I… Nerra thought about telling him, she honestly did, but she couldnt bring herself to, not yet. I just wanted to know more about them.

Ah, I thought that you had heard one of the old stories, the physicker said.

What old stories? Nerra asked.

That of all the attempts to halt the scale sickness, only one cure has proved certain: cracking a dragons egg and consuming the yolk within.

He watched Nerra as he said it, so Nerra kept her shock off her face. Even so, it ran through her like a jolt of lightning, seeming to spread through every part of her at once.

A…cure? she said, afraid to ask.

A rumor of one, a note in the books, Physicker Jarran said. But there are no real dragon eggs. It is the only reason I have not told you this before. I would not want you hoping for an impossible thing.

Except that it wasnt impossible.

She could be cured. Cured.

She could live a normal life, not as a freak, but as a regular girl. Instead of counting down the days to her death, she could count the days of her life before her.

She jumped up, knocking over a table, and ran for the door.

A cure lay just beyond the castle walls. And she knew exactly where to find it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Erin rode for the Spur, pushing her horse, wanting to get there before her father realized she wasnt coming back and sent men after her. Because she wasnt going back; not after what shed heard.

They think they can just sell me like some cheap whore! Erin complained to her horse.

Well, not cheap. Probably, her parents would want to get a whole dukedoms loyalty for her, the way theyd done with Lenore.

Theyll have to change their minds when I make it into the Spur, she said. She could see the fortress out in the distance, its multiple rings of walls sitting atop an outcrop of glassy rock at odds with the rest of the landscape, forged by the heat of long-forgotten dragon-fire. In the far north of the kingdom, practically the whole land was said to be like that, with volcanoes everywhere one looked. Here, it was an incongruous black mark against the farmland around it.

There was a stone bridge leading up to the fortress that looked almost like a natural thing, rather than anything humans could have constructed. Erin rode her horse up to it, then leapt down to lead him across.

A figure in full armor barred her way.

Hold, he said. Who are you, and why have you come to the Spur?

I am… Erin hesitated. If they knew the truth of who she was, then they might send her back. Still, there had to be more than one girl with her name in the kingdom, right? Erin. Im Erin. Im here to join your number. I want to be a knight.