Chapter 79 #2
Veya nods, binding her knees with her arms. She drops her head and begins to rock again, tucked so small she could easily be mistaken for a tortured child. Bearing none of the fierceness I saw from her back in Dhomm. None of the swagger.
A flower stripped of everything but the stalk.
I look from her to Kyzari, back again, something inside me boiling up. A fierce cold that burns, spreading through the veins in my arms until it’s settling at the tips of my fingers—alive.
Waiting.
The steps continue to echo, growing so loud I know they’re but a few turns away as I look down, heavy with a strange yearning to sweep Kyzari up in a hug. To harden around her like a dying dragon and protect her with everything that I am.
Knowing better, I do the opposite. Because in this place of greed and pain, Arkyn scavenges everything but bones and blistered souls. He takes happy, living things and chars the fucking life from their eyes, turning them just as broken and lonely as he is.
And those I show affection for …
They end up dead, no matter how hard I fight.
I ease Kyzari into the corner, almost certain she’ll fall apart the moment I let go.
Like a fissured moon that’s barely holding shape.
Since I’ve never been very good at holding things together anyway, I lift Kaan’s málmr from around my neck and slip it over her head, resting the carving in the scoop of her clammy hand.
“Your uncle’s málmr. To keep you safe and strong,” I murmur, tucking the frayed blanket up over her bladed shoulder. “Look after it for me.”
Her fingers twitch as the thundering clamor of booted steps intensifies.
I unclip my cloak, drape it over her, then pull away. Take a moment to check my hidden compartments for blades while I move to the front of the cell, finding them all empty.
Not unexpected, but still disappointing.
While cracking my neck from side to side, I prepare for whatever onslaught is coming. Focus on packing down my fear, slowing my breaths, calming the rampant beat of my heart. The pulsing pitch that’s trained to anticipate pain, but only when he comes.
This was once a busy place. Chances are it’s just a bunch of guards coming to stuff another poor soul in one of these vacant cells.
Someone who’ll eventually get the chance to bash themselves to burning death in the Pits of Khindard or be eaten by a razah.
Or survive, only to be healed and tossed back in over and over again until death finally offers a reprieve.
I wait by the bars with bated breath, hands fisted to stop from picking the skin that cushions the sides of my nails.
Instinctively, my feet want to push back—away.
To scurry into the corner where he can’t get me.
But I force myself to stand strong and sturdy, doing everything to block Kyzari without being too obvious.
I resist the temptation to look over my shoulder. To check on her. Ensure the princess is still breathing.
Pretty sure it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
The guards finally stampede into view, each cloaked in black and wearing identical bronze masks—hooked like a beak. Enough soldiers to bring down a dragon.
Definitely here for me.
I scan the growing contingent halting before the bars of my cell, failing to spot Arkyn—his absence a dense weight lifting from my shoulders. “Come to dance?” I ask with a flippant lilt to my voice.
A lie I paint myself in.
Two guards step forward, one bearing more chain-laden shackles, the other boasting a key that looks awfully similar to the one I stole the last time I graced this fucking place.
I take one look at it and arch a brow.
“The last guard who poked one of those in my direction had his heart ripped out and stuffed in his mouth. Then I used the beaked part of his mask to flay him like an eahl, ripped out his intestines, strung them around his neck, and hung him from this very bar.” I tap my nail against said bar. “Pre-warning.”
A tense pause.
Someone in the back clears their throat as the stout guard with the key steps close and slides it into the lock. “Your pyre,” I mutter, hunting for any sign of weapons. Unsurprised when I find none.
Strength in numbers. Whatever it takes to get me from point A to B unscathed, it seems.
I wonder how these fuckers feel knowing they were sent as sacrificial meat?
The lock clunks open. At the same time, someone flicks the lid on a weald and hisses a flaming sentence that withers something inside me.
Fire ribbons from the instrument, coiling around my body so fast I barely have a chance to blink before I’m caught in a flaming grip that licks too close to my skin. I feel the same writhing force within me, in the form of wild panic.
Statue still, I snarl, vaguely aware of Veya’s screams. Of her standing by the bars of her own cell, bashing her food pan against them.
CLANG
CLANG
CLANG
Extra shackles are clamped around my wrists and ankles, others loosened so I’m no longer tethered to the ground.
But it takes a remarkable red bead to charm a coiled rope of flames to drift in a certain direction while maintaining its shape, or so I’ve learned from observation.
Meaning there’s a chance they won’t keep this up during my entire relocation.
I feast on the flare of hope, waiting. Body taut as I work to calm myself. Compose my mind into a thick shield for this fucking heat to bounce off.
Tense moments beat by—
The fire sputters into a ribbon of lingering smoke.
I unleash—elbows striking chests and masks that clatter to the ground, loosening teeth that are spat to the floor in a spray of blood.
Someone’s face caves from the forward thrust of my head.
I sink my teeth into the neck of the red bead, blood gushing into my mouth as I tear off a hunk of flesh and spit it aside.
Barging through the open doorway, I wrap my chains around someone’s throat, the dense choking sounds music to my ears. Though the satisfying pop of his neck breaking really tops it off.
Really has me dancing despite my pesky restraints.
Another face caves—this one a victim of my thrusting elbow. A femur snaps beneath my boot as I use my shackle like a hammer, cracking someone’s skull open, then whip around and repeat the trick on another creeping up behind me.
I set my sights on the stumpy key bearer jingling every time he shuffles behind one of his comrades, using them as a meat shield.
You’re mine, shit stain.
Another snapped neck before I snatch the bearer’s mask, exposing a red-dappled cheek I claw my nails into, about to rip off his face when something hard collides with my temple.
The blow of pain is blinding but temporary, eased by a cold dark that swarms from all angles.
I drop like a rock.