Salvor's lips curve into what might pass for a smile, though it never reaches his eyes. "What TrueCoil wants with all humans, and her purpose is coming to an end.” His tail shifts in a casual sweep across the stone floor. "She delivered both you and the information to us. Once we feel we have extracted all we can from her, she will no longer be necessary."
My scales bristle along my spine, a primal response to the threat in his words. I imagine Serin shackled like me, surrounded by those who see her as less than nothing. A contamination to be purged.
"She is under my protection," I growl, my voice deepening with fury.
Salvor tilts his auburn head, regarding me with something between pity and amusement. "Protection? You who lie bound and wounded?" His verdant scales glint in the soft glow of keh’shalin as he moves closer. "Look at yourself. You cannot even protect your own skin."
"Where is she? What have you done with her?" I strain against the basilyx restraints, ignoring the fresh pain that blossoms in my healing wounds.
“I am disappointed in you, Lurok. All this concern for the welfare of a human.” Salvor scowls, his eyes burning with disgust. “You should be more concerned about what will become of you.”
I bare my fangs in a silent snarl. “Then speak. Or are you so accustomed to hiding behind shadows that even your threats must be whispered?”
A flicker of annoyance ghosts across his face. “You mistake silence for weakness,” he replies. “The TrueCoil does not bluster. We fight to preserve the pure bloodlines of our species.”
“By sabotaging peace and starting a five-hundred-year war? The TrueCoil burned every bridge with the humans before it could stand. Made certain every treaty died in shadow. You didnot preserve us. You taught us to bleed forever while you hid like cowards.”
I fight to control the rage threatening to overwhelm my senses. If I am to have any chance of helping Serin, I must think clearly.
Salvor circles my platform with predatory grace, his movements deliberately slow, showcasing his freedom against my restraint, his tail tracing a lazy arc across the stone as he circles, his gaze never leaving mine.
“I believed you would find your way to us in time,” he says. “Your view of the Threadborn Prophecy aligns with ours. You understand that the Season of Naga is not a dawn, but a blade poised over our throats.”
He stops beside my head, close enough that I can smell the faint tang of metal and oil on his scales. It is the odor of whetstones and blade polish, the familiar scent that every Talon carries. On Salvor, it translates as the stink of betrayal.
“But you let a human touch you,” he continues quietly. “Let her bleed into your thinking. Get under your scales.” A curl of disdain lifts one corner of his mouth. “You are no different than the Sovereign Flame. Soiled by human influence, softened by their scent. One whiff of her cloaca and you forget what you are. You are as compromised as Varok.”
"You dare speak of soiling?" I hiss, straining against the basilyx restraints, the metal cutting into my scales. The pain is nothing compared to the rage consuming me. "You, who betrayed your oath as a Talon. Who conspires with zealots while claiming to preserve our kind?”
Salvor's expression hardens, but I continue, each word a blade I wish I could drive into his traitorous heart.
"Serin Valen dragged my broken body through miles of darkness when she could have left me to die. She risked her life,her future, everything she had, to save a species that would kill her on sight."
“As I said, compromised,” Salvor exhales a long, exhausted sigh and crosses the room to the open doorway. “Such a waste.”
The moment he slithers from the chamber, I begin a methodical assessment of my prison. The shackles themselves are basilyx lead, a metal as unyielding as TrueCoil doctrine. But as I strain slightly against them, I notice a subtle give, not in the cuffs themselves, but where they connect to the stone table beneath me. A faint scraping sound, almost imperceptible. The anchoring bolts shift by a hair's width when I pull at precisely the right angle. I go still immediately, careful not to betray my discovery with too much movement.
My injuries, though still painful, have improved dramatically over the three days of healing. The internal bleeding has stopped, and my dislocated shoulder is properly set. Even the deep gashes along my flank have begun to close, new scales already forming at their edges. Naga heal quickly, much faster than humans. Already, I can feel strength returning to my limbs.
I cast my gaze around the chamber, cataloging every feature. The entrance where Salvor disappeared. The keh'shalin veins running in those unusual patterns.
An image of Serin rises unbidden in my mind, surrounded by those who see her as nothing but vermin to be disposed of. If I do not escape soon, Serin will die.
I close my eyes, appearing to surrender to exhaustion while my mind races with calculations and plans. When I next open them, it will be to begin our escape.
Chapter Nine
SERIN
The shackles bite into my wrists like cold teeth, metal chewing at the raw rings worn into my flesh over days of captivity. My legs tremble, muscles burning from hours of standing. When they finally buckle, I sink to my knees with a gasp of relief that quickly turns to pain as bone meets stone. The chains rattle, allowing me just enough slack to kneel and press my palms against the slick floor, but not enough to stretch out my cramping limbs or lie down. I strain against the restraints, desperate to lie flat even for a moment, but the links hold fast. No doubt a deliberate cruelty.
The distinctive hiss of scales against stone makes me lift my head. He's coming back.
The iron-gray naga looms at the entrance to my alcove, his gargantuan frame blotting out what little light seeps in from the corridor beyond. He’s broad and heavily muscled, each corded bicep and sinew earned rather than ornamental, his scales a dull, scarred iron that looks more like battle-worn armor than living hide. Nick marks and filed-down edges; a testament to blades scraped too close.
His blunt, severe face is crowned by heavy brow ridges that cast his flat amber glare in perpetual shadow. That gaze betraysno curiosity or malice, only cold calculation, measuring each heartbeat. His short, thick fangs, one chipped at the tip, peek from a mouth that parts only for speech, unwilling to waste breath on idle threats.
His tail coils and uncoils with slow, practiced patience, never lashing or trembling, the posture of one accustomed to long, silent interrogations.
