still be outnumbered, but we’ll be far more powerful. Able to fight back and take our revenge.
Of course, we’ll be new to our dragon bodies. We won’t know how to fly right away, and if we have fire, it may take a while to learn how to use it. Perhaps that’s what the males are counting on—that time and training will ease any residual rage we feel after the transformation. Perhaps they hope that the mating frenzy and the subsequent hatching season will tame us, domesticate us.
I hope to god they’re wrong. I’m determined to hold onto this anger, no matter what happens. I won’t forget what the dragons have done to my people, and if I do become one of them, I will repay those wrongs ten times over.
