Chapter Eight #3
A crowd is packed tightly around the outskirts of a huge cage built into the side of the mountain.
Rough scrap metal climbs the rock face in jagged, badly welded sheets, patched together like it was never meant to last. It’s wide enough to hold at least twenty men, but so tall it feels made for something much larger.
Reya keeps moving, and I struggle to keep up as she shoulders her way through the packed crowd, stopping at the front beside a heavy metal door.
“How long?” Reya nods to a few of the men, who look just as hard-edged as the cage.
“Thirty seconds,” one of them mutters, dragging a hand over his sweat-slick, sooty face. “Motherfucker couldn’t last forty—and now I’m down another thousand shillings.”
“Well then, go place your bets with Trev,” Reya instructs. “I’m up next with this one.”
The Outerlander shifts his attention to me, and the disappointment on his face drops away fast, replaced by a slow, pleased expression that makes my pulse kick up.
“Right, come on then, Freckles…” Reya commands, gripping the handle and heaving the heavy cage door open. “…unless you’ve changed your mind?”
My foot moves, then stalls as a pounding tremor builds behind my ribs.
God, it’s like Beth all over again, except somehow Reya’s worse. She’s hotter, bloody scarier, and I already know her fire Threads are going to have me flat on my arse.
Maybe I could still back out? Make something up, return to the camp, get some food, some sleep—no one would stop me... But I tip my head up to where Ahria is perched on top of the door watching me, judging me.
No. I need her to see this. That I can do stuff like this. That I’m not going to keep freezing every time fire’s involved.
Forcing out a shallow breath, I flash Reya a quick smile to cover the nervous itch crawling up my spine, and step inside.
But Reya doesn’t follow.
Instead, the door slams shut, sealing me inside with a heavy clang that rattles through my bones.
“Wait—you’re not coming?” I twist back toward her, voice straining over the rising roar of the crowd and my pulse climbing to meet it. “How are you going to train me?”
“Train you?” she shouts, brows pinching like I’ve lost my mind. “I’m not training you.”
Behind me, the sharp scrape of metal against stone yanks my attention to the far end of the cage, where someone is hauling hard on a thick rope.
I turn fast as a massive grated gate shudders, then starts to rise, wrenching upward inch by inch with a brutal grind of metal and rock, revealing a dark cave yawning wide in the mountain face behind it.
I try to swallow but my mouth has gone dry.
Fuck, Lyra. What have you gotten yourself into?
All around me, the crowd starts hammering against the cage—fists, boots, anything they can slam against the bars.
The rhythm builds, louder, faster as I spot a flicker of red moving in the dark beyond.
Clenching my hands into fists, the burn scar on the back of my hand stretches taut and I suck in air as I drive my boots into the ground, bracing for whatever is about to emerge.
I can do this. I can do this. I do stuff like this.
Repeating the mantra over and over, the noise continues to swell, drowning out the frantic drumming of my blood as it rushes through me, rising higher and higher until everything breaks into one deafening cheer when a tiny, slow, unusually fat red dragon buzzes out into the centre of the cage.
I blink.
Hovering inches above the ground with slow, laboured beats, the red creature flaps his small, ridiculous wings that seem as though they belong on something half its size. The frantic effort only makes its round, almost comically plump body appear even more absurd.
Is this a joke?
“He’s called Dave,” Reya yells from behind me. I pivot to face her, straining to hear over the noise. “Well—I call him Dave... He’s unbonded and won’t tell anyone his name, so—Dave it is! Dave the dick! He’s a bit of an arsehole—”
A roar erupts in front of me, my hair whipping across my face as a wave of heat blasts through the cage.
Spinning around, the floor drops out from under me when I find that Dave is no longer small. Instead, he towers over me—his wings unfurling, massive now and blocking half the cage out.
Shit, shit, shit.
Shuffling along the outer wall with my eyes locked on him, I try to put space between us, when my boot comes down on something that crunches underfoot.
Jolting back, I lift my leg to find a human skull—blackened and split open, like it’s been cooked from the inside out.
Bile floods my mouth, sour and burning, as my stomach twists so hard I think I might be sick.
“And what the hell am I meant to do with Dave?” I shout over my shoulder to Reya, my voice fraying at the edges.
But before she can respond, Dave inhales as a red-hot glow builds behind his teeth.
I react fast, everything in me tensing as I reach for my Threads—
but they don’t come. Don’t answer.
Locking my jaw, I grab for them again, harder, deeper this time.
But still, nothing.
What the fuck?!
A cold spike of panic rips through me and I try again, teeth grinding, hot air catching in my throat, but there’s nothing there. No pull. No spark. Nothing.
No. No, no—
Dave’s pupils dilate.
His mouth curls back—
—and then for the third time in less than twenty-four hours, fire explodes toward me.