Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Nienna
Aplate of meat was set in front of me, rich spices clogging the air, thick and nauseating, causing me to retch. My abdomen throbbed with a deep, abiding pain. Fear coiled low and tight.
Hungry. Beaten. Stressed. Any of it could have caused the ache, yet my thoughts circled the single possibility I refused to name. I could survive anything. I would endure any torment for the life inside me. No suffering outweighed that.
But the thought of losing it?
I rolled onto my side and turned my back on the tray. Fire streaked across my spine. Welts split open against the coarse sheets, and I fisted the linen to swallow the cry clawing up my throat. A small sound slipped free anyway. Frail. Useless.
“Please.” The word threaded through the silence, soft as smoke.
I went still. Hope surged, sharp and ugly. I crushed it before it could bloom, smothered it into the dark hole of my heart.
“Please, eat.”
With agonizing care, I pushed upright. Scabbed gashes dragged against fabric. My back pulsed in protest.
The servant girl kept her gaze on the tray, inching it nearer with careful fingers. Dark eyes lifted for a heartbeat, then dropped as if eye contact might earn her a punishment.
I chose the smallest piece of meat. Part of me wished it carried a sedative, something to pull me under and spare me from this waking nightmare. Sleep would carry me home. I would wake in Kallias’ arms and sob about the horror of my pregnancy dreams.
Seasoned beef coated my tongue. Salt and iron filled my mouth as I forced myself to chew. I craved crisp fruit, vegetables that snapped between teeth. As a nation of carnivores, Vellos thrived on flesh and blood.
Their power demanded it.
“What’s your name?” I kept my voice thin, wary of Egath or Tallon lurking beyond the door, ready to turn this into another terrible joke.
Her mouth pressed into a pale line. A faint shake of her head answered me.
Breath left me in a slow exhale, and I eased back onto my throbbing stomach.
“Aida.” She worried her lower lip between blunt front teeth and traced the tray’s rim with a ragged nail.
“You’re human.” The words slipped out before I could cage them. I held still, fighting the instinct to seize her chin and inspect her mouth.
Another glance flicked toward the door. Her shoulders drew inward. “We all are.”
“But your teeth—they’re flat.” I tore a strip of meat with my fingers and wiped grease across the sheet. Oil soaked into linen, already damp with sweat and old blood.
Aida hooked a finger inside her cheek and pulled. Four teeth had been carved into sharp points, crude and animal-like. She released her mouth and folded her hands together. “They mark status. You needn’t fear the flats.”
“The more sharpened teeth, the higher the rank?” I barely shaped the question, then took another bite to encourage her to keep talking.
“The flats carry no magic.” Air hitched in her chest. Her lips sealed tight, regret flashing across her face as she glanced at the door.
“Aida, I will speak nothing of this. Please. Don’t leave me.” My hand lifted toward hers, then faltered. The gesture had been meant to comfort, but she looked at it as if it were a snake aiming to strike. I withdrew before she flinched.
“If Egath catches me,” she breathed, voice thin as thread, “I’ll be sent to the farms.” Panic hollowed her eyes. “Force feeding is only the beginning. Do not anger the nobles.”
She rose once she saw me chewing and smoothed her dress with careful palms. The cut matched the other servants. Sleeves to the wrist, hem brushing stone, neckline stretched wide across her shoulders. Pale scars traced her collarbones.
My chest pulled toward her retreating figure, hunger for something beyond food gnawing deeper than the ache in my belly.
I needed an ally. A voice that did not drip with cruelty.
Yet suspicion prowled close behind the longing.
What if this kindness masked another trap?
Deimos enjoyed elaborate cruelty. Tallon adored spectacle.
He would let her near me, let trust take root, then slit her throat before my eyes to prove ownership.
“Will you bind my back?” I called as she neared the door.
“If your handler permits.” The words barely carried across the chamber. Her fingers closed around the latch. She slipped out without a backward glance.
“Good dogs get treats.” Tallon’s grin flashed as he tossed a lacquered box onto the mattress.
I squeezed my eyes shut and gathered the tatters of my strength before facing him.
“Deimos won’t be happy,” Egath muttered.
“I don’t care what your king thinks of how I treat my pets.”
“He’s your king as well. Remember that, princeling.”
I forced myself upright in time to catch the venom in Tallon’s glare.
Egath did not react. He settled into the plush chair as though boredom shielded him, hands braced on his knees.
Damp hair clung to his temples, water still darkening the strands—fresh from a bath.
Emerald irises caught the lantern’s glow.
He should have been handsome.
Instead, my stomach knotted with terror.
No ally waited in him. I was a trophy. Spoils dragged in by hounds and tossed at another beast.
“Open it.” Tallon thrust the box toward me.
Pain split across my back as I shifted. Each movement sent burning agony through torn flesh.
“Gods, you’re such a child.” He snatched it away and ripped the lid free.
White gauze replaced the blood-red I had worn. The cloth drifted onto the bed like shed skin. He reached inside again and drew out a tangle of gold chains. A collar rose from the mess, tall and gleaming, fashioned in the same cruel shape he had forced on me before. Scales shimmered along its curve.
The mutilated portion of my mantle caught the lanternlight.
My pulse stumbled. I stared at the scales Kallias had forged for me. They marked my station. They marked his devotion. And Tallon destroyed it.
