Chapter 52
A hard strike to my knees gouges me from the warm dark like poison scraped from a wound—rough voices coming to me like smoke on the wind.
“Just where the miskunn said she would be—”
“—our king will be pleased.”
I wheeze air ripe with ash and dust and the distant reek of burnt flesh, groaning at the sight of my iron-shackled wrists.
Creators— What now?
I jerk against the strong hands dragging me forward, thick fingers dug into my wounded shoulder like it’s a fucking handle.
“Stop that,” I slur, trying to lift my chin from my chest and catch a look at my captors.
But my head is rock heavy, leaving me stuck watching the gray-stone ground slipping by, uneven bits taking the occasional strike at my poor kneecaps.
That, and black boots that kick at the hems of my captors’ sooty cloaks as they power down a dark tunnel through bursts of firelight.
Each thumping step is placed with an agency that makes me shiver despite the sticky magma slugging through my veins.
“I can … walk.”
A lie, of course. I can’t walk. I can barely breathe. But the ensuing silence confirms my suspicions—that the duo dragging me down this underground burrow has questionable intentions.
Perhaps I should’ve taken my chances with the crowls?
My lids drop as the world continues to grate me, long moments slipping by while I note the twists and turns we take. Mentally tucking the directions away until they’re a tangled knot in the back of my mind.
The walls fall away.
I’m lumped on the ground like a bag of bones, though my forehead absorbs most of the blow. “That’s not very … nice,” I wrangle out, clawing at my sheath to find it empty. The one in my left boot is equally so.
No point checking the right.
Instead, I pour my strength into rocking onto my knees, hands flat on the chalky ground, head hung until I find the gusto to lift it.
And still.
I’m in a lofty cavern cluttered with ash-dusted …
things barely visible from the scarce light spilling off distant wall torches; broken ornaments, candelabras from a bygone time, dragonscale shields and rusted plates of armor that look as though they’ve been dug from long-forgotten graves.
All precisely placed in towering stacks that resemble—
My heart slams to a halt.
Am I in the den of a velvet trogg?
Looking back, I see my two black-cloaked escorts standing behind me with their hands clasped. Both wearing bronze masks that glint in the firelight, tapering to hooked beaks. A visage that reminds me of something I once saw in a picture book many phases ago, though I can’t think what.
But I know one thing for certain: This tight, squirming sensation in my chest … it’s telling me to get the fuck out.
Now.
I move to stand.
A firm hand slams down on my wounded shoulder and grips tight, immobilizing me with a strike of pain.
I’m hissing a string of curses when a chesty rumble ratchets off the walls, echoing all around. Like we’re in the belly of some great stone beast.
“Hush, Cliár.” The dense voice plugs the cavern, followed by a seething sentence that lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. “Hussah tha vish ui ash, seethen.”
Fire streams from two of the far-off wall torches. Flaming serpents that slither around the many gathered piles of stuff, igniting the vast shape and size of the treasure-laden cavern, making me feel tiny.
They dive into twin bronze bowls of oil, eviscerating into a rage of flames that illuminate a lofty dais postured over me like a threat. Atop it, a massive throne spikes up in all directions, built from a mosaic of shards I squint at.
Study.
Most are colorful and with the hint of feathered plumage. Some are in comforting shades of the north with bursts of scalloped scales—
Moonshards.
I scour the trove of jagged shards artfully pieced together, recognizing mauve bits of the Moltenmaw moon that fell amongst The Fade recently. Though mostly it’s made from other beasts, scavenged from a past that’s all but lost to us.
The sight makes my heart shudder, but it’s three distinct silver shards that kick the breath from my lungs. Because there are only two silver Moonplumes in our known history, and only one of those has fallen.
Shattered.
Slátra.
A presence dashes past me like a lofty shadow heavy with a masculine musk, the frayed hem of his black cloak dragging across the ash-dusted ground.
The stranger moves up the dais with silent steps, flicks around, and drapes upon the throne, setting a pale crown upon its broad armrest. A crown fashioned from what appears to be the many tapered teeth of some beast.
I frown, studying the newcomer now balling his fist, using it as a chin-perch. Though his face is hidden within the shadow of his floppy hood, blazing eyes glint in the dark.
Watching.
“Those who wander beneath my mountain rarely leave … Veya Vaegor.”
The baritone words drone into my skin, through muscle, sinew, and bone.
He knows my name …
I battle to keep my voice steady, strong as I ask, “Who are you?”
