“Out.” The inquisitor opens the door at the top of the staircase.
Wind batters my face before I even emerge. I swallow thickly, eyes immediately drawn to the skies. It’s cloudy tonight…which makes being outside even more dangerous. There’s some moonlight, but not enough to confidently tell what is shifting cloud cover and what could be a dragon. The jagged peaks of the Nightgale Mountains pierce the sky in the distance—the perfect launch point for a dragon to swoop down in attack.
The rooftop is barren, save for ten shackles.
I’m guided to one of the sets of irons, still clenching my fists as they lock in my feet. Little good the chains will do if my worst nightmare comes true and I turn out to be cursed. They’re meant to stop me from running, not transforming.
My gaze drifts to Mercy Spire, its imposing silhouette standing out against the night. One of the inquisitors lights a lantern, and on the distant windowsill of a tower, another flickers to life in reply. Lamplight glints off the cannon barrel as it shifts toward me, and I swallow down the knot rising in my throat.
They know I’m here.
I wonder how many Mercy Knights are perched in their vantages. Do they realize that the cannon they’re leveling is against “Valor Reborn”? Did my father ever imagine that his greatest weapon would be pointed at his daughter? And I can’t stop the trembling in my hands now, so I clench my fists until the skin turns white.
The woman who led the way here comes to stand before me, drawing my eyes to her. It’s then that I notice a thin scar that runs perpendicular across her jaw and down her neck. It’s impossible to tell how far it stretches up her face with her hood drawn. I can’t see her eyes, but I can feel them… Their disapproval. Their sharp displeasure. She seems older than the rest of the inquisitors here, in control.
“I am going to ask you a few questions. All that is expected of you is complete and total honesty.” She speaks almost sweetly. The sound is like perfume over blood—impossible to fully mask the sinister note. “Do you understand?”
“I do.” In my mind, I’m with Mum in her apartment laboratory, with Saipha on a clear night testing our bravery by sitting on her roof, with Father in the market. I’m anywhere else but here, now. Thinking of everywhere I’ve ever felt happy keeps my words from cracking.
“Are you cursed?”
Would anyone honestly say yes to that?“No.”
She draws a leather-covered baton with movements that promise violence and places it under my chin, as though sizing up her distance. “Do you have reason to suspect you’re cursed?”
“No.” A bold-faced lie. I’ve suspected I’m cursed for years. Even as I say the word, I fight a shiver that has my skin puckering into gooseflesh.
“Have you ever had dreams about becoming a dragon?”
“No,” I lie. I’ve had dreams about my nails elongating and my eyes turning to slits. Nightmares about a tiny dragon clawing its way up my throat and crawling out of my screaming mouth.
“Have you sympathized with dragons?”
“No.” Half-truth. I’ve felt for them as one would any animal that’s being slaughtered. And, if what Mum says is right, because killing them might be doing more harm than good.
She drags her baton along my cheek. I can almost see the tally running behind her eyes—does she believe me? Does she think she sees a lie in my words?
“Remember, up here, you are mine,” she threatens with a whisper. Leather squeaks as she tightens her grip on the baton. For a second, I think she’ll finally strike, but she refrains. “We shall collect you when the sun is risen.” She leaves, and the others dutifully follow her.
The door closing is loud on the suddenly too-quiet rooftop. There’s nothing but the wind and open sky, and I feel so terribly small. I stare up at the talon moon, and then my gaze falls back to the cannon. It’s still pointed straight at me, and I give in and let the shivers overtake my entire body; they can’t see it from that far away. Even my teeth chatter—from the cold or fear, I’m not sure anymore.
I’m fodder for any dragon that spies me. I glance at the cannon again and wonder if I’m actually bait. Because chaining someone to a rooftop to force them to surrender to their curse seems mild compared to having a room of deadly automatons attacking me.
I stare up at the pale moon and blink, sinking down to the gravelly roof. Waiting. Waiting for the dragons to come for me—either to investigate one of their own…or kill an enemy.
Thin clouds drift over the slender moon, making it writhe just like I can feel the shivers of magic underneath my skin. I ball my hands into fists. My knuckles feel stiff, fingertips aching. Is it because I ripped off that panel? Or because claws are pressing from the inside out?
Why didn’t you kill me that day?I ask the dragon that lives in my memories the silent question that’s haunted every beat of my scarred heart since.Why spare me? And what was that light just before you flew away?
My dark thoughts drift to Lucan. Was it as easy for him to turn me in as it looked? Or was it truly another time where, had circumstances been different, he would’ve done anything else? That haunted look in his hazel eyes as he asked if I knew what happened tohimafter he turned me in that day is seared in my mind.
An orphan taken in by a powerful man. A boy with no choices and no options.What else could he really do that day I tried to skip training, or tonight?
Are his kind words and gestures the real him? What is the mask and what is the man?
I shake my head. None of it matters right now, and I have been awake all night long. I close my eyes and let my shoulders sink, giving in to the exhaustion. If I’m still here when they come for me again, I will figure out what to do about Lucan. But right now, I just want to sleep.
I wrap my arms around my bent legs, rest my head on my knees, and do everything I can to ignore the sharp jabs from the gravel below, the ache in my back, and the overwhelming fear that looms over me.
