Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(90)

I couldn’t breathe.

Then a door opened at the end of the cellblock, and the screech of keys and cells opening sang through the hall. One by one, someone opened every unoccupied cell.

Altan.

He strode in with his usual swagger, as though he owned the entire Pit. The map of thin scars across his face was a reminder of the battles he’d won, and that he was second only to Gerel. He stood before me, a sinister smile twisting over his mouth.

“What’s happening?” I rasped. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to have a talk.” He grazed a finger across the ring of keys on his belt. “But first, I need to ensure you’re properly motivated to tell me everything. The truth this time.”

Black fog shimmered around the edges of my eyes, made worse with every word he spoke. Even my vision dimmed, and sounds came muted and far away. My fingers and toes were numb, and every breath I took felt like glass through my throat. One breath. Two. Three.

Not now, I prayed. This was not the time for the panic to overtake me. But it was too late. Did I ever have a chance when the panic came? No. It was the part of my own mind that loved to betray me when I needed to be strong.

A key scraped my lock, and iron rang.

“Come out of there.” Altan grabbed my arm and yanked me from the cell. I staggered out and stood in place while he shouted instructions to someone at the end of the hall. I could barely hear over the new surge of anxiety filling my head.

Movement fractured the tunnel of darkness.

Aaru.

His head dropped downward, and his stubble-covered face was ashy with grime and nearly two months in the dark. His clothes, which hadn’t fit right to start with, were tattered and filthy. And his shoulders curled inward, his posture bent under the weight of the Pit.

But then he looked at me—met my eyes. His were still the black of extinguished noorestones, framed with ragged hair, and they pierced through the panic boiling inside me. My quick breathing slowed to something normal and the black fog around my vision retreated. A sense of cool relief whispered through me, and for an entire second, I forgot—

Then his gaze cut to my cheek, and I burned with shame. I couldn’t turn my face fast enough to hide it, to prevent him from seeing what would surely become a spectacular scar. When I glanced back, he was gone.

Just a shadow in the cell.

What had he thought? I hadn’t noticed any shift in his expression—his face was as silent as his voice—but surely he’d been repulsed. I was ruined now, and if he’d ever thought of me in a way that one might call fondly, that, too, was likely ruined as well.

“Embarrassed?” Amusement filled Altan’s tone as he turned toward me again.

I’d been born with one gift: my face. There was no way Altan could understand what it was like to lose that.

“I have a surprise for you.”

Most certainly I didn’t want any surprise from Altan, but when a low whine—and a rattle of chains—came from down the hall, I couldn’t stop myself from looking.

A dragon waited in the anteroom. Drakontos ignitus.

She was a juvenile, if the nubby facial horns and brown scales were anything to go by. In a few years, she’d look like a four-legged flame with fierce horns and a wingspan that rivaled even the larger species. But for now, she was a small creature—her shoulder would come up to my hip—and she crept low to the ground, shaking her head in small, determined motions.

Then I saw why.

She was muzzled and shackled, with heavy rings on each leg. Iron chains let four warriors hold her in place.

“What’s happening?” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

“This is Kelsine.” Altan jerked me toward the anteroom—and the dragon. “Her parents were taken with the others months ago. We managed to hide Kelsine and a few of the other juveniles, but they haven’t been the same since.”

We were twenty steps away, walking fast. I hadn’t even had a chance to look inside Hristo’s and Ilina’s cells.

Altan kept talking. “The muzzle puts pressure on her spark gland, keeping her from breathing fire. This is the first time she’s been out of the Hall of Drakon Warriors. She’s probably frightened.”

Ten steps.

The dragon lashed her head as we neared, but one of the guards gave his chain a sharp jerk, and she stilled, fixing her gold eyes on me. Accusing.

Five steps.

Altan guided me around the tethered dragon and paused me in the anteroom.

“What’s happening?” I asked again.

Altan only glanced at his fellow warriors and nodded.

Together, the four men prodded Kelsine forward, into the doorway. The two at the rear bent and unlocked the shackles, and Kelsine’s talons scraped against the floor at the sudden freedom. A sharp grunt squeezed from her clenched jaws.

While the front two men bent to unlock those shackles, the two at the rear pulled copper rods the length of my forearm from their belts. Dragon reins. Kelsine didn’t notice, though. Or care, because the front shackles were off, and the guards were working on the muzzle.

Her wings twitched as the iron fell away. Flame lurched from between her teeth as the guards nudged her through the door.

“Wait—”

My cry was too late.

The guards put Kelsine, the frightened young dragon, into the cellblock with my friends.