“Your only hope of salvation, it seems, based on the reek of that wound in your shoulder.”
A moment of still before I lift my shackles and jolt them, making the chains rattle. A sound that echoes so much I get a haunting sense of the cavern’s lofty size. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Precautions.” His skeletal fingers dance across the pointed tips of that pale crown.
“It is my understanding that you knelt to Bulder many phases ago. Though you may not hear him as well as your siblings, given your heritage and somewhat staunch devotion, I have no doubt he’d favor you above most of my underlings. ”
His words slash shards of ice through my veins.
I’m not sure how he learned such things, but it doesn’t bode well.
My smile is sour, pinching my cheeks. “Perhaps you overestimate me.”
“I doubt it.”
A gaping silence ensues.
He watches me, tap-tap-tapping across those pointed tips. My gaze flicks to his fingers, heart slamming to a halt as I notice they’re bloodied at the ends. Chewed raw.
He’s bloodlusting.
Badly—
“Tell me, Veya.” My gaze snaps to his fiery eyes, my vision splitting. Converging again. “Do you like my palace?” He dashes his hands wide, flourishing his hoard in such a way I’m reminded of the velvet trogg. Only somehow, I felt safer in her lair.
More in control.
“You, ah—” I wobble, shaking my head as I regain my balance. “You have a lot of things.”
“I do.” Another stint of watchful silence. “Scavenged treasures. All tossed away over the phases. Discarded.”
Scavenged—
Fuck.
“You’re the Scavenger King.” I look to his crown, the tips of his fingers, back to his red, glinting eyes. “You govern the under-mountain fighting pits with the razah.”
“Call me Arkyn.” His fingers still. “When you look around, what do you see?”
“Loneliness.”
I blast the word without thinking it through, internally chastising myself for being so stupid. I’m in the presence of a male renown for feeding folk to the blazing Pits of Khindard. Whose to say he won’t toss me in there for the blunt rebuttal?
He makes a dense sound in the back of his throat, suggesting an air of ease that betrays the tension strung between us. So tight that every breath makes my heart pump harder.
Faster.
“I’m curious,” he murmurs. “Your pah, what was he like?”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Just trying to gauge your character.”
I frown.
There are two types of folk in this world.
The type who believed in the manner in which Ostern Vaegor ruled—honoring only power, planting his seed in every corner of the globe, and ensuring his poisoned mindset spread.
Then there are the ones who mourn the loss of those who ruled with a whole heart, valuing folk of all manner, with or without power. With or without title.
Like Kaan.
Like the Neváns.
The thought is a choke of poison. A brutal reminder that I didn’t just murder a loving family so many phases ago, but the figureheads of an ideal that shaped the world into a better place.
“Void of empathy,” I rasp, my voice breathless and bruised.
I void the heavy guilt, stuffing it so fucking deep I barely register its presence.
The hollow floods with a bulge of rabid hate for the male who sired me, the tips of my fingers itching as I spit a fresh wave of words.
“Impulsive. Cruel. Aggressive. Want me to go on?”
His hand stills, voice almost soft as he says, “You lust for his blood on your hands …”
My lips pinch tight.
“But your brother took his life … A kinslayer—abhorred in all kingdoms but the one he stole.”
Something about the way he shapes the statement has my spine snapping straight.
“The one he liberated,” I snip past gritted teeth, eyes narrowed on the male, the air between us growing stiff and stale. Like mortar’s glugging the cavern full. “Kaan’s a good king. A good male. If anyone deserved to take Pah’s life, it was him.”
Arkyn’s head ticks to the side. “Is that so?”
I frown, about to ask where this is heading—
Arkyn whistles, low and long.
The shrill sound of something clawing against stone makes the hairs on my arms lift.
Silence simmers before the telltale whomp-whomp-whomp of pulsating wings fills the cavern with a churn of ash-littered wind. Like Clode just donned a full-skirted gown and began dancing atop the clutter, spinning and dashing the heavy layers about.
I tip my head to the darkness above. See a flash of ruddy, glittering plumage before another blast of ash hits my eyes. I’m rubbing them clear when the ground shakes with a heavy landing, followed by the shrill screech of talons clawing across stone.
A terrible squawk shreds the silence, smelling like smoke and the putrid waft of rotting meat. Making my heart thrash.
I pull my fists from my stinging eyes …
My pulse scatters as a hooked, golden beak emerges from the gloom above the Scavenger King’s head, plumes of smoke huffing from the beast’s tear-shaped nostrils.