Nona presses a pair of white velvet slippers into my hands. Her fingers are like ice. “Put these on, love.”
I point to the corset. “There’s no way I will be able to reach my feet when I am wearing this thing.” Nona shakes her head and kneels at my feet, helping me with the slippers. “They’re going to get ruined the moment I step out of the carriage.”
“A major drawback to having the ceremony in the mountains,” Nona replies, standing.
“White is so expensive. I don’t see why I have to wear everything white when it will get dirty. And pearls?”
“The offering has to be a virgin, and white represents virginity. The fire dragon will know the difference. You also need to remember that if the Antharian heir takes you for his bride, tonight will be your wedding night. This may be your wedding dress.” She runs her fingers over the pearls on my corset, and I imagine they are Ingvar’s old, thick hands. This morning, Golmarr said that in his grandfather’s day, if a woman rode a horse lord’s horse, she would be taken for his wife. I rode a horse lord’s horse. Golmarr seemed to think that because of my actions, Ingvar will be more likely to accept me.
“If I refuse them, will they truly feed me to the dragon?” I ask, my voice shaking.
Nona’s plump cheeks pale. “Don’t refuse them, and we won’t have to find out.” She starts chewing her thumbnail.
“What is it?” I ask.
She removes her thumb from her mouth and says, “You’re looking at this all wrong, Sorrowlynn. By sacrificing your own desires and saying you will marry the Antharian heir, you are protecting your people and the Antharian people from the fire dragon. You are sparing hundreds of thousands of lives. Do you recall that a century ago, the kingdom of Satar was destroyed by the stone dragon and the Satari fled to the Glass Forest? And in Ilaad, the people are now confined to their cities. They can only travel by boat from port to port, because if they set foot in the desert, the sandworm eats them. Now bend down so I can put this in your hair.” She holds up a pearl tiara. I lean forward, and she pins it into place. Before I can stand, she slips something over my head. An icy chain falls around my neck. “There. All done.”
I look down. She has put a long gold necklace on me. It hangs as low as my belly button. I lift it and look at what is dangling at the bottom of the chain. It is an oval flask the size of my palm and almost matches the color of the pearls on my corset. I hold it up to the sunlight streaming through the window, and it glows orange.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice filled with wonder.
“Strickbane poison,” Nona says as matter-of-factly as if she had said water.
“Strickbane?” I drop the flask. It pulls the gold chain taut against my neck and clinks against the pearls on my corset. Strickbane, even absorbed through the skin, is lethal.
“It’s a family tradition,” Nona says, her brow furrowed.
“Tradition? None of my sisters wore this to their ceremonies.”
“You’re right. It is a new family tradition saved just for you.” She puts her soft, familiar hands on my cheeks like she did when I was a small child, and looks right into my eyes as she speaks. “If you’re fed to the fire dragon, you drink the poison and die before you’re eaten, because it’s better to be eaten dead than eaten alive. Just be careful and don’t open it unless you must. When Melchior gave it to me, he said it was a very important piece of a bigger puzzle. He told me that the poison contained in this flask is over one hundred years old, and you know Strickbane gets stronger with time. You will need only a single drop.” She lowers her hands and blinks. “What am I saying? You won’t need the Strickbane. You’re not going to be dragon food.”
“Melchior gave it to you?” I run my finger over the flask. It is slightly rough to the touch, like sandstone.
“Aye, the day before he left. He made me promise to give it to you for the ceremony. That is a dragon’s scale carved to hold the Strickbane. It is supposedly from the very dragon that resides in our mountains, if he still lives. Do you remember your line for the ceremony?”
“Yes.”
“Let me hear it.”
I drop the dragon scale and roll my eyes, and in a monotone voice say, “I humbly submit to give my life to the kingdom of Anthar, to be the wife of their future king, and unite our two kingdoms through the bearing of his sons.” The words taste like Strickbane in my mouth.