Page 9 of Rapunzel's Gambit (All That Glitters)

“He certainly seemed to catch your attention.”

“Why would you say that?”

“He unsettled you.” Father’s sly look was much too knowing. “I think you like your men like you like your chess games—a little challenging.”

“I don’t need to listen to this,” I told him haughtily. “I’m going to bed.”

“Sleep well,” Father called after me. “The first group of dragon hunters will be setting out within the week. You could be married by the month’s end, so if you want to request someone join the hunt, I suggest you do it now, bearing in mind they do need to be nobility. We can’t have a commoner taking the throne.”

Married by the month’s end? Dread crept into my stomach. I knew what awaited me once I took the throne. Father was pelted with enough tomatoes that it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that my future would be a messy fusion of irate citizens, dragons poaching livestock, and marriage to a man I would undoubtedly despise. Unless it was a man like Griffin, anyway.

I waved away Beatrix, telling her I would prepare for bed myself and to go enjoy an evening off, then leaned on the balcony railing. I glared at the innocently twinkling stars. The massive dragon swooped overhead, belching a column of flame into the sky as its wings beat the air. How I longed for complete solitude. Dragons had it easy. They didn’t have to answer questions about trade tariffs, export negotiations, and water restrictions. They didn’t have to adhere to etiquette.

Silhouetted against the moon, the dragon dove into one of our pastures and rose moments later with a sheep clutched in its taloned feet. I rested my chin in my hand and stared as it flew back toward the mountains. Why couldn’t we just turn a blind eye to the dragon like the citizens did? It was a menace and stole livestock, but there were also diseases that would wipe out whole herds. Losing some animals was expected and as far as I knew, the dragon never harmed humans. If Father were less stingy, he could have offered to replace whatever animals had been stolen, but I also sympathized with Father. His wealthy friends were ever lamenting about how frequently the dragon visited their herds and depleted their possessions. My father was just the same, only looking out for himself and viewing every person and interaction as a way to bolster his own standing. Was that all I was to Father? Just another possession to be used as a bargaining chip?

Ugh. I wouldn’t mind having a break from being treated like a disposable pawn on the giant chessboard of life. Maybe if I offered myself up to the dragon, I could get it to agree not to kill whomever came to challenge it. Perhaps I could strike a deal with it, just as my great-great-grandfather had done. Or…perhaps the dragon would simply eat me. Either way, I would be free of a father who no longer cared for me and free from a loveless marriage to a stranger who saw me as nothing more than a greedy Dragon Princess.

If only a dragon would kidnap me the way it had my great grandmother. That would be far more exciting than sitting around wondering which knight would succeed on their quest and which would end up roasted alive. But no dragon would ever be able to know the best time to snatch a princess and carry her away. If only I could kidnap myself.

If only I could kidnap myself…

A wicked smile curled my lips. I was done being used. If I was to be portrayed as a villain regardless of what I did, I may as well wholeheartedly embrace the role and enjoy some of the spoils of war while I was at it.

Perhaps my future wasn’t so bleak after all.

CHAPTER5

Escaping took meticulous planning, but each step came with the immense satisfaction of knowing that my father would never be able to marry me off. I would be liberated.

“I have a bad feeling about tonight,” I fretted to the water maid on duty the following evening, furrowing my brow and fidgeting with my sleeve seams. “I can’t sleep.”

“Concerned about the upcoming dragon hunt, Your Highness?” she asked sympathetically, pouring me a drink and handing the cup over in the almost pitch blackness of the corridor.

“Yes.” I ran my finger over the rim of the large water barrel, discreetly slipping in the powdered wyrmsleep as I did so that the maid wouldn’t see. This had to work—it used the rest of my secret stash and I had none left. I idly picked up the ladle and dipped it into the water, lifting it and watching the liquid pour back down, churning up the water inside. After the ladle was empty, I gave the water a slow stir. “I don’t know of any way dragons can be killed.” I handed her back the ladle. “Do you?”

“I don’t know of what methods they use, but I know that dragon hunters have succeeded in the past,” she assured me, smiling as she bent to begin filling all the water skins for the guards on duty. “You’ll be safe.”

“I hope so,” I said with a smile, watching as she continued to unknowingly fill the water skins with the drugged liquid. “Do you have a lot to do tonight?”

“Just delivering water to everyone on duty,” she answered, still diligently filling each vessel and loading it onto her cart. “Same as every night.”

“I shan’t keep you, then,” I told her pleasantly. “Thank you for talking to me. It’s good to know dragon hunters will keep our kingdom safe.”

“I hope you can rest tonight,” she called.

“I’m sure I shall,” I responded.

Once safely locked in my room for the night, I stepped onto the balcony and daubed a message on the wall with letters two feet tall each.

I stood back to admire my disguised handwriting, glad my room had the highest balcony in the castle. Crimson paint dripped down the stone from the haunting words, large enough that one might assume the dragon had written them himself with the tip of one of his talons. Was the dragon even ahe? Perhaps it was ashe. Ah, well. The message was clear enough. I scrubbed the brush I’d used to paint it to remove all evidence but left a healthy amount of paint splatters on the balcony. A dragon wouldn’t be concerned about being tidy.

There was no shortage of stories of dragons who could easily read and write; they certainly were shrewd and clever enough. I attempted to gouge marks into the stone to show talon marks, but found that the force required would have created a racket that would bring every servant running in alarm, and I doubted I was strong enough for such a task anyway. If I couldn’t show talon marks, scorch marks would have to suffice. I pulled a burned stick from the cold fireplace in my room and set about letting the blackened end leave traces of ash on the balcony door and furniture outside. To complete the effect, I knocked the stick against the ground so ash crumbled and smeared underfoot, leaving black streaks of soot, then scattered my small collection of dragon scales on the balcony. Thank goodness I’d had a fascination with dragon scales in my youth and collected them at every opportunity. My former nursemaid had teased that I was truly a dragon king’s daughter, complete with my own miniature hoard. After some thought, I ground some of the fireplace’s white ash into a fine powder and tucked it into a drawstring bag that I strapped to my waist.

I tore one of my nightgowns and left the shreds of pieces strewn about, imagining as I did so the staff’s reactions when they found it the following morning. Beatrix would be devastated, but Father might very well be glad I was gone. I studied the scene, using the moon’s glow to appraise my handiwork.

It still wasn’t enough.

As quietly as possible, I tipped over the chairs on my balcony, arranging them so it looked like there had been a struggle. I left the balcony doors open, gently swaying in the breeze. Did it look as though I’d been dragged away? If I was truly being stolen away by a dragon, what would I have done?

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