Chapter 3 #2
"What creature is this?" I ask between bites, tearing another hunk off with my teeth.
Serin blinks, surprise crossing her features. "Chicken. You've never had it?"
I shake my head, swallowing. "We eat what grows beneath the mountain.
What swims in our underground rivers." The words come out bitter despite myself.
"Your kind used a weapon to incinerate our world aboveground.
There are no beasts to hunt or crops to harvest in the Ashlands.
Only what we can cultivate below remains. "
Her face falls, genuine remorse shadowing her features. "I didn't know. I mean, I know about the Sundering, but I never thought about..." She gestures helplessly at the food. "About what you eat. What you lost."
I take another bite of this chicken, considering her words. It is strange to speak so directly of these things with a human. Stranger still to see one look troubled by past cruelties.
I gesture upward with my good arm. "Above ground, where the great spires of Vessan-Kar once reached toward the sky, there is nothing but ash and scorched stone.
Your people's weapon turned an entire city, our homes, our gardens, our sacred places, into what we now call the Ashlands.
Leagues of nothing but death where life once flourished," I say, reaching for a green orb I believe is called an apple.
"Black earth where nothing grows. Your people were thorough in their destruction. "
Serin watches me eat, her expression thoughtful. "But you survived. Your people found a way."
"We adapted." I bite into the fruit, juice bursting sweet and sharp across my tongue. "We became creatures of stone and darkness because we had no choice."
She lowers her eyes, nodding once with the grave finality of someone acknowledging a wrong that cannot be undone.
Then, without meeting my gaze, she reaches into her satchel again and withdraws a small glass bottle.
"I brought something for your wounds. It's an herbal tonic my mother taught me to make.
It will sting, but it prevents festering. "
I eye the bottle suspiciously. "You expect me to let you pour human concoctions onto my flesh?"
"Would you prefer infection?" she counters, her tone sharpening briefly. "Because those gashes along your side are sure to become that way if left untreated.”
We stare at each other in silent challenge until another throb of pain from my wounded flank decides the matter for me. I extend my arm in grudging consent.
The space between us narrows as she inches closer until I am enveloped by the scent of her.
Soap, spices, and beneath it all, a delicate sweetness that reminds me of the luminous cave violets that bloom once a year in the deepest caverns of Vessan-Kar, their fragrance so rare and precious that Temple Guardians will journey for days through treacherous tunnels just to witness their brief flowering.
She uncorks the bottle with a small pop that echoes in our proximity. The pungent scent of herbs fills the small space of sharp mint, bitter yarrow, something earthy I cannot name.
She is close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from her small form, and she pours a measure of the liquid directly into the deepest gash.
Fire erupts along my nerve endings. My hiss emerges as a broken rasp while my claws scrape feebly against the wooden floor, barely leaving marks where once they would have gouged deep furrows.
The effort not to lash out leaves me trembling.
The tonic pools in the wound before she produces a clean, white cloth from her satchel. With surprising gentleness, she dabs at the crusted blood and grit embedded in my scales, her brow furrowed in concentration as she works.
"Sorry," she murmurs, her breath warm against my scales as she leans closer to examine the wound. "I know it hurts."
The pain ebbs slowly, replaced by a strange numbness that spreads outward from the site. The herbal mixture cuts through the metallic tang of my blood with sharp clarity, its scent overwhelming my senses as it works to keep infection at bay.
"There are so many wounds," she says, already moving to the next gash. "This will take time. And your shoulder is hanging at an odd angle."
"It is dislocated," I hiss through clenched teeth, muscles clenching as she probes the tender area.
"I don't know how to fix that, but I can put it in a sling until we can get you to your healers for help," she murmurs, her breath warm against my scales as she leans closer.
I steel myself for the next application of the herbal mixture, oddly touched by the gentle way she tends to injuries that should repulse her.
No human has ever touched me except in violence.
Yet here is this small female, carefully cleaning the blood from my scales, her fingers working with surprising skill.
