Chapter 16 #2
I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t risk Dahes’ retaliation compared to one night of being some rider’s entertainment—whatever that meant. Dahes could do more harm to me than anyone else here.
Because if I didn’t do exactly as Dahes wanted, he’d go after Masin.
So I left. Again.
I was more careful this time. I opted to scale the outside instead of taking the halls. Now that I knew where the feast—as Arrik called it—was happening, it wasn’t far from my room.
I managed to find a low hanging roof that had a partial view of the open terrace. It gave me access I couldn’t see from the ground. If I could glimpse a hundred riders before, there were probably three times that now, and the terrace still had ample room for more.
A large fire pit was erected in the center of the floor that I hadn’t noticed before, but it wasn’t lit. There was a large stone throne that blended in with the courtyard toward the back railing that King Elion was lounged on, drinking and laughing as he watched—
I stopped breathing. Arrik was walking toward him, dragging a girl behind him.
She was wailing, tears pouring down her face as her ankles scraped against the stones, leaving bloodied tracks.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I promise, I’ll leave. I only wanted to look—”
“Silence.” Elion raised his voice, cutting off the girl’s protests.
Arrik was emotionless as he threw her onto the ground in front of him. “I caught her watching from the north garden.”
Elion smiled, and it was more serpentine than Dahes. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, toward the gardens a few levels below. “I’m surprised you only found one breaking the rules tonight.”
My heart instantly skyrocketed, but Arrik didn’t say anything.
King Elion turned toward the girl. “Do you think I make rules for fun, Wielder?”
The girl was crying, but she managed to shake her head, coming up to sit on her knees.
He smiled, barely, just a slight tilt of the corner of his mouth. “Too bad you didn’t come to that revelation an hour ago.” He turned toward the crowd, his voice growing louder. “Rules are meant to be obeyed, and the rule tonight was this was a drakin only event.”
Laughter rung out across the riders with shouts of agreement ringing through the air.
Most were still in their leathers from earlier today.
But as I looked closer, I saw a slight variation to their uniforms. All had the same fitted black leather, but there were ones that had a patch embroidered on their left chest. It was just as black as the leather that it almost blended into the material, which was probably why I never noticed it before.
But now I could glimpse the ebony ‘E’ whenever the firelight from the sconces flicked over it.
Were they the actual dragon riders? The ones who already competed in the Vargothi centuries prior and won…
A loud screech had me almost falling off the roof I was hiding on. A dragon came in from behind me and landed on the stone next to the girl. Not just any dragon—the same one who brought me here. Its cream scales shimmered, making everything else seem dull in comparison.
The girl tried to scramble, probably to run away—which was exactly what I should be doing, but I was enthralled.
“Keep her still,” King Elion gestured to Arrik.
His gaze was hard as he stepped behind her, holding her in place as his dragon opened its mouth, large teeth flashed, and I swore I was about to watch her get eaten alive.
The next second, fire spewed from its mouth and ignited the empty pit until everything went ablaze.
Heat sprung across the roof, and sweat clung to me. I wasn’t sure if I was shaking more than the girl.
The dragon snapped its mouth shut and the fire started to settle.
There was a blue glow to it that I’d never seen before as it burned through the bushes and shrubs in the center of the pit.
I knew dragon fire was intense, worse than normal flames.
It could burn through anything. The Tallik alone was proof of it, but I had never seen it linger before, hadn’t seen it circling inside a fire pit.
“Now throw her in,” the king smiled as he leaned back on his throne.
The girl started kicking and screaming against Arrik as he dragged her onto the flames. His jaw was tense, but it was the only emotion across his face as he threw her in.
My stomach dropped as she screamed, her voice shrieking to an un-Sunly octave.
“There is always a price to be paid by those who break my rules,” Elion said, not bothering to raise his voice, before music started playing in time with her wails and the party resumed almost simultaneously as everyone ate and drank around the pit, but my eyes were glued to her.
Arrik had stepped away as soon as the fire spread up her legs, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. Why was she just standing there? She looked like she was trying to move, desperately trying to step off the flames, but she couldn’t, like she was trapped.
She was burning alive slowly, her screams now silent even though her mouth was still open.
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to walk down to the terrace and rip the girl from the embers and heal all the burns across her body, but I didn’t have the mending Token.
I couldn’t do anything.
I’d seen death, probably more than any of the riders on the terrace below. Dahes made me watch it countless times, all in different, horrific ways. Whenever I thought I’d seen the worst, he’d surprise me with something new.
This shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. Maybe I was just naive coming here. I thought life in Viven was put on a pedestal. That the entire kingdom was kind and just—a far cry from Moriann’s crimes. But I was wrong.
Viven was just as twisted and dark as Moriann, and King Elion might be just as conniving as King Dahes. Only he hid his violence behind the jurisdiction of contrived rules.
I stayed until the girl stopped moving. I had no idea why I thought that was helping, but something in me didn’t want her to die alone.
All I kept thinking was how that should have been me down there…
As I turned to leave, pale eyes caught my attention.
Arrik was staring directly at me. He was the only person not reveling, the only one not drinking or rejoicing in the celebration.
My heart stopped as his gaze didn’t shift. He kept staring.
I should run. I should be scared. I should do anything but stare back at him. All it would take was one move and he could have me down there burning next to the girl’s charred bones. His dragon was still on the terrace. It’d probably get to me before I could blink. I would be dead in an instant.
But instead, I found myself flipping him off, before I scrambled back to my room.