Page 14 of Exquisite Monster (Dragons of Viria #2)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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SIRRUS

W hen Endre’s mental walls came down, we felt it.

Exhaustion and… pain.

Endre?

The silence in the space between our minds was brutal.

Alive .

It was the only word he said.

What the fuck did he do to you?

My sense of time was warped from being underground, but it had been at least a day since he blocked it out. Two more painful sessions of spewing fire into the underground cavern beneath our cells.

I didn’t even want to consider how much scalefire could be made with the flames they took from us. How many weapons could be coated with it. Enough for an army.

Stars . It could be enough to arm every human soldier in Viria. Which was likely his plan.

Andaros had not been forthcoming about what he intended—neither for us, nor dragons at large—but it wasn’t too hard to guess.

Andaros grew up in the faction of humans that viewed dragons as the enemy and only ever that.

The offspring and legacy of the lies that had shattered the world in the first place.

With the human world slowly dying, they wanted space where food would grow and prosperity would reign.

Things the dragons had. He’d thrown the woman he’d intended to marry over a cliff, so I didn’t imagine he’d hesitate to slaughter every dragon on the continent if it brought him closer to his goal.

Z’s voice came through my head. Endre , how bad is it? Are you mortally wounded?

Endre wasn’t in a state where he would hear it, but I heard the fear underlying Zovai’s words.

Would we lose him too? What would happen to us and to Lena without him?

Even with our history and everything we’d been through, this was the most vulnerable we’d ever been.

If Andaros decided we were no longer useful and killed us, we couldn’t stop him.

We were still bound by Aeghi’s command. You will not resist them . A dragon had to be within reach of the power to be commanded, but it held no matter the distance. It could be released no matter the distance as well, but none of the Elders would do that. Not for us.

Our captors had a nearly infinite supply of scalefire, which would turn us to ash before we realized what was happening. Any of us could die any second, and that fear was more real now than it had ever been before.

No . Endre finally said. He wasn’t aiming to kill .

Z and I waited, sensing he had more to tell us but was finding what little strength he had.

His aim… his aim is to break us .

More than he already is? Zovai growled. How?

Endre’s voice was softer now. I’m not sure . And not… broken. That’s not right. It’s not ? —

Rest . I told him. Regardless of his plan, we are not escaping this now. Take what rest you can find. We don’t know if he will move on to us or continue with you.

His pain was thankfully fading. At the very least, there was that.

I will. He said. I’m sorry .

There wasn’t time to assure him that there was nothing to be sorry for. He was unconscious. Over the time we’d been bound, we all knew what it felt like when the others slept.

Fucking stars , Zovai said. What was he doing?

As much as I want to know, I also don’t want to know , I said.

Footsteps sounded outside in the hallway, and the distinctive, rough sound of the lock turning. But I fear I might be about to find out .

Andaros strode in, followed by his usual group of guards, along with an older man I did not recognize. He looked more like a scholar than a soldier, with dark blue robes and a beard that could stand more upkeep. But aside from his obvious age, his eyes were clear as he assessed me.

“You said you killed their mate?”

The smile on Andaros’s face made me strain my shoulders against the chains for the simple reason of wanting to punch it off him.

“I threw her down Evrítha.”

He was way too fucking smug about that.

The old man stared at Andaros, seemingly in horror. “You didn’t put a blade in her heart?”

“I thought it might be overkill. With that kind of fall, I’m sure there’s nothing left of her.”

“Or you were once again a fucking fool,” the man spat at my feet.

In a fraction of a second the prince—no, he was a king now, as he liked to remind us—had the man up against the wall with a blade at his throat. “What did you say to me?”

“You claimed to have killed its mate and have kept it underground for more than a moon cycle. This dragon should be feral with rage. Distraught from the breaking of its bond and lack of access to the sky. Yet here it stands, calm and steady, as if it is a human prisoner accused of a crime.”

I watched Andaros’s face grow thunderous, and even though this old man was clearly my enemy, I admired his strength and bravery with steel about to pierce his skin.

“Be careful with your words, Nelis.”

The old man pushed Andaros’s knife away and glared at him before looking at the guards. “Get out.”

When they hesitated, Andaros nodded, leaving the three of us alone. I didn’t bother to pretend I wasn’t listening. How much would they say in front of me? If they were going to give me information, I wasn’t going to interrupt them.

Nelis turned on the king, eyes filled with rage. “Be careful with my words? Be careful with your actions. You should have simply broken the girl’s neck. Because she is not dead.” He pointed at me. “Mating bonds are in the soul. If its soul had been ripped out, it would not act like this.”

