Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(44)

That was my mistake.

Heavy foliage sheltered a clearing in front of Siff’s lair, a tangle of passionflower and ferns, and immense trees that reached for the blue sky. While Ilina and Hristo lagged behind, still joking about dragonish haircuts, I rounded a wall of buttress roots and tripped.

Five things happened at once:

1. LaLa abandoned my shoulder.

2. My knees slammed into something broken and wet: a partially eaten lamb.

3. Ilina shouted, “Watch out!” and scrambled for her calm-whistle.

4. Hristo grabbed for me, but I’d fallen too quickly.

5. From across the clearing, Siff barreled toward us. Fire poured from her jaws.

She was incredible: a Drakontos ignitus, with wicked facial horns, a large wingspan, and—at least in adults—the ability to cause the very air to burn.

Ilina brought the calm-whistle to her lips, and a sweet tone played over the chaos, but it was too late. Already, the air shimmered as Siff’s scales heated, and her great wings fanned, becoming red-gold.

Safety instructions flittered through my head, but instead of playing dead or hiding behind Hristo, I reached for the raging dragon and . . . she stopped.

The noise. The heat. The wild look in her golden eyes. One moment, Siff was ready to kill me for falling into her leftovers. The next, she was tugging the lamb carcass out from under me, not minding that Hristo was pulling me to my feet. Relief flooded me so thoroughly I could barely stand.

Ilina’s whistle must have worked after all.

“Mira, what did you do?” Ilina whispered as Siff disappeared into her cave, dragging the lamb.

“I messed up.” My throat went tight with residual terror and misery. If Mother ever found out, she’d never let me return to the sanctuary. I’d never see dragons again. “I wasn’t paying attention and I tripped.”

“No, I mean you—”

Hristo touched Ilina’s hand and gave a slight shake of his head. “Don’t worry her about it now.”

Ilina frowned, but she nodded. “All right.”

“You can’t tell anyone,” I whispered. “Especially my family.”

“All right,” Ilina said again. “No one will ever know what happened here. Not from us, anyway.”

We never spoke of that afternoon again.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




AFTER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, ALTAN CAME into the infirmary, a set of cuffs hanging from his belt.

The iron clattered with every step, striking two, three, four times as he assumed a position halfway between my bed and the door. He was still too close. “It’s time to go back to your cell, Fancy.”

With great effort, I swung my shaking legs off the edge of the bed and tested my weight. The stone floor was warm, even through my slippers; we were so close to Khulan that his heat seeped through the rock. It was a strange sensation, being this near another god, and I missed Darina and Damyan even more.

“Come on.” Altan grabbed my elbow and jerked me from the room. “We don’t have time for this.”

Maybe he should have thought of that before he’d left me to starve.

Numbers skittered in the back of my head as Altan returned me to the first-level cellblock. We came to the anteroom (five paces across, three paces wide), the stairs (thirty), and the empty cells on the way to mine (twenty-four). The numbers had not changed. That was one of the things I liked about the counting. It was reliable.

My cell waited for me. Empty, save the bed, pillow, blanket, and sewage hole (still covered). I stood at the entrance, staring into the dimness. I couldn’t bear the thought of stepping inside, trapping myself between those walls where the light of the nearest noorestone barely reached.

Maybe Altan would move the stone if I asked. Since I’d told him what he wanted to know.

But before I could find my voice, he shoved me into the cell and slid the door shut. Iron sang against iron, and through the grille of metal, I saw his eyes even more narrowed, his mouth pulled into a smirk, and the ring of keys on his belt. His fingers brushed across the handle of his baton, not menacingly, but more like a habit.

I’d seen men and women like him before—during my visits to the Luminary Council chamber, or at events with foreign dignitaries, though no weapons were permitted at such secure functions. They’d touch their belts, hips, or even their sleeves, where they sometimes concealed knives in special wrist sheaths (or so I’d heard). Mostly those men and women were Khulani, accustomed to having weapons on their person, though it always seemed like their bodies counted as weapons, too. Even away from the Isle of Warriors, the Khulani people were strong; they were trained for combat in ways the rest of us could only imagine.

Unconscious movement or not, every time Altan touched his baton, I received a clear message: I would pay if I were lying.

“I hope you took advantage of the infirmary and got lots of rest, Fancy.” He glared at me and dropped his voice low. “I was the only one who believed you’d live. I know you’re stronger than you appear.”

I didn’t want compliments from him.

He smirked a little. “I also know you’re smarter than you appear.”

Clearly he hadn’t had a good conversation with my mother in which she detailed every one of my failings.

“And I know,” he went on, “you’re too smart to tell me everything at once. You want to keep something to bargain with. You need that advantage. I understand. But you should know that I will be back for more. It would be better for you if you just told me what it is.”