Page 40

My fingers scrabble at the weight around my neck. There’s a damned collar there. Bronze. My eyes are as sharp as a snake’s, even in the dark, so I can tell from the sheen it casts over the wooden walls and over my thighs as I struggle to rip it off. No use. I’ll need a key to get it off. Or an axe.

Behind my neck is a shackle fastener, sticking out of the collar like a hook. A thick metal chain slinks down my spine, and I follow it to where its end meets the anchor in the wall. There! I crouch and press my feet against the wall, digging my elbows into my thighs and wrapping the chain around my arms until it burns into my skin. With all the power in my body, I pull.

Little by little, the anchor grinds free, writhing through the wooden wall like a mouse clawing its way out. Then in a rush it flies out and crashes at my feet.

Careful, hisses a familiar voice. Fool, do you want the guards to come back?

Ukar slithers through the hole I made in the wall, his cool scales brushing against my ankles. I’ve never been so relieved to see anyone in my life.

“How did you bite through my ropes?” I whisper.

The rats did it in exchange for me not eating them. But now I’m hungry.

I almost laugh, though Ukar’s not in the mood for humor.

I gather that the dragon betrayed you. If I’d known a dragon was pretending to be Hokzuh, I’d have warned you earlier.

His voice is so vehement that I sit up. “Warned me about what?”

Dragons. They’re our cousins, so we don’t seek strife with them—especially since they mostly keep to their own realms. But we would never ever trust them.

This I didn’t know. “Why not?”

Because of the first dragon—Hanum’anya. He betrayed us.

Ukar won’t say more; the grudge is one that the snakes have buried long since anyone can remember.

“You can’t blame all dragons for the sins of one.”

Can’t I? Ukar is a champion at holding grudges. It seems yours isn’t trustworthy, either.

He has a point there. “You don’t think he’s Hokzuh?”

My father would never prophesy a dragon coming to your aid. Never.

There’s no use debating this with him. “Let’s just try to get out of here.”

Ukar eyes the metal anchor at my feet. I pick it up. There’s nothing I can do about getting my collar off, so I will have to carry this cursed chain around.

You might as well stay in your cell. Where can you go with that chain weighing you down? The sea? You’ll drown.

“What happened to your optimism, Ukar?”

Don’t forget, he adds, smirking at how I lumber about, you’re not a very good swimmer.

My head hurts too much to argue. I throw my chain over my shoulder. I feel naked without any weapon, so it’ll have to do. “Where’s the door?”

Behind you.

I immediately spy the crack in the wall Ukar entered through. He’s unbolted the door from outside, and I push.

Beyond my cell is the ship’s cargo hold. Cages swing from the ceiling—some wooden, others wrought of iron. Birds cheep from baskets that are covered by blankets, and I hear a growl or two from one corner of the room. But no snakes.

No Hokzuh.

To think how indebted I felt to him after the duel! Now I regret I gave him only a scrape on his knee. I won’t make that mistake twice.

Ukar stands alert on his tail. They’re coming.