Nobody had ever told me how dark caves were.

I had only ever heard about the things that lived in them.

I never imagined that my life would be spent living in a cave… And as of this morning, that was exactly the case.

I missed my farm.

I missed my father.

My brothers..

My sister.

I missed everyone and everything I had left behind, but they didn't miss me quite as much considering it was they who decided to put me up for sacrifice.

But… I was happy to do it.

I'd gladly live the rest of my life in this dark, wet cavern if it meant keeping Aura safe – I was just lucky enough that the wards at the mouth of the cavern let themselves down for me. It meant he wouldn't be so picky from now on, that a sacrificial virgin didn't always have to be… a girl.

I was full prepared to live the rest of my life in this cavern for as long as it would be. If the stories were true, though..

Dragons don't usually let their sacrifices live long.

Knowing I wasn't going to be able to see anything from here on, I took a moment to kneel down beside a pool of water while I was still near enough to the mouth of the cave that I could see. There was just enough light to take one last look at myself – and although it was dark, I could see my sun-kissed face was already filthy just from the dust in the air. My hair, while it had been dark as night, was now sort of a dark ashy color from the layer of dust covering it. But when I reached up to touch my short-cropped hair, I realized, especially upon bringing my fingers to my nose, that this wasn't dust at all!

It was ash.

At least my eyes hadn't changed. The same dull brown they'd always been. I took one last good look at myself, even as I stood and the water rippled. I didn't look away until I stepped over it and couldn't see the pool past my heels, and then… I just started walking.

It wasn't long before I couldn't see anything at all and I had to navigate with wide, silly-looking steps and my hands stretched out in front of me. I remembered the bats we had on the farm and how you could step out into a cloud of them and never be touched – I knew how they did that from listening to the old scribe who lived in the monastery on the hill and I thought I could use sound to avoid tripping over anything… but I didn't want the Dragon of Mournlocke Mountain to hear me. I wanted to stay out of his attention for as long as I possibly could – maybe live as long as Lady Macaree, who supposedly lived twenty years in the Mountain before the dragon found her!

As I went on, I felt the path I was taking gradually began to go downhill. I had to lean back at one point so far that I felt almost like I was laying against a wall, but the path was so rough and uneven that the soles of my feet didn't slip and slide. I wish I had shoes, something with traction – but as it was I wore the same thing all sacrificial virgins did, just a hand-sewn robe of white cotton and nothing else so digestion would be easy for him.

As deeply stuck in the cavern as I was, my mind was all the way back home. I could picture Lane tossing out his old shoes with holes in the soles and putting mine on, reveling in how comfortable they were for him. I could see Birch putting on my sheep-skin vest, right over his doeskin tunic, how good he'd look in it. Ulrich was off serving in the war, but I'm sure he would've liked my buckskin britches – I'd put extra padding in the seat of the trousers so long horse-rides to the city weren't so bad, even though I'd only gone twice with father when Birch wasn't available to go.

Then there was Aura. I'd given her my most prized possession – my dragon scale.

Because I was the only one stupid enough to go near Mournlocke Mountain to find it laying just outside the mouth of the cavern.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't realize there was no more path before me – instead, a sharp drop and nowhere to go but down. As my foot fell through thin air my stomach lurched and my heart jumped into my throat, and toppling forward, upside down, twisting round and round as I fell through the air and scraped the sides of what I could only assume was a vertical tunnel, I screamed louder than I'd ever screamed – at first in terror, and then just because I could.

I'd already screamed. He knew I was here. He had to. Why not let everything loose in a vocal cacophony?

Then, all at once, a light bloomed out of the darkness and blinded me, my eyes shrunk back into my skull and my eyes couldn't shut quick enough—and just as they did close, my body hit something and I thought for a second I was dead!

But… I was drowning.

I couldn't swim.

I never learned how.

I opened my eyes only to have them sting, so they shut again while the wet taste of stalk invaded my nose and mouth, stung everything and as disoriented as I was I couldn't help but thrash, trying to find my way to the surface. I felt my back bob against the surface, the change in pressure I could feel told me I was floating and so I thrust my face up to the surface as best as I could—I got hardly any air before I sank down again and this time the terror was real, so real and I screamed for help even as water rushed down my throat and filled my lungs and my belly.

Before I knew it, an already dark world filled with confusion and pain simply faded away from me.

I was dead.

I had to be…