She folds a large square of material into a triangle and knots it at one end.
"How were you injured?" she asks softly, lifting the knotted end over my head.
Her fingertips brush against my neck, hesitating when they encounter the tangled length of my hair.
With unexpected gentleness, she gathers the frost-white strands and lays them over my uninjured shoulder.
When she eases my arm into the makeshift sling, a white-hot lance of agony shoots from my dislocated shoulder down to my fingertips, making my vision blur. "How did you end up so far from home?"
The questions hang between us, weighted with all she does not know. About the betrayal within our ranks, about the worms who serve her father's general, about her sister's role in my escape. About the tunnel that nearly became my grave.
I watch her hands as they work, so fragile compared to my claws. Perhaps it is the intimacy of her touch, or perhaps it is simple gratitude for the food and water, but I find myself willing to answer.
"I was held captive,” I begin, the words scraping against my throat. "Your sister freed me."
I tell her how I woke in a cage of basilyx lead, my mind swimming through a haze of bitter-tasting drugs they darted me with each day, the sting of the needle between my scales becoming as regular as breathing.
At first, the concoction left me unable to move for hours, my limbs leaden and useless, but as the weeks passed, my body adapted.
I began to anticipate Miria’s visits, feigning deeper stupor than I felt, hoarding fragments of clarity like precious stones while they believed me broken.
"The worms kept me drugged," I continue, wincing as she applies her herbal mixture to a particularly deep gash along my side.
Her fingers freeze mid-motion, hovering above my wound. "Worms..." she echoes, the word barely a whisper.
"Naga traitors," I explain, the words bitter as crushed nightshade on my tongue.
"Spies who report to your General Thorne.
They once served our Serpent Crown, Naryth, as his secret informants, but turned against their own kind.
They orchestrated the bombing that killed him, our ruler for two centuries.
Now Varok has ascended as the Sovereign Flame. "
Serin's eyes widen, but she does not interrupt, allowing me to continue recounting the events that led me to this shed.
I tell her that after many weeks kept inside a cage, I woke to find others in neighboring cages: her sister Leira, the youngling seer Zara, and a loyal Talon, Nirik.
I describe the way Leira discovered her connection to the fire element through her blood bond with Varok.
Of how she called forth flames from her hand to melt the locks on our prison doors.
"She freed me last," I admit, watching Serin's face carefully for reaction. "She had no reason to trust me as I had given her none."
Serin's hands still, her gaze fixing on mine with startling directness. "My sister—was she hurt? Did she escape?"
I consider lying, telling her I saw her sister safely reach Vessan-Kar with my own eyes.
My scales itch with the temptation. If Serin believes her sister awaits her at journey's end, she will continue her healing ministrations.
Her food and water have already begun restoring my strength.
Strength I will need to survive the treacherous path back to naga territory.
But her fingers pause against my wound, eyes lifting to mine with such naked hope that it pulls honesty from me like poison from a wound.
"She was unharmed when I last saw her," I answer.
"But our escape did not go as planned. The traitors were many, and we were few.
We raced through the tunnels, fighting when necessary.
Your sister..." I pause, still marveling at the memory.
"Your sister threw fireballs like she had been born to it.
She wielded Varok's element as if it had always been hers. "
"She helped you fight?"
I nod, and immediately regret it as the room tilts sideways, sending a wave of dizziness through me that makes the shed's walls blur and swim before my eyes.
"She was... formidable. But we were outnumbered.
The tunnels ahead split in multiple directions.
I recognized a weakness in the stone above one of the passages.
A place where the mountain's weight pressed against a natural fissure in the stone, hairline cracks already spiderwebbing outward like frozen lightning.
"I collapsed it to give them time to escape.
" I do not mention that I had expected to die in that collapse, that my survival was a bitter surprise even to myself.
"I brought down the ceiling on myself and those pursuing us.
