Page 34 of Exquisite Monster

A pit hollowed out in the bottom of my stomach. I wouldn’t put it past Andaros.Let’s hope not,I said.But regardless, it’s different. And they’re about to try with me.

Sirrus growled.Can you get out of it?

The old man stood near the door, observing me. “Perhaps I was wrong,” he said. “This one seems almost too docile. Maybe he is struck by grief.”

“A little late to change your mind, Nelis,” Andaros said. “They’re already on their way.”

He picked up a blade from a nearby rack of weapons and returned as the guards bound me to the table. I didn’t fight because I couldn’t. The command not to resist still bound me like a poisonrope, forcing my limbs to remain relaxed and boneless like I wasn’t about to be tortured.

You know I can’t, I answered Sirrus, and I locked both of them out of my mind as soon as the blade touched my skin.

My knees landed on hard-packed dirt. A familiar position. Chains wrapped around my hands, pulled, and made sure I was going nowhere. Not that I could. My eyelids drooped with exhaustion and the need to heal.

Zovai?

I raised my head like they’d spoken to me out loud, but I was alone.I’ll live.

Good.

Yes. I would live. But they needed to know what Andaros had said to me, all while taking weapons to my body. That Lena was dead, and we both knew it, but to satisfy his advisor’s whim, he was going to get either her or her body. And if he found her, he would drag her back and use her to break us.

That wasn’t something we could survive.

Fallen, don’t let them find her.

Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself and kept myself from sinking into sleep.We have bigger problems than Andaros and his knives.

What’s that?Endre asked.

He’s going after Lena.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

________

KATALENA

The scratch marks on the wall by my makeshift bed extended by another half-moon before I knew all the formulas in the book Gleym gave me. But now I knew them all.

Save one.

The recipe for scalefire, which was blotted out.

But the clothes I now wore fit me, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed that. No longer swimming in fabric, I could move far more easily.

Which made my training better. Even if it was only in my mind, now that I could move, my aim got better. Not perfect, but pretty damn good. I didn’t have to be perfect. With the concoctions I had, all I needed to do was coat them with something and strike the target.

Mostly.

I finished lacing the boots Gleym had given me and stretched. Fallen knew what the dragon would have in store for me today, but I was as ready as I could be.

Gleym was not in the kitchen, nor was she in the fighting ring. There could be any number of places in the vast network of caves down here, butVarízoomed ahead of me and found her before coming back to lead me. She was in the room that exposed the sheyten.

Violet light filled the space, magic hovering so thick in the air I could almost taste it. Gleym’s head was bent, eyes closed in concentration, though I couldn’t see what she focused on. An object currently cloaked in lavender-tinted power.

Varílanded on my shoulder and rubbed his head on my cheek before watching. His scales matched the color in the air, like he couldn’t help but reflect it back. I curled my finger around his tail and tugged once.

“Do you have a favorite color of scale?” I asked quietly.