Chapter 59 #2
A low scoff purred from his throat. “You learn quickly.” The next touch lost its courtesy. His mouth sealed harder, demand sharpening as any illusion of tenderness fell away.
The door latch clicked.
He moved with startling speed. The mattress dipped, then rebounded as he vaulted across it. Air rushed past me. I twisted, breath catching, and found him near the far wall, hand swiping his mouth. A faint sheen glimmered on my shoulder where he had fed.
His gaze locked on mine. Wide. Urgent. A silent command to remember our bargain.
Footsteps never followed.
He stood still, listening. After a long moment, he crossed to the door and eased it open. His head angled into the corridor. Silence answered.
When he turned back, color had drained from his face. If someone had seen… The Velli thrived on stolen advantage. They wouldn’t hesitate to tell Tallon—or Deimos.
“Find them,” I whispered.
And kill them. The rest hung unspoken.
I felt no tremor of guilt. Let Velli blood stain the halls. Let them choke on their own ambition. I had sacrificed far too much to lose everything now.
He dipped his chin once. A vow without words.
Whoever lingered outside would not live long.
Then he slipped away, the door closing with a muted thud.
Stillness pressed in. I stared at the wood as if it might splinter open again. Emptiness hollowed my chest. Shock belonged to another version of me. This was something colder. A quiet erosion of the soul.
My palm drifted to my bare stomach. Smooth skin met trembling fingers. No swell marked the life within. No proof of what Kallias and I had made together beneath tangled sheets and whispered promises.
A sob shook through me. I slid from the bed, knees striking the floor.
I would not sit here and accept my fate. No—I would fight until my last breath. This wasn’t just about me, or pride, or survival. It was about Kallias, our babe, Radaan’s future.
My legs refused to carry me. Strength drained out of them as if someone had sliced the cords behind my knees.
I staggered into the dresser, hip striking hard wood, breath bursting from my lungs.
The frame rattled against the wall. I dug my fingers into its carved edge and shoved, dragging it inch by inch toward the narrow window.
The legs scraped across the floorboards with a harsh groan.
I could climb it—reach the sill. Tear the curtains down. Throw myself through glass and air.
The thought shattered as quickly as it formed. The window loomed far above, a slit of pale light set cruelly high. Even stacked furniture would not grant freedom. The distance mocked me.
A scream ripped from my throat, raw and feral. It scraped the walls bare. I planted my feet and heaved again. Wood protested. Muscles burned. Fresh pain flared across my back where scabs split and stretched.
I would not fold.
They would have to bind me. Chain wrists and ankles. Force submission from me with iron and rope. I would not bow at their command.
I was Draconis.
The thought blazed through my chest like flame catching dry timber. Heat pulsed in my blood, a memory of wings and fire and open skies. My reflection trembled in the warped mirror above the dresser, hair tangled, skin pale, eyes wild.
“Stop.”
The command sliced through the room.
His voice.
It coiled around my spine, familiar and devastating. It haunted my sleep, lingered in the fragile space between hope and despair. Each syllable had once lifted me higher than any dragon’s flight.
Now it held me frozen in place.
No. No more tricks—no more games.
“Shut up!” I hurled my weight into the dresser again. Wood screeched against stone. It shifted a fraction. My foot slipped. The sharp edge caught my temple, and the room tilted as I crumpled to the floor.
“Nienna!”
Arms wrapped around me, crushing tight against my shredded back.
That scent… cinnamon. Sunshine. My mind split down the middle. Something inside me snapped under the strain. Had Egath poisoned me? Slipped madness into my blood with those careful kisses?
A broken sound left me as I twisted away from the pain.
Hands lifted me, laying me on the bed. I rolled onto my stomach, breath sawing in and out, cheek pressed to linen that smelled of sweat and blood.
My limbs trembled with the effort of simply existing.
Fire streaked across my back, a brutal map etched in scarlet.
Weight settled beside me. The bed bowed under it.
Only Tallon or Egath would dare.
Tallon was here.
I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for another cruelty.
“Nienna, please.”
The words unraveled me.
How could he do that? How could he sound so much like Kallias?
It was impossible.
“I swear to Elohios, Veridis, and all that is holy, I will burn their kingdom to ash myself.”
My eyes flew open. I lurched upright, vision swaying, pain flaring.
Filth streaked him from temple to collar. His hair, once peppered with silver, lay darkened with grime. Dirt smeared his jaw and throat. He wore a high-collared Velli tunic, plain and severe. In a crowd, I might have missed him.
Except for his eyes.
Those eyes.
“You saw.” The words scraped from me as I recoiled, clutching the blanket to my chest.
