Arianna knew just what places to prod. She knew enough of Dragon society to be offensive when it suited her. Cain narrowed his eyes.
“Now, bring me Cvareh.”
Cain moved and Arianna fell backward. His hand grasped for the empty air where her face had just been. She collapsed onto the bed, one hand on the hilt of her dagger. The pillow burst in an explosion of feathers as her dagger tore through it; they floated through the air between them as he landed atop her. One hand supported him above her, the other reached for her face again.
Her dagger rose against his palm, gold dripping onto her shoulder where it bit into his flesh. Arianna scowled. Cain snarled in reply.
“You think you can order me,Fen?”
“I do,” she sneered in kind at the slur for her people. “Because if you could kill me, you would’ve already.”
He pressed his hand forward, the dagger meeting bone. Arianna’s muscles strained against the force, keeping it at bay. Blood fell atop her like raindrops, smelling sharply of the fresh scent of wet earth.
“Why are you here?” he repeated. “Why have you ventured to my home? Why do you insult my Oji and still walk? How do you make demands of my Ryu as though he breathes for you alone?”
There was the root of it.
“Bring me Cvareh,” she demanded again, quietly. So quiet that his dripping blood against her shoulder was louder with each dullsplat.
Cain snarled once more, then pushed away. Arianna pushed back, giving him purchase against her dagger and digging it deeper into his flesh. She laced the slash with magic, stinting his healing and slowing the knitting of his skin. The Dragon looked at it curiously.
“You act as though you are truly a Wraith—mighty and untouchable.” He clenched his fingers into a fist, blood oozing between them. “But I have seen your flesh.” The words stung, reminding her of the impropriety she’d endured before him. “I know under the armor of words and talons of sharpened gold, you are no more immortal than I.”
He left quickly, denying her the possibility of a retort. Arianna was set to pacing, her mind racing. It spun like clockwork assembled around every possibility, tooling for every outcome. At the core of the gearbox of her mind, Florence remained.
Arianna crossed over to the window, staring at the clouds below her. Not for the first time, she wondered how her apprentice fared. She’d sought redemption in Florence’s eyes, but in doing so had left the girl alone with the one woman whom Arianna had nothing but bitter feelings toward.
Lost in the labyrinth of her mind, Arianna was startled when she heard the door open once more. She half expected to be faced with Cain and some excuse of why she wasn’t good enough for his Ryu’s time. But the man she sought closed the stately portal behind him.
Cvareh regarded her warily.As he should, Arianna seethed quietly. They had not spoken since he last condemned her to the proverbial prison she had been trapped within for the past few weeks. He hadn’t so much as sought after her once as far as she knew.
But would she have wanted him to? She owed him nothing, and he owed her nothing but the yet unrequited boon. That was hardly anything significant to pull them together outside of a magical transaction. And yet, she couldn’t deny a hurt sort of yearning for it.
“It’s good to see you.” He startled her by speaking first.
“If that were truly the case, you would’ve looked in on me sooner.” Arianna rolled her eyes, dismissing the sentiment.
“Well, you’re not exactly the most approachable woman in the manor.” He sat at one of the chairs by her table, glancing at the cooling food. “Is it not to your liking?”
“Nothing is to my liking.” She narrowed the distance between them. But the advance felt nothing like it had with Cain. There was a different sort of tension between her and Cvareh, a sort of ebb and flow they both could acknowledge but had been strung along in the current despite. He made her quiver with tension. His presence elicited a physical response as her breath held and muscles tensed. But, unlike her body’s response to Cain, it was not her dagger that her hands wanted to reach for. She feltsafearound this Dragon. It was a welcome sensation that seemed to be magnified by how long it had been since she had last seen him. “I am trapped within these walls, a prisoner of your sister’s. But she does not seek me out either. I will not hand the Philosopher’s Box to her in a fit of boredom.”
“I had never thought otherwise.”
“Does she?” Cvareh’s silence told Arianna everything. She pulled the chair opposite him around the table to sit before him. Arianna folded her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. “Cvareh, you know that will not work with me.”
“I’ve advised Petra thusly.”
“And yet your words haven’t worked.” Arianna shook her head. This is why she didn’t depend on other people to get the job done. “I want to return to Loom.”
“What?” Cvareh drew back, his magic fluctuating. “Petra would never allow it.”
“I’ll find a way out or I’ll jump to my death and take the knowledge of the box with me.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Do you want to test me?” Arianna grinned faintly at the notion. The man clearly thought she placed more value on her own life than she did. She leaned back with a sigh. “Or, perhaps, I’ll wish for you to do it.”
“That’s not what you want the boon for.”
