Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
LUROK
Isurface through layers of darkness, consciousness coming in fragmented bursts like air bubbles rising through thick liquid.
Pain anchors me to my body, a relentless pressure in my core that pulses with each heartbeat.
A comfortable platform cushions my scales.
The scent of minerals and healing herbs floods my nostrils.
Do I recognize this place? My mind struggles to connect fragments of memory. It might be the recovery chambers at the Temple of Threads, but uncertainty lingers.
Voices drift above me, distorted as though traveling through water.
Words form and dissolve before I can grasp their meaning.
The bitter tang of our healers' sedative tincture coats my tongue, a familiar taste that speaks of unconsciousness and skilled hands mending broken bodies as the mind drifts in merciful darkness.
I try to move, but my limbs refuse to obey, weighted and distant as though they belong to someone else.
The relaxant has rendered me boneless, my thoughts sharper than my physical form allows.
Where pain once lived in my shoulder, there is now only a distant, hollow ache.
The echo of an injury rather than the wound itself. The healers have done their work.
My fingers twitch against the cushioned platform, the most rebellion I can muster against this forced stillness. Something deep inside feels realigned, as though skilled hands have slipped beneath my scales and restored what was damaged.
Memory surfaces like debris after a flood. The wagon. The cramped wooden platform beneath my coils. Serin's face, her features strained with effort as she positioned the cart alongside me in that hidden passage beneath her family's dwelling.
You can't continue like this, she had said, her voice gentle but firm.
I had expected her to crumble after a few yards.
Her delicate human frame, surely no match for my massive weight.
But with each labored breath, each determined step, she defied my assumptions.
The memory of being hauled like cargo through that dark tunnel still stings, a warrior reduced to helpless freight.
Even as consciousness slipped from me, I could not deny her unexpected strength.
Serin. Where is she?
The brave, little human made it. Against all odds, against every prediction I could have made about human frailty and weakness, Serin got me to Vessan-Kar.
I try to call her name, but my tongue feels swollen and useless in my mouth. Only a rasp escapes my throat, drowned by the persistent roaring in my ears. The effort costs me, darkness crowding in again at the edges of my awareness.
No. I cannot succumb. The worms. The explosives. The human general's plan. Five days. That is all Vessan-Kar has before tons of stone come crashing down. Serin risked everything to deliver me home; now I must deliver the warning.
I force my eyes open, though my eyelids feel drowned in sleep. Light pierces my vision, too bright after so long in darkness. Blurred shapes move around me, indistinct but clearly naga. I force air through my parched throat. All that emerges is a broken hiss.
The shapes pause, then move closer. A face leans over me, features smudged by my failing vision. I cannot make out the details, but the posture suggests authority. A healer, perhaps, or a warrior of rank. I must make them understand.
"Worms," I manage to rasp, the word scraping my raw throat. "Explosives. Serin."
The figure says something, but the words dissolve into meaningless sound before they reach my understanding. Frustration builds in my chest, a tight knot of desperation. I need to know what happened to Serin. I need to ensure her warning was heeded.
Darkness presses in at the edge of my vision, tempting me toward oblivion. I resist, my only thought: I need to know Serin’s fate. Determination is all that keeps me tethered to consciousness.
I claw my way back, dragging myself from the depths by an insistent voice repeating my name. The darkness recedes slowly, like night surrendering to dawn.
A face hovers above me, features gradually sharpening into recognition. Salvor. The relief hits me like a physical force. A familiar face, a trusted comrade. Not a healer or Temple Guardian, but a fellow Talon who fought at my side through countless skirmishes.
"You have rejoined us at last," Salvor says, his voice low and controlled as always.
His dark green scales catch the ambient light of the chamber, familiar patterns I would recognize anywhere. We fought side by side during the last border skirmishes, his blade as reliable as his counsel. If any Talon could be trusted in this moment of crisis, it is him.
"Salvor," I rasp. “Thank the Ancients it is you.”
His mouth quirks in that slight, controlled expression that passes for amusement among the most disciplined Talons. "Yes. Thank the Ancients.”
