CHAPTER TWO
Rakos
Adrenaline slams through Rakos Tem, spurring him into action before full consciousness catches up. He lashes out without thinking, aching muscles propelling him from the ground, and his hand closes around the nearest throat. A yelp pierces the darkness. His target tries to jerk away.
“You’re going to regret this,” Rakos snarls, tightening his grip.
The reply is faint under the force of Rakos’s hand, and thin fingers scrabble weakly against Rakos’s grip. “Taking that collar off you? Yes, I regret it! Please, let go!”
Breath floods painfully into Rakos. Coherent thought follows more slowly, along with the realization he doesn’t know where he is. As a wing-captain in the Draskoran dragon corps, Rakos is supposed to be in his quarters near the dragonroost. He’s supposed to be surrounded by the breathtaking sky, not the claustrophobic earth.
His head shouldn’t feel this empty. Like a piece of him is missing.
Memory reluctantly follows thought and breath. The last thing Rakos remembers is returning to his quarters after a raucous night out with his wing. Still drunk, fumbling for a lantern, when the first prince’s drasgard ambushed him.
Rakos is wearing the same clothes, tall leather boots and his off-duty wyrmskin coat, but his stomach clings empty to his spine and his head spins. And the trembling man in his grasp certainly isn’t Daromir, Indra, or any other lackey of Prince Vana’s that Rakos has ever met.
How long has he been out?
Rakos loosens his grip but doesn’t let go. “Who are you, and where is this?”
Thin fingers rest on Rakos’s wrist, cool to the touch, anchoring Rakos in the moment. “I’m—I’m a wandering minstrel. I don’t know where this is. These random Draskorans just abducted me when I accidentally ran into them. I didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t ask if you did anything. What’s your name?”
“Bell… My name’s Bell.” His slight shape is barely visible kneeling beside Rakos. “Could you please let go of me?”
Right. Rakos forcibly unlocks his grip and slumps over his knees. The movement jars his stomach, which is newly hurt and tender, as if someone kicked him. Rakos should probably apologize to this Bell guy for half-strangling him, but his senses still feel so untethered. How long has he been out? Where have they taken him?
Whyhave they taken him?
The last thing Rakos remembers is Drasgard Indra forcing the enchanted collar around his neck. As soon as the buckle closed, his strength and consciousness fled. A cheap trick—of course. A cheap trick is the only way they could hope to take him out. Even drunk, exhausted, outnumbered, he fought. Half-killed at least a few of them.
“Am I still in Draskora?”
“Yes. Somewhere on the southwest coast. I’m not sure. Some sort of keep, but they had a bag over my head so I couldn’t see where exactly they were taking me.” Bell takes a deep breath, then another, like he’s trying to calm down. “Wait, how long were you out?”
“Depends. What’s the date?”
“Um. The twentieth of Briars.”
Rakos exhales sharply, his head spinning. Five days. No wonder he feels like shit. Body and magic misaligned, his dragonbond stretched to its limits. He hasn’t been apart from Sarka this long since he enlisted.
Sarka.
Rage and hurt constrict Rakos’s lungs, and the darkness seems to redden. If he’s been gone for five days, what does Sarka think? They’ve been together for ten years, since Rakos enlisted at age sixteen. What did the other officers tell her—if they told her anything?
Does Sarka think Rakos abandoned her?
Rakos pushes himself to his feet slowly, every joint aching with disuse. His hair falls into his face, and he shoves the tangled length of it behind his shoulders. Five days. He was on dragonback for some of that, if he’s on the southwest coast this quickly, which means Prince Vana has allies in the dragon corps.
And this is probably a disused drasgard waystation, since it seems like an actual cell and not just a repurposed cellar.
Bell stands up too. “Are you all right? I woke you up because I thought escaping might be easier with two of us. Who are you, anyway?” His voice grows more nervous. “Wait, why are you being held here? You’re not a murderer or a blood mage, are you?”
Footsteps and faint voices echo outside the cell.
Rakos slaps his palm over Bell’s mouth and yanks him towards the wall. The minstrel’s protest is muffled. He struggles hard enough that Rakos almost can’t hold him against the wall, as sleep-soft as his limbs are. Then the voices grow louder, and Bell freezes in Rakos’s grasp. When Rakos uncovers his mouth, Bell remains quiet.
