Chapter 8
The world slowly comes back with a throbbing headache.
Cool water beads down my arms, trailing the curve of freshly wounded skin, and scatters to the floor.
I open my eyes, but only darkness greets me.
The smell of this place is earthy, ancient—I’m definitely not in the barn, or the field, or somewhere in the haunted woods.
My fingers brush against rough, wet stone.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” a female voice warns through the shadows. I run my hands down my thighs, searching for anything to arm myself with. Only empty sheathes greet my desperate grasp, though. So they’ve searched me…great.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask, the words cracking in my throat. I groan as I brace against the floor and shove myself upright.
“That’s none of your concern,” she replies.
My headache booms so hard it pounds against my teeth as I search through memories of events. I slashed Jace’s throat and ran. But I wasn’t fast enough. He took me. No, I was stopped. My eyes widen in the darkness. The Blightfang. The biggest dragon I’ve ever seen was about to devour me whole.
“Isra, go make sure Tenebris hasn’t eaten anyone yet.
” Jace’s voice surges through my veins. Is he…
bonded to a Blightfang? But Blightfangs don’t bond with riders outside of the guardian bond.
It’s carved into our histories. Shadow’s defenses don’t come from the skies.
Holy gods. Shadow’s king is more dangerous than I ever imagined.
“Wh-where am I, then?” I murmur, swallowing the bile swelling up my throat.
A burst of flame, then the crackle of sparks fills the air, and the world illuminates in flickering torchlight. The grey stone walls are rough and misshapen with aging mortar and webbed cracks. I’m in a dungeon, perhaps, but there are no cells. No rusted bars or shackles chained to the walls.
The voice’s owner steps toward me with pin straight black locks molded around her sharp chin.
“Also none of your concern,” she replies. The way she curls her lips around her words gives me pause, like she’s sharpening her tongue in preparation for war. Her ice blue eyes refract light the way water does as she drops to her knees.
“Tell me where you’re really from, courier,” she demands. I tighten my lips. Fuck her. Fuck Isra Kaari. Fuck Jace Ashborne. “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” She pulls a gold-dipped knife from her leather trousers. Her pointed nose tips as she lowers herself to my level.
“You can torture me until I’m dead and cold in the ground if you’d like, but I’m not going to tell you a fucking thing,” I say, meeting her frigid tone with blazing fury. The scars on my back whisper past traumas like little reminders that I’ve done this before. I can withstand this now.
“Suit yourself,” she says, flicking the knife toward me.
“Oh, give it a rest, Roe.”
My breath catches as Jace Ashborne appears from the darkness down the hall. Flanked by Isra, he saunters toward me, shadows bending around each footfall.
“Good evening, starling,” he says, leaning beside his female companion—who I assume is called Roe. “Did you sleep well?”
His freshly changed tunic hangs open, revealing the low curves of his chest. My eyes follow the cut across his neck, and satisfaction laces through me. It’s barely a scratch, but I add wounding the Ashborne heir to my mental docket.
Noticing my gaze, Jace traces the healing wound with his thumb, dragging it over the raised skin and down his collarbone. “Next time, press your blade a little harder. It’ll hurt more.” His lip twitches into a smirk.
“Next time I’ll make sure it kills you.”
Isra leans against the opposing wall, eyeing me with an amused curiosity. There’s a plum bruise smudged around his left eye, and that too feels like a solstice morning present.
“Thought you were going to kill me, Ashborne,” I spit. The taste of rage, thick on my tongue, is hotter than brimstone.
“Fortunately for you, I’ve changed my mind,” he replies, twirling the gold banded ruby on his index finger. Those fucking hands. Long slender fingers that bend and move with deadly prowess.
What might they feel like on my skin? My mind wanders somewhere dark and I extinguish that spark really fucking quick. He’s taken me prisoner. Threatened to execute me. Am I that fucked in the head?
“Unfortunately for you, though, we’re in need of some answers.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” I snip, but I know he’ll see right through me. If those inky eyes aren’t evidence enough, the wrinkle of intensity at the corners of his mouth are.
“Right, you’re from Smoke—a silver-haired creature with violet eyes, and a slave’s mark on her brow.” He wags his finger at me, and as much as I try, I can’t force my gaze from it. You are not attracted to this. You are absolutely not attracted to this.
“She’s not going to tell us anything without a little motivation, Jace,” Roe says, flipping her knife’s pommel. The gold metal hums in the humid air and my eyes flick to hers.
“While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Roe, remember what we discussed.” Jace’s eyes wander back to me. “How about a trade? I’ll give you an answer, then you give me one.”
“Right, because I’m supposed to believe anything you say.” I scoff, running a hand over my thoroughly enraged temple.
“Why don’t you test your theory?” he challenges.
I lick the trickle of blood from my split lip and wrestle the pull of his gravity. “Fine,” I reply, clenching my truths as tightly as my fists.
Questions overwhelm me, igniting thoughts like wildfire, but I take a breath and silence them as best I can.