I try to rise, but my body betrays me. My limbs feel weighted as the sedative still courses through my veins, turning muscles to liquid, bones to sand.
My torso refuses to obey, anchored to the platform as though the very air presses me down.
"Be still," Salvor says, placing a firm hand on my uninjured shoulder.
"The healer has only just finished with you.
Your body requires time to accept her hard work. "
"The human female," I manage, each word costing me. "Serin. Where is she?"
Something flickers across Salvor's face, too quick for my drug-hazed mind to interpret. "The human is being attended to."
"She saved my life." The admission tears at old certainties, betraying beliefs I once held sacred. Truth strips me raw. "She risked everything to bring warning."
"Yes, the human female delivered the message herself," Salvor says with the smooth calm that has always been his hallmark in battle. His scales shift as he adjusts his position, catching the light with each subtle movement.
“Good.” Relief crashes over me, washing away the crushing weight of responsibility I have carried since I first discovered the worms' betrayal. “Varok will stop them.”
My muscles, rigid with worry, relax against the cushioned platform.
I know the warning reached Varok in time.
Vessan-Kar will not fall. My people will not be extinguished beneath tons of rock.
This is because of Serin, a human female with every reason to fear me, to hate me, to leave me bleeding in that garden shed.
"She succeeded," I whisper, the words carrying a note of wonder I cannot disguise. "Against all odds."
Salvor inclines his head. "Indeed. The human female has been... surprisingly resourceful."
I close my eyes, picturing Serin as I last saw her. Determination etched on her face as her small frame somehow pulled the burden of my massive weight. How many would have risked everything for a creature they had been taught to fear?
"Her name is Serin," I say, surprised by the defensive edge of my tone. "Serin Valen. She deserves the dignity of her name."
"Of course," Salvor replies, his expression unreadable. “Serin Valen.”
Hearing her name from Salvor's lips sends a current of warmth through my chest that I don't want to acknowledge.
My scales tingle with it, this foreign and dangerous sensation that should have no place in my heart.
I should crush it, deny it, but I am too weak to fight both my injuries and this unfamiliar feeling that whispers of connection.
So I surrender, just for now, letting it bloom unchecked.
"She saved more than my life. She saved us all," I muse, my voice softening. “Where is she now?"
"Resting," Salvor says. "As you should be. The healer worked through the night to repair your ruptured spleen. Without her intervention, you would not have survived until morning."
I let exhaustion sweep me under, surrendering to the dark. But Serin’s face haunts my mind, not as a trembling stranger but a fierce savior, her spirit burning away any trace of weakness. She was beautiful then: not despite her limitations, but because she defied them for me.
* * *
I wake again, this time to the sensation of gentle pressure against my flank, cool fingertips tracing the edges of a wound that no longer burns with the same intensity.
The fog of sedatives has thinned enough for coherent thought, though my limbs still feel distant, reluctant to obey commands.
A female healer hovers over me, her scales a deep violet, flecked with obsidian that wink in the soft light of the keh’shalin, the sentient veins of light threading through our subterranean world.
I recognize her from the Temple of Threads, her practiced movements familiar as she changes the bandages across my torso with methodical precision.
Her face swims into focus as my vision clears.
I have seen her before, tending our wounded during the Sundering.
She closed gaping wounds during the bloodiest years of human encroachment.
Her movements carry the efficiency of someone who has stitched together hundreds of warriors torn apart by war. Yet her name slips away from me.
"How long have I been out?" I ask, my voice stronger than before.
She glances down, meeting my gaze briefly before returning to her work. "Three days since your arrival.”
“Three days,” I repeat, exhaling, knowing Varok has stopped the worms. “I must speak with Serin. To thank her.”
The healer's hands pause for the briefest moment before resuming their work. "She is indisposed."
Something in her tone sends a ripple of unease down my spine. The words too controlled, too precise, like a practiced line rather than a natural response. My eyes narrow.
"What do you mean, indisposed?" I grow concerned. “Is she not well? Was she injured? Taken ill?”
"The human is not ill," she replies, her voice maintaining that same careful neutrality. "Be still. Your wounds require attention now."