Page 54

CHAPTER 54

AURIA

D im light seeped through the cracks of my eyelids as they fluttered. Fog seemed to cloud whatever room I was in, but after blinking to clear the haze, I found it was my sight, not the air. Blurred lines attempted to come into focus, but my mind spun as I struggled to gain control over myself.

Everything felt…cold. Wet. Hard.

Bars formed in my line of sight, twisting and folding in on themselves as my vision whirled. My head was heavy, unable to lift itself. My arm was folded at an odd angle, but after many attempts, I found not even that limb would move.

My neck ached, but the sensation was quickly trumped by the splitting pain that rolled through my mind. The only light came from an open doorway in the stone, but past the blinding sight, I could see nothing more.

Then, my ears, muffled as they were, perked at the sound of a drum.

No, not a drum. Footsteps.

“She’s awake,” someone announced to whoever had entered.

A few more steps, and the sound ceased.

“Finally. It’s been days.” The voice was feminine, somehow familiar.

But who?

More steps came from the same direction, and another person, male this time, said, “The correct dosage was hard to predict, and I wanted to be safe. Now that she’s awake, we can start the tests.”

Water dripped somewhere in the distance, and everything inside me focused in on the high-pitched sound of the drops. I tried to hold on to that one noise as my mind spun again, but then, the pain in my head became too much.

I groaned, wishing I could roll onto my back. Move. Get off this ground.

But I couldn’t—no matter how much I begged my limbs to work.

My blurred eyes roamed the room, trying to make out something. Anything. With the light behind whoever stood near me, I couldn’t make out who they were. My sluggish gaze trailed to the side, finding a heap of white rubble piled on the damp cobblestone.

No, not rubble.

A dragon.

Glacies?

Panic seized me as I couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility of her being here, spurring my tongue to work.

“He’ll come for me,” I managed to get out on a hoarse whisper. He would get us out of here. Wherever here was.

A chuckle, then the man crouched before me, only his dangling hands in my line of vision, blocking Glacies’s still form from my sight. “Your precious Bowen won’t save you this time.”

I coughed, sending a wave of pain through my head. “He will.”

Fingers brushed my cheek, moving my hair from my face. The act was chillingly repulsive, but it caused the man to move closer, bringing his face into my sight. And when it did, my heart stopped.

“Don’t you know he hates you?”

I tried to shake my head, but the effort only made my mind spin more. “That’s not true,” I croaked. But even saying the words, I was unsure. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“Oh, you poor thing.” Lander tsked. “He could never care for the daughter of the man who killed his father.”