Page 53 of Chained to the Champion
“If I can get you out,” I said, low, pitching it for her, not the stones or any guard who might have prying ears. “We’re looking at a month over rough terrain to get to Scalvaris. No bullshit. Who can actually do it?”
She sat back, hands knotted in that rag. Her gaze flicked to Yelena, grief in the set of her jaw, the furrow between her brows. Then back to me.
“Me. Asif. Maybe Nat.” No apology. Just inventory.
Yelena’s breathing evened, drifting, not sleep, more like the mercy of unconsciousness. Kinsley shook her head minutely, heavy with everything she wasn’t saying.
“Don’t talk about escape unless you mean it,” she warned, voice brittle with the memory of too many lies, too many false hopes.
I drew in a breath, and it stuck halfway down my throat. “I’m working a plan. I don’t have all the pieces yet.” I couldn't make promises. “Are you in?”
Kinsley’s hand hovered over Yelena’s forehead, a tenderness practiced and worn. She reminded me a bit of Selene, but her edges were harder, honed on the terrors of Ignarath. “If we run, they’ll punish everyone left behind.”
“They didn’t when Reika got out.”
A spark in Kinsley’s gaze. Was it hope? Fear? Both, probably. “She made it? Really?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I shifted closer, keeping my voice low but urgent. “Scalvaris is … well, it's still Volcaryth, so it kind of sucks, but it's nothing like here. It's a city built into a cave system with an underground river. They let us train with their soldiers. One of our people is training to be a healer.” I hesitated, then added, “It's not perfect, but it's notthis.”
She stared me down for a beat, peeling back layers, searching for the fraud. “You trust these Drakarn?” Just a question, easy as poison.
Somewhere behind my ribs, memory flickered—Zarvash above me, scaled and burning-gold, filling me right to the breaking point, his tail tying me down at one moment and anchoring me in the next. The way he’d looked at me, like I was the only living thing in the universe. The heat clawed up my neck. Thank God for bad lighting.
“I trust Zarvash.” My voice didn’t shake. “With my life.”
And my heart. My soul. I melted when he called meveshari.
And I suspected that I might know what it all meant. But Kinsley didn't need any of that. It might send her screaming into the depths of the city, never to return.
She weighed that then nodded. “God, I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” I said, because this time there was no room for doubt.
20
ZARVASH
My wing throbbed,joint stiff beneath the layered bandages, Kazidee’s herbs still biting through my hide, leeching out the rot that tried to kill me from the inside. The memory of the arena fights clawed at the edges of my vision, Dravka's blades and claws.
But I was alive. And so was Vega.
We holed up in our bolted room, cramped, ugly, air soupy with sweat and fear. Vega sat by the door, every line of her a snare about to snap. She'd rigged a wire to the door latch and attached it to a clay pot. If someone messed with the door, it would drag us away the moment they tried their luck.
Sunlight highlighted her in slashes, gray stripes across her jaw and cheek. Even at rest, the tension coiled beneath her skin, all feral focus, nothing left for comfort. It set my nerves clattering; it made me want, more danger or more her.
More everything.
A dangerous game I was playing there. Nothing would make me stop.
She caught my look and turned. “You can stop brooding. If Skorai sends anyone through that door, I'll cut off their claws and make you a necklace of them.”
She couldn't know what it would mean to wear my mate's war prizes around my neck. If she gave me such a gift, I would murder anyone who tried to take it from me.
I grunted and turned away, pacing the stripped floor, wings clamped tight against my aching side. My claws flexed, impatience burning through the pain of the healing herbs. I could feel Vega’s silence, sharp, sliding between my ribs. Not accusation, not comfort. Something worse.
Finally, I had to speak. “You’re planning to do something stupid.” The words fell between us, pure challenge. My voice was stone.
Vega turned her head, eyes flat. “Stupid is in the eye of the beholder. You're the one fighting with that injured wing.”
