“So what’s it to be? The easy way or the hard? I’d prefer not to brace you against the wall if I can avoid it, but I certainly will if you give me no other choice.”
Holding his fiery gaze, I cling on with clenched fists and stony pride.
It’s not that I don’t want the pin out. I do. I’d just prefer to do it myself. The moment you let your captors weave their weapons between the cracks in your armor, you’re already slit, guts spilling.
Heart weakening.
Dying.
“You can’t be strong if you’re dead,” he murmurs, quiet enough that even Clode would struggle to catch it.
I sigh, his firm logic a blow to my spine.
I hate the sensation of my vertebrae crumbling as I loosen my hold on his undergarments and turn, resting my cheek against the mossy stone, watching the burbling waterfall pour down the jutting clefts. “How do you know about the pool’s healing properties?” I ask, trying to distract from the fact that I just yielded to this male and accepted his help.
Again.
It chafes.
I’m sure he’s collecting these favors owed, preparing to shove them down my throat at his convenience. Like when he needs somebody suffocated from the inside out or disembodied. Or something else I haven’t yet considered.
The possibilities are endless.
Kaan clears his throat, easing my collar off my wounded shoulder. “I spent most of my adolescence and a number of my later phases as a warrior of the Johkull Clan. They have always nested close to these mountains and recently claimed the crater formed by the fallen Sabersythe moon, Orvah.”
I frown, his scars suddenly making a lot more sense …
“I used to sneak here during the slumber, soak until I no longer bled, then ride back before the aurora rose.”
“You’re the King,” I murmur as he threads his prongs into my wound, making all the nerves beneath my tongue tingle. My next words are wrangled past clenched teeth. “Why did … you spend most of … your adolescence in … a warrior clan?”
“Because my pah sent me there when I was nine after it was discovered I could only hear Ignos and Bulder,” he mutters, pincers digging through my flesh while a warm leak of blood dribbles down my shoulder, leaching into the water. “Said that if I survived their harsh and grueling training methods, I might earn his respect.”
My heart squeezes painfully.
Creators …
If that male were still alive, I’d slit him from chin to navel, then braid his fucking entrails while he was still conscious.
“What … h-haaappened to … him?”
“I cut off his head, then fed him to Rygun.”
The words land like a kick to the ribs, almost winding me.
Deserved, but—
“Wh-why?”
“Because I was mourning someone I loved very much. I discovered my pah had done something unforgivable, and I took her revenge because I thought she no longer could. Now I have regrets.”
“What was … h-her name?”
“Elluin,” he murmurs, and pulls—yanking the pin free. I open my mouth in a silent scream, certain he just siphoned half my skeleton through the tiny hole.
Fucking. Ouch.
I spin, gaze dropping to the bloody thing pinched between us, Kaan studying the length, perhaps checking to make sure it didn’t snap on its way out—that name echoing in my mind with the blaring throbs of pain still rioting through me.
Elluin …
I swish some water into my wound while he dunks the pin, running his finger up and down the length.
My gaze narrows on his amulet, absorbing the intricate design—the two dragons embracing in such an intimate way that I wonder if it’s a symbol of their lost love.
A wave of … something sloshes through me.
Sadness?
Envy?
No, of course not.
“What happened to her?”
His eyes flick to mine. “She died,” he mutters with such finality the words feel like a shiv to the gut.
He storms from the water, pulls on fresh clothes from his pack, and tucks the others away. He stuffs his feet into his boots, grabs his cloak, then charges up the stone stairway toward Rygun—leaving me to marinate in a blossom of blood and unease.
Drenched, tingling all over, and with a now-itchy shoulder wound, I follow the path Kaan took back up the red-stone stairway, frowning at the tufts of copper grass that have sprouted in the cracks. Pausing to run my hand over the soft blades.
Seeing foliage this color is … strange. In The Fade, anything that manages to sprout from beneath the snow is a vibrant shade of green. And though I like it, I like this better.
Looks sturdy. Harder to kill.
Maybe if I lived here, I’d actually be able to keep some form of vegetation alive.
Something smooth and round catches my eye, my gaze sliding to a dark, ruddy Sabersythe scale half the size of my hand, resting amongst the grass. Probably Rygun’s, perhaps flicked from a leg during one of his previous sheds.
It’s here. On this step. And I’m entirely unsupervised.
Maybe I’m not so cursed after all?
I grab it, cutting a glance at the top of the stairs while using my fingers to wedge the scale down between my wrists, hiding it from view, my heart thumping so loud I’m half convinced every pair of ears in the jungle can hear it.
I pull a steadying breath, victory bursting through my veins with such potency I almost do a dance.
Nothing to see here.
A rumbling sound has my gaze whipping skyward to the dense clouds gathering overhead.
My brows pull together.
I’ve heard it rains here where the air is well above freezing, these mountainous areas a lush spawning ground for drenching storms. All I know is the slice of sleet and the soft, gentle fall of snow …
The pale clouds bulge and swell, and I shiver despite the sticky heat, an electric current caught in the air I can’t seem to shake.
I crest the rise just in time to watch Rygun leap over the edge of the massive grassy plateau, his barbed tail the last thing to disappear—the entire mountain seeming to shift with his displacement.
There’s a clamorous roar, the thud-ump of his wings, and then he’s scooping skyward.
Kaan stalks toward the edge with something round and wiggly caught in his fist, scowling as he watches the beast carve off through the gorge and disappear from sight.
“Where’s he going?” I ask, moving closer, weighing my chances of reaching the male in time to shove him off the cliff.
“Like you,” Kaan mutters, waving the shiny black bug at me, “Rygun is allergic to help.”
I frown, eyeing the creature, its spindly legs waggling, clawlike pincers protruding from what I suppose is its face nipping at the air. “What’s that?”
“A tick I found nudged up under Rygun’s armpit where his scales are still hardening from his last shed.” He flicks the thing at his feet, crushing it with the heel of his boot. It pops, purple innards splatting across the grass. “If left unattended, they release a toxin that can turn a dragon rabid.” He cuts me a hard look shaded by thick lashes and the darkening sky. “There is no cure for an animal intent on torching cities and slaying everything in its path except a swift and merciful death.”
My blood chills.
Torching cities …
Slaying everything …
Swift and merciful death …
None of it stacks up for a king who apparently condones that from his beast. At least according to rumors.
Confusion wrestles through me, my gaze dropping to the purple splat on the ground.
“Come.” Kaan hefts a saddlebag over his shoulder, wrapping his arms around another and heading toward a path etched through the dense foliage ahead. “If you want food, that is,” he tosses back at me. “Can’t escape until you’ve eaten. You’ll pass out and wake up right back where you started.”
He’s got a point.
Sighing, I follow his lead, the ropes around my wrists now swollen with moisture. “I think you accidentally tied this too tight,” I say, looking left to right. Trying to trace the chirping sounds that keep scratching through the air—like somebody’s dragging sticks up and down many ribbed, hollow logs.
“I assure you,” he says, kicking a fallen branch off the track like it personally offends him, “that was no accident.”