22. Vinculum Bonds
Chapter Twenty-Two
Vinculum Bonds
MAGNOLIA
The walk down to the Dome had to be the most awkward twenty minutes of my life.
Arrik didn’t say anything to me, and since my meltdown took longer than I thought, everyone was already crammed into their seats.
With each step I took, I told myself I was over it. I wasn’t going to let myself think about it anymore.
I’d seen some of the most gruesome deaths. Hell, Dahes made me be the one to carry some out. If I could block that out, I could push everything else down too, bury it so deep within me that it wouldn’t come back to the surface.
But watching Arrik climb down the stairs was a constant reminder. He might have no idea what caused my meltdown, but he still witnessed it. Embarrassment clung to me because I couldn’t wipe that off, couldn’t take that back.
Maybe he thought I was scared, maybe he figured he succeeded and finally got under my skin, that I was considering taking him up on his offer and running.
I wish.
Hearing I was Dahes’ whore caught me off guard. I let myself unravel. My walls had been slowly crumbling from the moment I entered Viven that I lost control over my emotions.
Instead of being able to make myself numb, my emotions were controlling me. It was like I was a puppet, forced to move and act depending on which way the strings tugged, my thoughts pulling everything into a hundred different directions, unraveling the tightly wound ball I had forced into knots.
Having Dahes inside my head again sent everything further down my desolation. It was confirmation that any fantasy I deluded myself into thinking wasn’t reality.
And right now, I needed to focus. I had to cut the strings and let myself fall.
This was the last day in the Dome, and I was nowhere near figuring out this hunt or controlling my Token.
By the time Arrik and I entered through the archway, I froze. I knew there were going to be dragons today, but I wasn’t prepared for the amount.
“Follow me,” Arrik whispered. “Don’t talk and keep your head down.”
Dragons covered the entire outer rim of the Dome, their claws digging into the thick onyx perch surrounding the balconies.
Arrik was already walking up the steps.
The Dome was eerily quiet today as I followed him up. I swore my feet pounding against the dark marble was deafening.
I kept my eyes on Arrik’s back, watching the muscles flex beneath his leathers. He was covered in weapons, his large sword hanging between his shoulder blades.
My hands ached to hold something. I had nothing to protect myself with and with each step up toward the balcony, we were getting closer and closer to the dragons surrounding it.
Arrik stopped at a split between the levels, turning abruptly to face me. He closed the distance between us with a single step. “Go up to the balcony,” his voice lowered. “And whatever you do, do not look a dragon in the eye.”
“Why?” I whispered back. I had looked into his dragon’s eyes before and nothing happened.
“I don’t have time for all your questions.
Just trust me for once in your Gods-damned life if you don’t want to get killed.
” He ran his fingers through his hair, and my stupid gaze followed the movement.
First, I roamed over his eyes, because they were like molten flames I couldn’t tear my gaze from, then I landed on his mouth.
I kept staring at the small scar he had cut into his upper lip, leaving a chunk of skin missing.
I wanted to run my fingers over it, to see if it would be smooth or rough.
His thicker scar started under his chin, opposite of the one on his lip.
I hadn’t noticed that it went under his jaw before.
It made a ragged line down before it disappeared underneath his uniform.
I knew without ever touching it that it would be coarse.
Whatever cut into him was deep, leaving his skin puckered around the edges.
He was in his drakin leathers, just like he’d been all week, only this was the first time I saw him in everything.
The onyx ‘E’ was embroidered into the chest, along with all the other riders, but today he wore patches.
My eyes scanned each one, like the longer I looked, the meaning might suddenly come to me, but I had no idea what any of them meant.
Arrik was engraved in a horizontal patch that sat above the others.
Their uniforms had their freaking names on them.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. This was it. If drakins had to be in formal attire today, all I had to do was scan their chests and I’d find Hael’s name.
Finally.
“Nollie,” Arrik was waiting for me, and I realized I’d been staring at him. “Go to the balcony.”
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, instead he left me standing alone in the middle of the stands with dragons completely surrounding me.
I kept my eyes down as I made my way up the stairs to the balcony.
It was hot today, but I swore the closer to the top I got, the thicker the air became. Like the dragons were emanating steam from their mouths and entrapping us in their heat.
