Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(48)
The carriage stopped in front of the department facilities. I stepped out, peering around, but I didn’t see even one dragon flying. How disappointing.
Inside the building was another matter. We tromped into a recovery ward, where Ilina and her parents waited. A tiny gold dragon slept in Ilina’s arms. Drakontos raptus. The baby dragon she’d told me about.
“Open your box,” Mother said.
Inside I found one large leather glove with flowering designs along the cuff. It was pretty, but wouldn’t look right with any of my dresses.
“It’s for hunting,” Father said. “There’s more equipment, of course. And you’ll have to train every day.”
Before I could ask how a glove would help me hunt, Ilina slipped the baby dragon into my arms. “For your birthday.”
The dragon was lighter than I’d expected. Hollow bones, like a bird. Her scales were warm and slick, sharp at the tips, and she matched the color of my dress perfectly. “She’s mine?” I could hardly breathe for the joy building in my chest.
“Yours,” Ilina’s mother confirmed. “Yours to train, that is. And you’ll have to do it here.”
Of course. Because the Mira Treaty not only limited the public’s contact with dragons, but prevented ownership. It was too hazardous for regular people to spend much time with dragons, since they were endangered. Ilina’s parents must have trusted me a lot. And coming here to train the little gold dragon? That meant I’d get to visit every day.
“She has a sister,” Ilina said. She hadn’t told me that before. “A silver. And now we’re sisters—wingsisters, like dragons—because the silver is mine. I named her Crystal.”
I wanted to explode with all the good feelings, but just then, my dragon opened her golden eyes, like a beautiful lala flower blooming. “LaLa,” I whispered. “That’s her name.”
She must have liked it, because she rubbed her face against my knuckles and made a throaty sound, almost like a purr. And for the first time in my life, I knew what true, unconditional love felt like.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JUST AS PRISON LIFE WAS RETURNING TO NORMAL, A new inmate joined us in the first level.
It was evening, only an hour or so before the noorestones went dark. Gerel was exercising, and I was mirroring everything she did whether she liked it or not. (I honestly couldn’t tell.) Already, my muscles ached. I’d been sent back to work this morning, made to scrub the same infirmary where I’d been treated. My lower back kept pinching and Gerel wasn’t speaking to me enough to make me risk asking if there was a stretch to fix it.
So I worked through the pain, holding back every whimper that threatened to emerge, because aside from still being in the Pit, it had been a relatively good day: the noorestones had illuminated in the morning, I’d been fed three times, and I’d sneaked several long drinks of water when Sarannai wasn’t looking. Or, I supposed, equally possible was that she’d been instructed to let me drink all the water I wanted, but I had trouble imagining she wouldn’t have at least slapped me for slacking off.
No one in the cleaning group had said anything about my absence. Not that they’d ever said anything to me anyway. Ever since the first day when Altan began talking to me at the dinner table, they all ignored me, like proximity to someone he was interested in could hurt them by extension.
Gerel stopped hopping from side to side and lifted both of her arms high in the air, seeming to reach and reach and strain to touch the ceiling. Like she could, if she just tried hard enough.
I copied her stance and stretched my fingers toward the top of my cell, holding the position until she began to bend forward at the hips, and lower her arms until her hands brushed the floor. I mimicked her, and while I hung there, blood rushing to my face for five, six, seven deep breaths, a knot of tension in my back released. I groaned with relief.
When Gerel drew herself upright, she wore a knowing smirk. I wanted to say something smart to her, but that would have involved having something smart to say, and I was too relieved that whatever had been pinched in my back was no longer a problem.
Then we heard it, both of us at the same time: the door at the bath end of the hall screeched open, and a warrior barked for someone to move forward.
My heart jumped. What if it was Altan, coming back for the rest of my secrets?
Gerel frantically scooted to the back of her cell, spine pressed against stone. Though I wanted to rush to the bars and peer out, I did the same. She was practically an expert at being a prisoner and I was a Drakontos mimikus. My heart pounded as I listened to the cadence of steps and the ragged breathing of the new person.
They came across the front of my cell so quickly I barely had time to study them. Three warriors, all strangers, created a triangle around the new prisoner.
She was tall—taller than Gerel even—and held her chin high as she strode past. Black braids—too many for me to count—hung to her waist, bound together with a copper band. She liked that color, apparently, because her clothes matched: she wore a loose, long-sleeved shirt, and trousers with so much fabric they might be mistaken for a skirt. Aside from her fingertips and face, every part of her skin was covered.
It was only when she glanced my way that I noticed the tattoos.
Copper-colored tattoos swirled around her left eye and down her cheek, bright against her shadow skin. Her eyes, too, were the same brilliant shade as her tattoos, and when her gaze passed over me, I had the unsettling sense that she saw more than most people.