Chapter 23 #3
Lurok's gaze snaps to her, his pupils contracting then dilating as he struggles to focus.
"Did it now, little seer?" His words still carry a slight slur, but his voice grows steadier with each syllable.
"Knowledge is power. Perhaps that is why you are in a cage alongside the rest of us.
" He blinks hard, shakes his head once as if clearing cobwebs, then returns his attention to me and Nirik.
"I followed Jarik through to the tunnel’s end.
It led outside Vessan-Kar and into the Ashlands.
" His clawed hand grips the bars tighter, steadying himself as his speech becomes more precise. "The tunnel opened into a ravine. That is where I saw them. Human soldiers. Dozens of them, setting up an encampment along the eastern border. Supply crates marked with the insignia of your father’s army.” His gaze spears through me. “And leading them was Thorne."
“Just like I said,” Nirik hisses. “We have to warn Malikor of Jarik’s deception.”
The knowledge hits me like a punch to the gut.
General Thorne is my father's military adviser who attended the treaty signing and is now amassing soldiers at the border. If my father orchestrated this military buildup, the very thing Varok witnessed through the OathCoil, it’s no wonder Varok was reluctant to answer my questions.
I had felt his guilt and uncertainty pulse through our bond.
I had accused him of betrayal, but it's my own people who are the aggressors.
"We cannot warn Malikor from in here, Nirik.” Lurok gestures to our cages with a sweep of his arm.
"I was on my way back to warn Varok when something stung my neck. Some kind of dart followed by darkness, until I woke in this cage. They have fed me, kept me alive all this time. I suppose not knowing what to do with me. I was hit with a second dart and woke to you three.”
Nirik's scales ripple with disbelief. "I would think you would be in favor of reigniting the Sundering," Nirik says, eyes narrowing to slits. "You openly oppose the treaty with the humans. You called the Threadborn Prophecy a death knell for our people."
Lurok's glacial gaze slides to me, lingering on Emberyn at my throat.
His laugh is cold and without humor. "The human is the harbinger of our doom.
The prophecy speaks of ruination, not salvation.
" His claws tighten around the bars. "But I would never ally with human filth to hasten our destruction.”
“You should reserve your hatred for the traitors working with General Thorne, not for me,” I say, voice low, steady. “I gave myself willingly to help end this war. And if you think the prophecy speaks of doom, it is not because of me. It’s because your own people are making it happen.”
For the first time, Lurok’s expression shifts. Not softening—he has no softness in him—but assessing.
“You speak boldly for prey,” he says.
I meet his stare head on. “I’m not prey.”
"What do they hope to gain by allying with Thorne?” Nirik asks. "Why betray their own kind?"
“Power,” Lurok says simply, voice sharpening. “Always power. Thorne offers them something they believe the Crown cannot—freedom from the darkness, from the tunnels. A place in the world above.” His lip curls in disgust. “They are fools. Thorne will use them then discard them. Humans always do.”
“Thorne isn’t humans.” I defend. “Thorne is one man. A corrupt one. Don’t put his sins on me or on every innocent life in Clavenmoor.”
His eyes snap to mine. “You think I speak of one human? Oh no, Threadborn. I speak of centuries. Clutches skinned. Territory burned. My family carved to pieces.”
“I have lost people as well!” I snap back.
His voice drops to a low, lethal growl. “You will forgive me if I do not weep for your species.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I reply. “But don’t lie to yourself. It isn’t humans who put you in that cage. It’s naga. Your own kind is selling you out.”
Another flicker in his expression of pain, masked instantly beneath iron.
I take a deep breath, refocusing on our immediate problem. "We need to stop arguing among ourselves and find a way out of here. Leave me behind if you hate me so much but get Zara to safety before they return."
"Why do you care so much about the youngling?" Lurok asks, his voice sharp with incredulous disbelief.
“Because she’s innocent,” I bite out, gripping the bars until my knuckles ache.
“Zara is like a little sister to me. She’s gentle and terrified and far too young to be caught in a war for other’s ambition.
She deserves protection, not punishment.
” My breath shakes, but my voice doesn’t.
“I’m being betrayed by Thorne too, used like a bargaining chip in some scheme I still don’t understand.
And if my father is tangled in this?” My chest tightens.
“Then that makes it worse. That makes it personal.” I lift my chin and meet Lurok’s glare head on.
“Not all humans are your enemy, Lurok, as not all naga are mine. So stop focusing on your hatred and start helping us figure a way out of here.”
Lurok's tail shifts against the floor of his cage. "I agree," he says, his ready cooperation surprising me. "But we face a problem. These bars are basilyx lead. They will not bend without the intense heat of a forge to soften the metal."
“The heat of a forge,” Zara’s gaze burns as bright as her smile. “Ny’Leira can help with that.”
“How can I be of help?”
“The serpent stone ties you to his flame the same as his blood,” Zara responds. “You can siphon Ry’Varok’s elemental power, not all of it, but a little. It might be enough to melt the locks on our cages.”
"Tell me what to do," I say, turning my full attention to Zara.
She straightens, her expression suddenly serious, reminiscent of Eira during their lessons in the temple. "Close your eyes," she instructs. "Breathe deeply. Find the quiet place inside you where the bond lives."
