She was beautiful. He’d known that, of course. He’d have to be an idiot to miss it. But it was usually an icy, dangerous kind of beauty that felt more like a warning than a welcome.
He wasn’t sure he was ready to see more welcome from her. Not when he was still staring at her face as if he’d never seen it before. Not when the casual words he’d been ready to say had turned to dust in his mouth.
This was ridiculous. He’d been living in close quarters with girls since he was seven. There had been a few who made his heart beat a little faster when they looked his way. He was used to appreciating a girl’s smile.
But this.
This was sunshine pouring through a crack in a sheet of ice.
This was starlight dazzling against a snowy hillside.
This was trouble.
And he didn’t need trouble. He needed her help. He needed her friendship. And then he needed to leave Maqbara, and everyone in it, behind.
Her smile disappeared, and she cocked her head to study him. “You look a little unsteady.”
She had no idea.
“I’m still recovering from the arena.”
She nodded. “Best way to recover is to move your muscles. You can get some practice in with the weapons while the others eat breakfast, and we’ll talk about which of the remaining competitors might make good allies. You can start figuring out the best approach to them during rec time tonight.”
“I can start on it sooner than that.”
She shook her head. “You have one hour of chore time and one hour of sparring practice. Besides meals, those are the only times you’ll be allowed out of your cell unless you’ve bribed the guards on your level. And you have nothing to bribe them with. Come on.”
He bit into his apple and followed her from his cell.
The arena was a mess. Seven human corpses were laid out in a neat row on the stone floor in the center of the ring. The ring itself was still damp, though the water had been drained after the aristocracy left. The ground was littered with scales, blood, and bones. The smell—a sharp briny scent with the cloying sweetness of decay beneath it—nearly caused Javan to lose his breakfast.
“That’s quite a stench,” he said as they joined Tarek at the stalls. He’d already fed half the remaining land beasts.
“Enough to make your eyes water,” Tarek agreed. “But it’ll be gone soon enough once the warden does her thing.”
Javan frowned. “Her thing?”
“Meat,” the warden’s voice said from behind them. Javan whirled to find her standing beside the human bodies.
She hadn’t been there a moment ago. Was her office that close? Or did she just move really fast? He scanned the arena but then movement caught his eye. Turning back to the warden, Javan’s stomach pitched as he watched her skin ripple. Her bones began expanding, her skin hardening. She disrobed quickly, even as her shoulders doubled in size and talons sprouted from her fingertips.
“What am I seeing?” Javan demanded, his voice shaking. “What is this?”
The warden’s skin darkened, small patterns becoming visible as she hunched over, smoke pouring from her nose. Javan’s pulse raced, and a slick sense of foreboding filled him.
“Shape-shifter,” Tarek answered, but Javan could already see it. Black leathery wings sprouted from her shoulder blades, and her skin became dull black scales with gray accents. The decay-scented air clogged in Javan’s throat as foreboding became truth.
She was a Draconi.
A gray dragon with an injured eye.
She was the creature who still haunted his nightmares.
Horror filled him, followed instantly by rage as she slowly tripled in size, her bones expanding, her muscles filling out until he was looking at the dragon who’d tried to kill him in Loch Talam.
He reached for his sword before remembering that he no longer had one. “Give me a weapon.”
Tarek sounded panicked. “Son, you don’t—”
“A weapon!” Javan turned to Tarek, his body flushed with the heat of his fury. This was the creature who’d started his nightmare. He’d taken her eye defending himself against her attack.
Now he wanted her life.
When Tarek didn’t move, Javan rushed past him to scour the stalls, hunting for anything he could use. The only thing he found was the metal pole that had been used to stabilize the chute from the previous day’s competition.
It would have to do.
He turned, and Sajda was there, blocking his way.
“Step aside.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, her usually calm voice fraying.
“Killing a monster.”
“With a pole?”
“It’s all I could find. Step aside, Sajda. She deserves this.”
She slapped a hand on his chest, and something that felt like a thrill of prickling heat licked over his skin. “She deserves to be actually killed. Not irritated by a boy with a metal pole.”
“I already took her eye. I bet I can take something else she values before she turns on me.” Rage was a fever in his blood. A voice screaming that somehow she was the root of all of his problems. She’d been the first thing to go wrong. If he fixed that—if he took from her the life she’d tried to take from him—somehow it would turn everything around.
“What do you mean you took her eye?”
“She attacked me in her dragon form while I was at the academy in Loch Talam. I injured her eye while defending myself, and she flew south. I never thought I’d see her again, but here she is, and this time I’m taking more than her eye.”
Sajda wrapped her other hand around the pole and held it still even as he tried to pull it toward him. “You aren’t thinking clearly. She saw you compete yesterday. If she wanted you dead, she’d have killed you already. If you attack her, she’ll burn you alive, and then who will save Akram from the impostor?”
That got his attention. Looking away from the dragon, he met Sajda’s eyes and said, “I thought you didn’t believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what you believe.” Her voice was low and urgent and very un-Sajda-like. “Do you have a responsibility to the people of Akram?”
“Yes.” He ground the word out between clenched teeth.
“Then maybe you should stay alive long enough to fulfill it.”
He met her eyes for a long moment, his pulse beating rapidly, his muscles clenched and ready for battle before finally saying, “It’s annoying when you’re right.”
“You’ll get used to it.” She took the pole from his hands and slowly removed her hand from his chest. The strange, prickling heat left him as soon as she stopped touching him.
What was wrong with him? First he was knocked off his feet by a single genuine smile from her. Then he was feeling flushed just because she touched him. He needed to stop letting the girl who barely tolerated his presence distract him.
The dragon roared, and Javan stared in horror as she swept the line of bodies with fire. The smell of cooking flesh filled the air, and Javan gagged.
“You never get used to it,” Tarek said quietly from a few paces away.
“Why is she doing that?” Javan asked, his fists still clenched like he thought he could beat the dragon into submission.