“The Blightfang back at Cael’s barn. Are you bonded to it?” I’ve pieced enough tidbits of information together to already know the answer, impossible as it may be. It’ll be easy to catch him if he lies, and the question might catch him off guard.
“Jace…” Roe tosses a warning glance to him, but Shadow’s king raises a palm. “Suit yourself, oh great ruler.”
“Yes,” he states.
His admission sends a shiver over my skin.
The last record of a bonded Blightfang was at least a hundred years ago.
Dracae Torr, the guardian rider, and her dragon, Vorvex, brought Shadow into the faction unification.
I think back to one of my father’s old tomes, now collecting dust under my bed.
The only bonded Blightfangs have all been guardians.
I suck in a breath. Did the cosmic cycle skip a faction?
Am I staring at the guardian rider himself?
I’m not sure if the stutter in my chest is from terror or relief.
“Blightfangs don’t bond riders,” I reply.
“Incorrect,” he says, brushing a black curl from his brow. “They only bond when they deem a rider worthy of their power, and no, Tenebris is not a guardian. I can see the gleam in your eye.”
I loose a breath, but the relief is short lived. If Jace Ashborne isn’t the new guardian rider, the morality that comes with protecting the factions is obsolete. Not to mention, he still hasn’t told me if he intends to let me go. I’m a loose end as he called it.
“Jace…” Roe tries again. Her sharpened canines bite into her lower lip, but he continues.
“My turn. If you’re from Smoke, how do you know so much about dragons?” he asks.
“I read.” I’d rather face Morvayne’s wrath than offer him so much as a shred of information.
Jace rumbles a laugh low in his throat, and the sound…Gods, it’s the most delicious melody I’ve ever heard.
Snap the fuck out of it Nova, he’s holding you fucking captive.
“What deal did you make with Cael Fleetwing?” I blurt. The logical questions are left unanswered—where am I, why didn’t you kill me, will you let me go? Why am I terrified but also turned on?
They don’t burn like this one, though. Well, maybe the last one does, but again Morvayne’s fate sounds better than ever speaking those words into existence.
I’ve survived long enough to trust that if I make it out of here alive, I’ll find my way back. The tracking link raises gooseflesh up my arms, reminding me of Finnick’s assurance, and for a moment it warms my blood. He’ll send someone searching. I’m his golden trophy after all.
“He came into possession of something that didn’t belong to him. I took it back.”
“And what exactly was it you slaughtered him for?”
Jace’s index finger raises to my lips, hovering close enough to feel his frost coated skin. “Greedy thing you are. It’s my turn.”
“Fine,” I snarl, jerking my face away. My neck creaks and the wince escapes me before I can swallow it. Jace’s eyes simmer.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“I’m fine. I just tweaked my neck when your guard dog over there knocked me on my ass. How’s that bruise, by the way?” I throw Isra a wicked smile.
“It fucking hurts.” He flashes a genuine grin. That's confusing.
“Good.” My reply is met with a snort from Miss Murder still lurking in the corner.
Her muscular calves dangle off the top of a battered wooden table.
She kicks her boots back and forth, like our conversation has bored her, and the steel toes barely brush the floor.
For someone who stands maybe five feet tall, she’s disturbing.
“What did you kill Cael for?” I ask again.
“A dragon egg,” he says with an all too casual tone. That truth lands harder than a left hook. So Piri was right. Magnius Ashar was smuggling a dragon egg. Fuck. If Magnius Ashar were to get his hands on another faction’s hatchling…I’m suddenly relieved Isra terminated the trade permanently.
“What’s your name?” Jace asks.
I bite the inside of my cheek. It’s fleshy and swollen, but the taste of iron stifles a response before I blurt that out, too. Do I dare tell him the truth? So far his answers are saturated with risk.
“Nova Lindwen,” I reply, letting the name drip from my lips like a roof leak. In this rallying game, I pray to Astora that I haven't shown my hand. But a fucking dragon egg. My throat dries. I’ll offer this truth if it means more information.
“Nova Lindwen.” Jace says my name like he’s tasting a fine wine.
“What breed of dragon egg?”
His black tunic falls down his frame, draping his chest in effortless folds of cotton as he rises from his knees. “No more questions. Isra, take her upstairs to the main house. Get her a bath, and maybe some new clothes.”
Isra pushes off the wall and treks toward us, the steel broadsword sheathed on his hip clanking with each stride.
“Oh and keep her away from this one.” Jace points to Roe. “Clearly she’s out for blood today, and we wouldn't want any accidental casualties.”
“Fuck you, Ashborne,” Roe snips. She drops from the table and follows Jace back down the corridor until they both disappear into the shadows.
“You know, you’re the first in over five years that’s left me bruised like this in hand to hand,” Isra says as he wraps a calloused palm around my bicep.
“I’ll give you another one if you’d like,” I snarl, jerking my arm away.
Isra swings his hips in an exaggerated bow. “It would be a blessing.”