I didn’t want them confirming Lena was alive. We didn’t know what had happened to her, but Andaros hunting her down to finish the job couldn’t happen. “Don’t presume to know me, old man,” I said, putting every measure of pain and grief I could into my voice. “Or how I would react to anything .”

“Oh, but I do know your kind.”

“No human has known my kind in centuries, other than my mate. My dead mate.” Even the word on my tongue felt like acid.

All he did was smile, like he had every bit of knowledge he needed about us.

I already knew it wasn’t true, given he believed not seeing the sky would eventually kill a dragon or drive them mad.

But his smile was laced with both disgust and hatred.

I’d been on the receiving end of enough looks filled with those same emotions to understand them.

This Nelis thought he could frighten me with this expression? Try being on Varreo’s bad side.

He turned on a heel and stormed out of the cell. Andaros followed, closing and locking the door behind him. Whatever their intent had been when they entered, it seemed I’d been given a reprieve.

I held back my snort of derision when the man began to speak just outside. He knew our kind, yet he didn’t think we could hear his voice through a single wall? Or perhaps he intended me to hear. But the urgency in his tone didn’t lead me to think so.

“Andaros—”

“I don’t care what room we are in and who we are in front of, Nelis. Even if it is the fucking prisoner. You will treat me with respect. Or have you forgotten I’m your king now? ”

“A king with grand plans that are going to fail if you don’t listen.”

“She’s dead. There was no one else for miles around, and there’s nothing at the bottom. Even if Katalena managed to stop her fall somehow, she was not strong enough to climb back out. And the only three dragons who would rescue her are here .”

That wasn’t true either, but they didn’t know that.

Sirrus? Zovai asked.

Hold .

“That woman is not dead,” Nelis said. Their voices began to fade as they walked away, and I strained to hear as much as I could.

“There are writings about witnessing the death of a dragon’s mate.

Whole swaths of forest were burned in their grief and rage.

Not this .” He hissed in a whisper. “If you want to break them enough to control them, you need to find the mate and finish the job.”

“She is dead .”

A sound, like the old man had knocked something in the hallway over. It paused their progress away from me. “You’re still not thinking, Andaros.”

“You’re coming dangerously close,” the king warned.

“To what? To you executing me in a fit of rage? Everyone around you is always close to that. Don’t forget how long I’ve known you, and despite what you think, I am trying to help.”

The silence that followed was long. And deadly.

“And what are you suggesting I do?” Andaros asked carefully. “The dragon can still hear us.”

Even without seeing his face, I knew that the old man walked a tightrope. He clearly had a lot of leeway, but everyone had limits. From what I’d seen and just heard, Andaros’s limits were reached frequently enough to frighten people.

“What does it matter if he can hear? There’s nothing they can do,” Nelis said, but his volume lowered further until I could barely hear him.

“As far as what I’m suggesting? Go the distance.

At least send someone to Evrítha to see if there are signs of her escaping.

If not that, then send a squad of draygs to recover her body.

” His tone, even in whispers, showed what he thought of that.

“If she is dead? Use her corpse to torture them. If not, bring her back and make them watch you kill her. Permanently this time. If you want to walk into dragon lands unopposed, this is how you do it.”

“And who says that’s what I want?” Andaros snarled. “What if I want the blood? What if I want to see them turn to ash and float away on the fucking wind? What of that?”

“You’re the king,” Nelis said. “That is your right. And you will still be the fool you’ve always been.”

The sound of Andaros striking him was so clear it felt pristine. “I told you to watch your words, old man. ”

A snort. “As you and the dragon have both noted, I am old. I will not watch my words when I have little time left to live, and you are a fool of the highest order if you have the option to rule the dragons and murder them instead.”

Footsteps crunching away told me Andaros had stalked away from the man. But I was no longer fully listening, stunned.

Rule the dragons. Rule the dragons? How in the?—

If you want to break them enough to control them…

Fallen fucking stars.

He wanted to break us so we could command the rest of the dragons.

Controlling us meant controlling the whole world if he could mold our minds to obey.

The Elders were an obstacle, but they were as vulnerable to scalefire as the rest of us.

And if any dragon managed to slip through, Andaros would have both us and his weapons.

No wonder Nelis wanted Lena dead. But fuck .

Even if she had died, we would never let that happen. We would die first. At least we knew. Now we could understand and shield ourselves.

Z , I said. It’s so much worse than we thought .