I had not imagined it. He’d been here. In this palace. When I bargained with Deimos. He watched it unfold through a stranger’s disguise.
“I have seen enough to justify the destruction of Vellos,” he hissed. “But first, I’m getting you out of here.”
Resolve hardened every syllable. My gaze dropped, hunting for steel. No armor. No spear or sword. Nothing but dirt and stubborn fury.
“How?” The question broke between a laugh and a plea. I would’ve heard of an army. The halls would ring with alarm. Deimos would have hidden me deep underground. But I needed him to mean it. Needed it the way lungs need air.
“Let me worry about that.”
His mouth tried for a smile. It faltered, sorrow pooling in his gaze. He grieved already. Grieved the woman I had been. I could never be her again.
Doubt crawled under my skin. Pain twisted my thoughts. I had to know this wasn’t some dark Velli trick—or a mind splintered past reason.
“It’s you?” I whispered.
His face tightened—and he reached for me.
His lips met mine. Rough. Wind-burned. Cracked from long miles on the road. They were strange, unfamiliar, yet I knew them.
I knew him.
I stared over his shoulder, refusing surrender. This was not the polished king who left Radaan in gleaming armor. How had he crossed enemy borders? How did he think to steal me back alone? With no army?
He shifted, angling his head. The tip of his tongue brushed mine in the faintest question.
My eyes closed.
I knew that question. The hesitant plea. The tentative hope that I wouldn’t turn away. Beneath mud and dried blood lingered the scent that belonged to him alone. Cinnamon warmed by sun. Crushed leaves. Green things after rain.
Life.
My hands fisted in his tunic, and I fell into him with a sob.
His arms cinched around me, crushing welts and broken skin. Pain tore from me in a hiss. He jerked back as though burned, but I clung to him, fingers locked behind his neck.
“Get me out,” I begged. “Please, Kallias!” I forced my feet to the floor, muscles shaking as I pulled away from his touch. “We’ll go now. I can run. I can–” My vision swayed and darkened.
“Nienna, stop.”
I knew the meaning buried in his tone. But I refused it. “Egath might return. He’s searching for someone who–” My words stalled as realization struck.
“Me.” His expression hardened into stony caution.
“You.” Everything went still. A vast emptiness. He saw. Watched me bare my throat. Witnessed Egath’s mouth on my skin, embracing me like a lover. “Kallias, that wasn’t–”
“He will burn,” he whispered. “They all will.”
A king promised the annihilation of an entire race—and I did not stop him. I couldn’t summon mercy for the servant who spared me a fraction of empathy, or any others that might’ve been innocent, condemned only by being born.
No. Not tonight. I would do more than watch as they went up in flames. I would strike the match myself.
“We don’t have much time.” His gaze flicked to the door. “You must understand something. You are the Dragon’s Heart. They hear you, Nienna. All of them.”
“I tried–”
“And they answered. Ronan is calming them now.” His hand tightened on mine. “Tomorrow you must call again. You need to be near a window. Somewhere I can reach you. The dragons cannot tear through the palace before the Velli cut you down.”
Tomorrow.
One more day.
I searched his eyes, those tormented depths. He would trade places in an instant if fate allowed it.
“A window, Nienna. Get close enough for Gyrak to break through without risking you.”
He knew what he asked of me—he’d seen the marks they carved into me. But there was no other way. If I wanted freedom, I had to endure one more sunrise. I had to follow the man who had led countless battles to victory.
And right now, I was his soldier.
“I can’t get you out of here on my own.” He winced, tilting his head toward the corridor. “There are too many and they know–”
I cupped his cheek and drew him back to me. “I trust you.” The curve of my mouth felt real for the first time in days. He needed me to be strong. And I would give him that.
Just one more day.
“I am Draconis. We do not break.”
His lips flattened. A snarl flared, wicked and harsh, and full of self-loathing. His fist knotted in the sheets, knuckles white. He hated leaving me here. And that hatred steadied me. I was not alone in this burden. He had a plan. He was here. Kallias would get me out.
The wounds still burned. My bones still ached. My stomach churned. But hope—this fragile, delicate kernel—made it easier to bear.
A distant thud echoed through the corridor.
His head snapped toward the door.
“Go.” I pulled him down for one last kiss. Pain lanced through me as our mouths met, but I held him there for a heartbeat. “Tomorrow, I’ll stand under the open sky and call them. Stay close.”
He cradled the back of my head, a sense of urgency in the motion, a harsh need in the grip of his fingers.
“I will come for you, Nienna. I swear it.”
With a strangled breath, he tore himself away. My body leaned after him, chasing the warmth he left behind, the space he vacated. The door clicked shut with cruel softness.
And I was alone.