Let me in, the magic whispered. Give it to me.
“No.” Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth. Her lips formed a series of unintelligible sounds that followed, but she did not allow words to come. There was nothing she would say other than “No.”
“How many have you made?” He pressed harder, straightening away from the wall.
Arianna wanted to blink. She tried so hard to break that stare, though her body refused all commands. She was trapped and wanted to scream for relief. But she would not give in. She would not stop her struggle. Her magic pushed back harder. She focused on her lips, making them hers. He would violate the rest of her with his presence, but he would not gain her words. “No.”
“What do you need to make it?”
She could no longer speak; she no longer trusted herself to. Every ounce of magic in her screamed at once in her mind to give him anything he asked for. His magic poisoned her more than the other Dragon’s dagger had. Her stomach turned to sickness. Her forehead grew hot with fever. Her body rebelled against the presence of the foreign power and slowly began to turn septic.
But she would not give in. She would not forfeit to this man. She would die before she did. She would spit up blood from her stomach decaying. She would bruise across her skin from her magic depleting. She would go deaf and blind and have all her fingers snap.
Her hatred was more than all the pain combined. And her desire to sow malice across his land was stronger than his magic would ever be. She would fight against the Dragon King until her last breath because she was Arianna, the White Wraith.
“Tell me how you make the Philosopher’s Box!” Golden tears streamed from the man’s eyes.
“No!” she screamed in reply.
Yveun shut his eyes, tearing away his magic. Arianna collapsed to her knees. She inhaled long, gasping breaths, gulping for air, for the taste of freedom. Her body shuddered and felt like a room ransacked. Everything was there, but nothing in its place, and all bearing the mark of a stranger’s touch. It was merely the pain of bruises from her blood exhausting, but they created phantom impressions in her arms and shoulders and back as if she had just been beaten for hours. As if his hands had actually been upon her.
She was the first to look at him, throwing the gauntlet silently. She gave him her eyes again to try if he so dared. She kept her muscles tense, ready to fight, warding off the trembling that rumbled across her with the aftershocks of being so violated.
The King snarled down at her. “I will gain what I seek.”
“You will not.”
“I will return and I will try again.” He stepped forward.
“You are welcome to.” Arianna watched his movements carefully on the edges of her vision.
“You can die peacefully, or screaming like your dear guilds below as they all burned on my command.” He squatted down, his knees bending forward. “But either way—”
Arianna pushed off the ground. Her shoulders popped and every last bit of slack the chains had was consumed. One finger on the hand he’d placed on his knee was in range. Just one.
She bit it off in a single bite, spitting it at his feet.
“You Fen trash!” The Dragon King stood with a snarl. He pounced on her, pushing her off-balance.
Arianna tried to bring up her hands or feet to defend herself. But she couldn’t find enough movement in the chains in the way he had her pinned. He gouged at her throat with his claws.
She felt as tendon and muscle were shredded. The vibration of the skin ripping was sound in her ears. She coughed, sputtered, and choked on her own blood.
Even still, she smiled. She smiled at the frightened King. She smiled as he retreated. She smiled at his yet-recovering eyes. She smiled as the door slammed shut and her throat began to heal. She smiled until her jaw popped.
Because smiling held in the screams.
45. Yveun
This was the danger of what the Fenthri sought. This was what he needed to fight against—how their science disrupted the natural order of the worlds the gods themselves designed. The woman was not a Fenthri, not a Chimera, not a Dragon; she was wholly monster and entirely dangerous.
Yveun flexed his still-healing finger, a soft pink from newly mended flesh and still re-growing. The tiniest of claws was begin to form next to the bone, magic strengthening it steadily. He had given the woman half a breath’s distance too close and she had taken it.
He wanted to admire her for it, but this was even too much for Yveun. Even he—obsessed with power as he was, and struck by the lack of half measures a Perfect Chimera represented—could not stand for this. If she became even the slightest bit stronger, if she imbibed, if she gained an organ she didn’t already have...
There was no way even he would be able to stand up against her.
“Dono, I do not think any more of the boxes have been created.” Finnyr scampered along at his side like the worthless rat he was. “She seems to be the only one.”
Yveun gritted his teeth. He needed something that could stand against other creatures like that monster. To assume that no more boxes had been made was to welcome the death of everything he stood for. It would be the end of Nova.
“I think we should merely kill her,” Finnyr suggested. “If she’s only made one box and used it on herself—”
“And who is to say it couldn’t be used on others?” Yveun stopped, rounding on Finnyr. “Who is to say that it isn’t in the hands of those disgusting Fen rebels as we speak, slowly turning them into something that can challenge even me?”
Yveun held up his hand, showing his finger for emphasis.
“Dono, no one can challenge you,” Finnyr sputtered.
The King roared with bitter laughter. Finnyr was still playing a game, a child holding onto an ideal. No matter how many times Yveun drove the point home, it seemed the weak little man never understood. So few could fathom his shame from the mistakes he’d made. He’d only revealed his regrets to Coletta, Leona, and men like Finnyr, who were close enough to his movements that they needed to understand the full gravity of all his risks. For the risks Yveun took rarely ever held consequences only for him.
“Finnyr, I assure you, I am very much a mortal man. While it suits me for the masses both on Loom and Nova to think otherwise, it does not change the fact.” Yveun stepped forward, impressing on Finnyr’s personal space, trying to make him feel as insignificant as he actually was. “And if I die, Finnyr, so do you. You live only by my grace. You exist only because I protect you and permit you to. Do you think Xin will ever show you love again without my support at your back? The only way you will ever leave here is as the Xin’Oji, and that cannot happen if I perish. Your life is mine.”