Unless you had a wyvern that breathed emerald fire hot enough to melt the diamond.
Unfortunate,Sonara thought. For shedidhave access to such a beast,but Razor’s shadow had yet to darken the skies beyond the wagon.
She looked back at the manacles around her wrists and sighed. “I don’t suppose anyone has a key?”
“Enough,”said the man across from her. His eyes were sunken, his lips cracked and dry.
“It’s a pity, you know,” Sonara said, “if I ever get out of this blasted wagon, I’ll never be able to look at diamonds again.”
When,Sonara told herself.When Jaxon comes to free you.
Her blood brother, her comrade, would never leave her to rot. Markam, perhaps, for he was a different story. Butthree days?Her troupe had never taken so long before. Perhaps her plan, her last shred of hope as she took a stand on that mesa, had failed her.
Sweat trickled down her skin, pooling at the small of her back. Each breath felt heavier, more labored than the next. But come nightfall, her teeth would set to chattering. Her very bones would quiver inside of her skin.
She sighed and looked back to the prisoner across from her. “Tell us, friend. What did you do to get a one-way ticket to the north?”
As she spoke, a tendril of deep blue-and-brown hair slipped from her braid and tickled her nose.
The man looked her over as if he were searching for a secret.
He would find nothing but scars, for Sonara shared no secrets, and gave no tells. That was how one survived in the Deadlands. And you couldn’t simplyseea Shadowblood. There was a reason they were told only as tall tales around campfires.
Sonara had tried to find others.
She’d never discovered any but the ones in her troupe.
“I killed a girl for asking too many questions,” the man said. His smile was dark and toothless. “She was small like you.”
Sonara raised a brow. “I have nothing to fear from a man in chains.”
He barked out a dry, humorless laugh. “I like you, Blue.”
A veiled threat, and one she’d have to watch out for, should the wagon make it to Deadwood with her aboard. Many of the people here were criminals. Killers. The worst the Deadlands had to offer. They didn’t feel fear, for they themselves bred it and carried it like a torch.
Deep inside, Sonara’s curse wriggled, begging to come out.Only a tiny taste,it whispered.
Every emotion and feeling had one, something that Sonara could breathe in and savor as plainly as if it were placed right on her tongue. She hated to use her curse; hersense,this strange trait that marked her second life. She hated the way it overcame her, caused her pain each time she used it, as if it were a tiny beastie that burrowed deeper into her body the more she lengthened its leash. Long ago, she’d learned how to control her curse, to press it deep inside a mental cage.
But that didn’t stop it from reaching its little shadow-claws through the bars to swipe at her when it hungered most. It eased out towards the man, wanting to savor his aura.
A sharp, iron tang, like blood, as if his soul was soaked with it.
A murderer’s aura.
“I work alone,” Sonara said, holding his gaze without backing down.
“We’ll see about that, Blue.” He smiled a cold, unfeeling smile. “Go on, then. Share your tale. What brings a little lady like you to the north?”
He was goading her now. Perhaps she would let him have the truth.
“I stole Jira’s golden sword,” Sonara said with a yawn.
The man chuckled, light reaching his eyes. “You tell an interesting tale, Blue.”
Sonara felt the eyes of the others sliding to her. As if they were coming back to life for the first time in days.
She’d last seen Gutrender on Jaxon’s side, before she’d been taken.
