Dragon Princess Read Online Free PDF Page B

freedom of movement to throw the hilt at Elhared.
    I put all the effort I could manage into the swing, and I imagined the hilt striking the wizard square in the forehead and knocking him cold, if not killing him outright. Unfortunately, my aim wasn’t quite that good, and given my restricted movement and my clumsy underhand toss, the force of the missile wasn’t anywhere near disabling. The hilt tumbled lazily through the air to bounce harmlessly off of Elhared’s chest, landing on the open book, knocking the flattened pixie off to flutter slowly to the ground.
    Elhared’s reaction was a startled glance toward me and a puzzled, “Huh?”
    Someone, I am sure, has written a standard primer for those with an interest in pursuing the wizardly arts. Somewhere in there, in with the recommended beard length and the best materials to use for one’s robe, I am certain there exists the following sentence: “When casting complicated spells of nefarious origin, uttering a random monosyllable three-quarters of the way in does not yield optimal results.”
    In response to the interruption, the glow from the text exploded into a burst of light fountaining up from the pages of the book. Elhared fell back as if the expanding light dealt him a physical blow, and I lost sight of him in the glare. The book fell to the floor of the cave and rolling smoke began filling the cavern. I felt a prickly heat from the pillar of red-blue light that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. To all appearances, Elhared had vaporized in a flash of light and smoke.
    The expanding light still grew toward us, and the dragon jerked backward. The pillar of light curved and rippled toward the dragon, as if attracted to it. The dragon made a startled sound that was almost a yelp, and threw me at the pillar of magic fire as if my flailing body could beat it into submission.
    I hit the light, felt a burning tingle, and blacked out.
     • • • 
    And I had thought the hangover from the Mermaid’s Milk had been bad.
    My first conscious thought after hitting that light was that I had been so very wrong. I would have embraced the return of the eyeball-gnawing skull-troll if it meant the eviction of the goblin army that had now taken up residence. Thoughts of more than one syllable caused me physical pain, so when I inhaled and started coughing up wizard soot I almost blacked out again.
    The coughing fit subsided. I dropped my head back with an agonized moan. My head hit a tree root, and I gasped. I tried to reach to push myself upright, and I realized my wrists were bound.
    Not good.
    More troublesome sensations began filtering through the pain of the goblin orgy doing violence to my brain. I tried to move my legs, and they were bound as well. And things just didn’t feel right, beyond the throbbing in my head. My body felt wrong, arms and legs shorter, my hair catching in ways it shouldn’t underneath my neck, my torso—
    “What the hell?” I whispered.
    Even roughened by inhaling more than my share of carbonized Elhared, I could tell
that
was not my voice. I’ve never uttered a single word in what could be described as a husky contralto.
    My eyes shot open to look down at myself, the glare making my vision blur. I told myself that it was the painful light making my eyes water, or maybe the stinging ash. After all, the sight of a woman’s bosom had never before moved me to tears.
    “Soul transference spell,” I whispered to myself in the Princess Lucille’s voice.
    I stared at myself, at Lucille, and couldn’t decide if I was more disturbed by sitting here in her body, or by the thought of her running around somewhere in mine. I didn’t spend long feeling sorry for myself. It seemed that Fate had decided to take every impulse of self-pity on my part as a cue to show me exactly how much worse things could be.
    As I stared, still disbelieving, down Lucille’s dress, my thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of arguing. I glanced up and saw