I obey, shutting out the sight of our prison, the metal bars, the worried faces of my fellow captives. The darkness behind my eyelids is complete, broken only by faint reddish patterns from the flicker of the distant heartglass.
“The bond with Ry'Varok is like a thread," Zara continues, her voice soft but clear. "You might not feel it now, but it is still there. Follow it backward, to the places where it burned brightest."
I let my mind drift, seeking the connection that has grown between Varok and me over the weeks. Emberyn remains cool against my skin, but I focus beyond that physical sensation, reaching for something deeper.
Memories surface unbidden. The fire that seemed to dance just beneath Varok’s scales when he claimed me as his.
My skin flushing with heat when we exchanged words of love.
The moments when our passion ignited something that felt more than physical, when pleasure built beyond the boundaries of our separate bodies.
The flare of anger I felt in the war chamber when I discovered the OathCoil's purpose. The heat that had risen within me then hadn't just been emotion. There had been something else, something that made the air around me shimmer briefly before I stormed away.
"That is it," Zara whispers, though how she knows I'm on the right track, I can't fathom. "The fire is not just his. It is in you too, because of the serpent stone. Because of the blood bond.”
There. A flutter of warmth, so faint I almost miss it. Not from the Emberyn, but from somewhere deeper, somewhere inside me.
"I feel something," I whisper, afraid that speaking too loudly might break this tenuous connection.
"Pull it toward the surface," Zara instructs. "Imagine it flowing through you, from your heart to your hand."
I focus on that tiny spark of warmth, imagining it growing, strengthening. In my mind's eye, it's a small ember, glowing faintly in the darkness. I coax it gently, feeding it with memories of Varok, with the strength of what I feel for him.
The ember grows brighter, warmer.
A tingling sensation starts in my chest, spreading outward along my arm. Emberyn still feels cool against my skin, but something inside me is definitely warming. The tingling intensifies, flowing like liquid heat down to my fingertips.
"Something's happening," I say, my voice tight with concentration.
"Open your eyes," Zara commands. "But keep holding onto that feeling."
I open my eyes, keeping my focus on the warmth flowing through me.
At first, nothing seems different. Then I notice a faint shimmer in the air around my hand, like heat rising from sunbaked stone.
My palm feels hot, but not painfully so.
It’s a pleasant warmth that pulses in rhythm with my heartbeat.
"Look," Nirik breathes, his dark blue eyes wide with wonder.
Tiny flickers of amber light dance across my fingertips, more like the memory of flame than actual fire. I stare, transfixed, as the flickers strengthen, coalescing into small tongues of golden flame that lick upward from my palm without burning my flesh.
"I did it," I whisper, hardly believing what I'm seeing. "Zara, I did it!"
The little seer beams at me through the bars, her smile radiant with pride and hope. "I knew you could! Now try to make it stronger."
I focus harder, pulling on that thread of connection, on the memory when I confessed my love for Varok as well as my own anger.
The flames grow higher, brighter, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls of our prison.
The heat is more intense now but still doesn't harm me.
It feels like part of me, an extension of my will rather than a separate force.
"The lock!" Zara exclaims, pointing to the mechanism securing my cell door. "Try to melt it!"
I turn toward the heavy lead lock, doubt flickering briefly. "I don't know if I can make it hot enough..."
"You can," Lurok says unexpectedly, his voice a low rumble of certainty. "If you truly channel Varok’s element, that lock will yield."
I step toward the door, bringing my flaming hand to the lock. The metal is cold and unyielding against my fingers, but I press my palm flat against it, willing the fire to intensify, to focus where I need it most.
For a moment, nothing happens beyond the flickering of flames against dark metal. Then a wisp of smoke curls upward. The lock grows warm then hot against my flaming hand. The heat builds rapidly, metal beginning to glow a dull red where my palm presses against it.
"Keep going," Nirik encourages, leaning forward in his cell, his eyes fixed on the increasingly bright glow of the lock.
I grit my teeth, focusing every ounce of concentration on the fire, on making it hotter, on directing it precisely where needed. The lock transitions from red to orange to a blinding white gold. Sweat beads on my forehead from the effort of maintaining such intense heat, but I don't relent.
With a sudden, liquid shift, the metal begins to deform beneath my hand. Molten droplets splatter to the stone floor, hissing on contact. The interior mechanism softens, components fusing and flowing into one another.
The lock gives way with a soft, almost anticlimactic click. The door swings outward an inch or two, no longer secured.
I step back, staring at my hand in wonder as the flames gradually diminish then flicker out entirely. My skin is unmarked, unburned, showing no evidence of the elemental power that just poured through it.
"You did it!" Zara's voice is barely contained excitement. "You are free!"
I push the cell door open wider, stepping out into the corridor with a heady rush of triumph and disbelief. The heartstone torch seems brighter somehow, or perhaps it's just the sudden expansion of possibility now that I'm no longer caged.
"Now free us," Lurok says, his expression intense. "Before the guards return."
I nod, already moving toward Zara's cell, my hand beginning to tingle again as I call upon the newly discovered fire within me. One by one, I free them...
All except for one.