Page 54 of Exquisite Monster

“Don’t think about escape. It’s not possible.”

He had no idea. “You may control my body, human, but you do not control my mind, and I will think of what I wish.”

Laughing, he shoved my shoulder forward. Hard.

I stumbled, just catching myself before colliding with another prisoner being brought down the stairs. A woman. Her eyes remained on the ground, her hair the palest shade of green—like brand new leaves.

Dragon.

So this was the dragon powering the impressive amount of cropsgrowing here. Had she broken? The brief look at her face showed me nothing but a vacant stare before we had passed.

It was dark. Stars shone overhead, and no workers harvested crops. No wonder they brought the dragon out now. No one could see her and question.

Stepping fully into the open air, I breathed deep, smelling the vegetation and plants, the deeper scent of human sweat, and the dryness of sand. “How did you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Force a dragon to grow all these crops.”

His lips curled into a smile. “What makes you think it was forced?”

“The look on her face.”

His smile dropped.

“You broke her,” I said. “It’s why you think you can break us.”

“I don’t think we can break you. I know we can.”

“You can try.”

There was no end to this situation where we broke. Either we escaped and found Lena, or we died. If they brought Lena here and killed her?

The immediate rage filling my vision made my breath go short.

I would fight against the command binding me until I joined her in the stars. The others would do the same.

“What do you tell them, then?” I asked, seeing what I could get him to tell me. “If you’re bringing her outside in the middle of the night to keep her hidden. Have you convinced your farmers that human mages have somehow found a way to grow things so quickly?”

“Something like that.”

I huffed out a breath. “Then you are more of a fool than the one you accuse Andaros of being. No human mage is so powerful. And if they were, why has only Craisos found a way to combat the famine? People know when they’re being lied to.”

The old man merely stared at me for a moment before a small smile appeared. “Get him back underground,” he commanded the guard. “And dose him.”

Another period of hurling fire into the level below us, where it was collected, and another day passed. I only had thebriefestof glimpses into the space where they made the scalefire. A massive underground space, almost equal to the walls enclosing the crops. Forges and buckets of scalefire where they produced the weapons. And barrels of the substance itself. More than they could use in a hundred lifetimes.

Not much was needed to make the weapon lethal to dragons once it was aflame. If we had the opportunity to destroy?—

A sensation sparkled in my chest.

Familiar and beautiful andmine.

Is that?

Lena, Zovai said.I feel her.

Suddenly horror flooded our connection, entirely from Endre.He was successful? Found her? Brought her here?