I leaned forward, staring at the silhouette of the pile.
A low snarl rumbled from beneath the mound.
I jerked backward, striking my head against the roof of the shrunken cage. I shuffled back, tugging Bones with me as best I could. My head rang like cymbals as a headache immediately split across my temples.
“Stars,” I hissed, reaching my hands up to rub my forehead until the throbbing stopped.
It was then that I noticed the chains.
One on each of my wrists. My ankles. Even all seven pairs of my wings. I also wore a heavy, cold iron collar around my neck. Each chain was shackled to the cage, and beyond to the chariot in front, dragging it. When in the stars had these been placed on me? I’d been awake the entire time... hadn’t I?
A crippling fear snaked through my body.
Delirium. That’s what this senselessness, thishelplessness,was turning into.
Another garbled whimper snapped me out of my stupor. I looked at the source.
The pile of grey was still there, unmoving.
Until.
There was a shuffle.
Then the pawing of claws on steel.
I shuddered violently, trembling with fear. I pressed my knees to my chest, using the end of a wing to cover Bones’s body. Squinting in the dark, I realized my error. Thepilewasn’t a pile at all.
“Oh, mystars.”
The chariot pulled the cage under a bright patch of moonlight; the three moons illuminating the cage. The sight before me made me nearly wet myself. My hearts pounded in my chest. I shrank away, absolutely terrified. I looked up at the colossal frame of a creature carved entirely of stone.
“What in the Six Hèls,” I exhaled.
The creature blinked at me. Amber eyes, bright as molten flame, rested on my cowed frame. The creature sat up, stretching as high as he could go, leaning into the opposite corner of the cage. I ogled his sharpened teeth. His elongated claws. The taloned feet. The beast had a draping, black skirt around his hips, made of material I didn’t recognize, that clung to him like liquid. Two large horns protruded from his forehead, while two even larger, membranous wings curled around his hunched frame from his spine.
“I don’t believe my eyes.”
The creature blinked at me.
“Do you believe your hearts, Madame?”
I jumped, stunned at his monstrous, yet intelligent, speech. His dialect rang familiar to my ears, but I couldn’t place it. It was like trying to remember an old dream. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d seen this kind of beast before, though I couldn’t imagine where.
I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it again. I sat back, shell-shocked.
I gave the creature a long once-over, looking at him as much as possible in the dark, as my eyes continued adjusting. All over him were open gashes. Fresh wounds. Ancient scars. Across his face. Down his muscled chest, arms, and legs. I knew these wounds instantly for what they were.
Whip marks.
This creature had been beaten with Dragontails.
The longer I stared at the beast, the less horrified I became. He was large and grotesque, but in his eyes he carried a kindness that made me feel safe. He could easily hurt me. Kill me even. But I knew by those gentle, amber eyes, he never would.
“Whatareyou?” I whispered through chapped, cracked lips.
I shivered once again, freezing in this awful cage that felt more and more like a tundra.
The creature opened its mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