Laughter burst from him, bright and vicious. He lunged forward and seized my arm, dragging me from the mattress. “Up. Get dressed.”
I sucked in a gasp as fire exploded along my spine. Darkness crowded my vision.
“Tallon,” Egath snapped, rising. “Allow me. If you wrench her about, she will collapse before dinner.” He crossed the space without waiting for permission.
Cool fingers slid the soiled fabric from my shoulders.
His touch carried the chill of river stone.
He kept the material clear of my back with careful precision.
Shame should have flared. Revulsion should have followed as his gaze tracked my reflection in the mirror, sharp teeth hovering near my shoulder, breath grazing skin.
Nothing surfaced.
Emptiness settled where outrage once lived.
I was numb.
He loosened my belt and let the thin garment pool at my feet. When his hands reached for the white gauze, my eyes flicked toward Tallon.
The prince reclined against the pillows, watching his cousin with a curved smile. Possession radiated from him. Egath wanted me. Wanted my blood. Tallon knew it. He dangled denial like a blade between them. They might have been family—but they definitely weren’t friends.
I doubted the Velli knew the meaning of friendship.
“Lean against the dresser,” Egath murmured near my ear, guiding my palm to the dark wood. The surface felt cool and polished beneath my skin. “Don’t faint on me.”
A low chuckle left Tallon as Egath draped the white fabric over my body. Pristine cloth mocked my bruised cheek, my mottled arms, the crusted cuts circling my wrist and collarbone. Purity against ruin.
When the belt cinched tight, Tallon swung his legs off the bed and lifted the chains.
Gold hung in a tangled snarl, twisted by careless hands.
A broken sound rattled in my chest before I could stop it.
Kallias would never have allowed such neglect.
Ceremony mattered to him. The mantle symbolized honor. Tallon reduced it to a laughingstock.
“Give it here.” Egath reached out, but Tallon knocked his hand aside.
“I get to collar her.”
Like I was a prized hound. His property. A trophy. They squabbled over me as though I were livestock at auction.
I held still while Tallon fastened the collar around my throat.
Metal kissed skin with a frigid bite. The key dropped against his jacket, hanging in plain view for all to see.
With Egath’s reluctant assistance, the chains were sorted and draped along my frame.
Scaled pauldrons settled on my shoulders, suspended by delicate strands that looked ready to snap under the faintest pressure.
Cold links dangled against my battered back. Relief and torment tangled together as metal soothed inflamed flesh, then caught against scabs and tugged. Chains circled my hips and fell toward my ankles, engineered to chime with every step, announcing me before I entered a room.
“He won’t be able to resist,” Tallon said, hunger curling through the words.
No admiration. No reverence. Only calculation of how he might harm others.
I gathered the fragments of my heart and what remained of my composure, bracing for whatever performance awaited. It was painfully obvious that I wouldn’t turn Egath against Tallon. But perhaps I could still poison a king’s favor instead.
“One final touch.” Tallon’s grin widened as he produced a dagger.
My eyes locked onto the naked blade. I was so weak—but I could get it from him. I knew I could. But—then what? A hollow opened inside my chest, threatening to swallow me whole. Egath tracked every motion with predatory focus. Control defined him. I would never slip past that vigilance.
And if, by some miracle, I did?
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Velli crowded this palace and the lands beyond. The Craggs lay somewhere in the distance. Which direction? How far?
Hope withered. Despair settled across my shoulders as Tallon lowered the dagger to my skin.
There was no escape.
Steel pierced my shoulder. I watched without expression as he dragged the edge through flesh.
“You’ll drive them mad,” Egath muttered, hands sliding into his pockets.
Tallon sheathed the blade with a broad grin. Blood welled and slid down the curve of my breast. He caught the droplet with his fingers and drew it to his mouth. His gaze locked on mine as his lips closed around them.
My face betrayed nothing. Revulsion sank beneath a heavy tide of emptiness. He would not savor triumph from me—and I wouldn’t feed his vile desire to inflict pain.
A sharp laugh left him as he spun me and shoved my back against the vanity. Wood struck bruised skin. Air fled my lungs. His teeth sank into my shoulder. I almost wished for filed points. The crushing ache of his flats dug into bone with blunt force.
My hands flew to his waist. Egath intercepted before breath returned, fingers clamping around my wrist.
It had been an instinctive reaction. I needed to hold on to something while Tallon drank in long pulls, but Egath anticipated a grab for that blade. He believed in my cunning more than I did.
Desire glinted in his eyes as he watched Tallon’s mouth. His gaze followed each sweep of tongue across the wound, encouraging the slow spill of red.
“What is so special about me?” The question left my lips on a thin breath.
Egath looked at me, aware Tallon was not the intended audience. His throat worked in a swallow. He had been staring at something forbidden, something that wasn’t his.
“You are the Dragon’s Heart. Everyone wants a taste.” He blinked and clapped a hand onto Tallon’s shoulder. “Enough. She needs to be able to walk.”
“You can leave me here.” A small smile formed as I gripped Tallon’s coat, tugging him against me. I would be eternally thankful to miss whatever they planned tonight and spend my evening asleep in bed.
Pain flared anew when his teeth clamped harder. I hissed through it. Relief washed in when he pulled away, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
Satisfaction lit his features as he studied the wound. “We are going to have fun tonight, you and I.”