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Chapter 13

It had been two weeks since Amalia was brought to the Dragon’s cave.

After he showed her the room he’d created for her, he told her she may go through his hoards and collect anything that may be of interest to her. When she’d asked him why he was suddenly okay with her doing so, he explained that technically, since they would not leave his lair, they were still a part of his treasures.

She changed very little about the room although he told her she may rearrange it as much as she liked, only adding a candle here and there and filling the bookshelf. He never said so, but she knew he liked that she didn’t change the way he’d decorated it.

The chests he had placed in front of the wardrobe were filled with dresses and clothing. Once she went through them and hung the ones she liked, he took the chests out of the room when he saw her struggling to do it herself.

The Dragon tried to convince her that she should have a small pile of coins and gems in the centre. When she refused, not wanting such items, he’d given her a bewildered face.

And as the two weeks passed, like he had warned her, he was often ill-tempered and easy to anger.

Still, they often spent time together.

One day, she found him laying down in his largest treasure-filled room that once held the bed. He’d been sorting through it like he was trying to find something in particular. A coin, perhaps, or a piece of jewellery.

They’d had pleasant conversations earlier in the day, so she walked in and sat resting her back against him to read a book in her lap. He hadn’t asked her what she was doing, nor did he tell her to go away, but he did stare at her for long moments.

Then he went back to his task, barely moving since she was there against him. She didn’t know how long they had spent together, but it wasn’t the last time the situation occurred.

He also often came to lay outside of her room. Most of the time it was to talk to her. Sometimes, very rarely, he just laid there watching her move about or read.

Amalia had settled into her new home.

Since the day he’d given her the room, she no longer smelled burning flesh on herself, and she stopped using the perfume like he’d asked.

Unfortunately, that same night, she started to be plagued with nightmares of burning, of running, of being captured and being tortured while the word ‘Witch’ was screamed at her. Each time, the nightmares were of humans, and she would shoot up in her bed covered in a layer of sweat.

She never woke screaming, never woke crying. Mostly, she was able to ignore it.

If she were ever given the chance to be free, Amalia knew deep down to the very essence of her being that she wouldn’t live near any humans again. She would have to become a wanderer. That in itself presented problems since women on the road were often targeted because they were alone – taken as slaves, beaten, raped, or murdered.

She didn’t know how to wield a sword or a dagger, so she had been studying her hidden spell book in secret, practising her magic without him knowing so she could protect herself.

She already learned how to shield herself as well as how to hide small items on her person. She’d taken a singular, large gem from his hoard and practised the illusion in front of him – he hadn’t noticed.

She wondered if she could use the same spell to make herself invisible, but upon trying it out, she discovered it only worked on inanimate objects.

There were others, but they either weren’t of much interest to her or required natural items like raw crystals, herbs, or spices.

Overall, her life had become calm. Between the Dragon who roamed these tunnels and the books she had to read, Amalia had found peace. Sometimes boring peace, but safety, nonetheless.

Except on this particular morning.

She’d been having a calm sleep – after already being woken earlier from a nightmare of being encased in water from a Witches drowning trial – and heard strange noises. She’d been slow to wake at first, but she hadn’t been able to escape the subtle feeling of being weightless.

When she finally opened her eyes, she’d seen little flying creatures holding the ends of her sheet in the air around her, lifting her off the bed.

Tiny snickers came from them, and when she realised what they were and what they were doing, she struggled to get free. They’d dropped her, and the bed hadn’t been underneath her.

Amalia hit the ground.

With the wind knocked out of her, she gingerly got to her feet to fight them off, but they had already started pulling on her hair and lifting the outer skirt of her nightgown to blind her.

“You feral little pixies!”

As she tried to swat them away with her hands, they started biting her with sharp teeth. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to hurt.