The last I saw of your sister, she was guiding Nirik's stumbling form with one arm while urging Zara forward with the other, all three silhouettes growing smaller as they fled toward an ascending passage that would take them to the surface, to the scorched expanse of the Ashlands. "
Serin's hands freeze against my scales. "You… you collapsed a tunnel. While you were still inside it?" Her voice drops to a whisper, eyes wide with disbelief. "You sacrificed yourself for them. For my sister."
Her gaze lifts to mine, the sudden brightness in her eyes making my scales prickle with discomfort as I realize what I have revealed.
That I, a naga warrior sworn to despise her kind, had risked death to ensure her sister's escape.
The weight of her stare burns, and I want to tell her it was not heroism, that I would have done the same for any naga, but the lie sticks in my throat when I remember how I had positioned myself between the human female and danger without conscious thought.
"I do not know if they reached the surface. The mountain came down around me. I was... buried,” I add, shifting uncomfortably under that reverent stare, and look away. The last thing I need is this human female thinking of me as a savior.
She tears a fresh strip of cloth with her teeth, then begins wrapping it around the deep gash on my forearm.
The bleeding has finally stopped, but the wound still throbs with each heartbeat.
"So you were buried alive," she says, her voice steady despite the horror in her eyes.
"How did you survive that? And how did you end up here, in my family's shed? "
"After crawling in darkness for days in unfamiliar tunnels, I finally tasted fresh air," I tell her, flicking my forked tongue in demonstration. "I followed that scent until I saw sky between the rocks. I heard human voices nearby, so I slithered away from them and found this shed.”
"It's fortunate you found this place," she murmurs, tying off the bandage with nimble fingers.
"Had anyone else discovered you, they would have sounded the alarm.
The Crownward Guards don't ask questions when it comes to naga; they execute first. Plus, any naga found in human territory is grounds to reignite the war.
The very thing my sister's marriage to Varok was meant to prevent. "
I nearly laugh at her naivety. The war never ended; it merely changed form.
While she bandages me with gentle hands, worms slither through tunnels beneath us, trading naga secrets for the promise of surface life.
General Thorne plots with traitors who have abandoned scale for skin.
And here she speaks of peace as if it were more than political theater, a performance for those too blind to see the shadows where true alliances form.
"What tunnel brought you inside the garden? The only tunnel I know is the one hidden under the hallway runner outside mine and Leira’s rooms," Serin whispers, her hands resuming their work with tender care.
"Scouts used to use it to travel between here and naga territory. I didn't know there were others.”
The revelation makes me go still. Her knowledge of secret passages beneath her family's dwelling is troubling. If she knows of one, how many others might her father's military advisors have created?
I narrow my eyes, scales bristling along my spine. "There are many tunnels. Some ancient, some newly excavated. Some, apparently, that even I do not know." The thought of humans having secret pathways into our territory that I remain ignorant of sends a cold ripple down my length.
"The tunnel that brought you here was new to you," she says, her brow furrowing as she studies my face. Her eyes search mine with unmistakable concern. "But you know how to find Vessan-Kar from here, right? You know how to take me to my sister?”
"I gave my word I would guide you there. Be warned, the path will not be easy, as the tunnel that led me here has collapsed at the other end. We will have to find another way around it, but once we reach Vessan-Kar, your presence will not be welcome. Your sister’s presence as Varok’s bloodmate is barely tolerated.
" The pain in my dislocated shoulder pulses in time with my heartbeat, a reminder of my vulnerability.
"There are those among my kind who would kill you on sight, treaty or no treaty. "
"Like you would have?" she asks, her voice surprisingly steady.
My lips curl back, revealing the deadly ivory daggers of my fangs in a deliberate display that reminds her what I truly am. "Yes."
"What changed?"
The question catches me unprepared. What indeed? I could blame blood loss or the strange intimacy of having her tend my wounds. I could cite practical necessity. My need for her aid in exchange for my promise. But the truth is more unsettling.
"Your sister freed me when she could have left me to die," I admit. "And you have offered aid when you could have raised alarm. Such actions... merit reconsideration."