Cash was already on the balcony by the time I made it up the steps, and for once he wasn’t drinking.
The lounges were still there from yesterday, but the food tables had been cleared.
I made my way toward the railing where Cash was standing when my eyes snagged on something green. I went to turn around when he stopped me. “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t make eye contact or they’ll burn our balcony.”
“Right,” I said, forcing my gaze back toward the projection, which illuminated an empty pit.
Out of the two-hundred-and-fifty initiates that started the Vargothi, only ninety were still alive after yesterday’s fighting, and apparently Cash said it was normal to lose another third of that today. Not that I could see any of them now. The pit was still empty…
“How many dragons are there?” I whispered because it didn’t look like nearly enough.
“Sixty,” Cash said.
Sixty… that meant thirty initiates wouldn’t get a dragon.
“But it doesn’t mean all sixty will form a Vinculum today,” Cash added. “Some decide to wait another century to find their rider.”
I was trying to keep calm as Cash answered my questions, but honestly, it was hard. All sixty dragons were perched on top of the Dome, waiting for things to start and I was utterly aware of their presence.
King Elion rose from his throne across the Dome and someone with a sound projection Token amplified his speech for everyone to hear.
“Welcome to day three of the Vargothi,” he broadcasted, then went into a long rant regarding drakin history.
Half listening to his speech, my gaze kept drifting toward Arrik.
When he left me on the lower levels, I had no idea where he went.
But now I could see him standing behind King Elion.
His expression was hard, like it always was, and his back was straight and rigid.
“Doesn’t the Drakin Leader watch the tournament?” I whispered to Cash, because at this point, it was abnormal to not see him.
Cash smirked. “And you want to keep telling yourself you’re not interested in riders?”
My cheeks heated, and I was about to lay into him, when a hidden doorway opened up beneath the pit. The Dome became eerily quiet as the door groaned and a single rider walked out.
He gestured toward the tunneled opening, giving me an inquisitive look. “How else did you think riders were getting into the pit?”
I never thought about it. The first two days of the Vargothi, all the initiates were already waiting below. I looked down at the pit with my own eyes, ignoring the projection. I couldn’t see any steps leading into it, only stands, which was about a two level drop.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“It’s an underground tunnel,” Cash said, confirming my suspicion. “It’s one of the ways riders get to MonClem.”
“One of the ways?” I repeated. “How many are there?”
“No idea,” he shrugged. “Like I told you yesterday, riders are secretive.”
I nodded. At least, if I didn’t find Hael, I knew how I’d break into MonClem.
The single rider walked toward the center of the pit as Elion started talking.
“The winner of this year’s Vargothi is Nolan Brinson,” Elion’s voice echoed across the Dome. “No matter the outcome today, he will have a place within the Drakin Army. May a dragon find you worthy.”
The rider’s face was blown up on the projection. His expression was smug as he looked up toward the sky and I realized he was staring at the dragons.
“Now what?” I whispered because forty seconds had passed and no one did anything. The rider just stood there, surprisingly straight-backed while everyone in the stands seemed just as frozen, like we were all collectively waiting for something magical to happen.
“Just shut up and watch,” Cash snapped back, his voice still managed to sound harsh, despite being just as subdued as mine. I swore I would have been able to hear a pin drop from anywhere within the arena by how quiet it was.
Ten seconds later heat swarmed the top of the Dome as a dragon roared. The next second, it launched itself off the edge and flew toward the bottom of the pit.
It was huge—red scales, long talons, three identical thorns spaced out at the tip of its wings, and a glimmer to its scales that made it seem like it was on fire.
The balcony shook as the dragon landed on the pit. I wasn’t sure what I thought was going to happen as the rider extended his right arm, but I definitely wasn’t expecting the dragon to open its mouth and burn him—
Literally burn him.
I gasped, which caused Cash to step behind me, forcing his hand over my mouth.
“Shut up or you’re going to get us all killed.”
I nodded, but I didn’t feel the press of his hand against my mouth anymore. I was transparent. My Token manifested on its own. I drifted through his hand before stepping a good foot away from him. I tried to hide the fact that I was trembling, but it was too late.
Cash’s eyes widened as he took me in, as he realized I made absolutely no progress on my Token.