Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)(91)

And shut the door.





CHAPTER THIRTY




KELSINE WAS GOING TO KILL MY FRIENDS.

But before I could take even a step toward the cellblock, Altan grabbed my collar and hauled me back. “Don’t worry. She’ll take her time. That’s why I unlocked the other cells: to give her something to investigate before she reaches your friends. Imagine how frustrated she’ll be when she can’t open their doors.”

My stomach turned over and anxiety swarmed back. I had some time, but not enough time.

Time to do what?

Escape. Save my friends.

I needed to count. Breathe. Make a list. Something. How could I even think about saving my friends if I couldn’t save myself from my own traitorous mind?

My body betrayed me as well, trembling and stumbling. With my vision fading in and out, I lost track of where I was going. Suddenly, I was in the interrogation room. The same one as before.

One table stood in the very center of the room, holding nothing but a map, a stack of papers, and a pencil. Two chairs were pushed all the way in, both facing the side walls so that neither of us would have our back to the door. Twenty noorestones ringed the room.

We were completely alone.

“Have a seat.” Altan motioned to one of the chairs. “We have a lot to talk about.”

My hands shook as I pulled out the nearest chair and pressed myself against the cold wood. I scanned the room again. Still twenty noorestones. Still too heavy with memories of bloodstains and Aaru’s screams and the unnatural silence.

No death chair.

No noorestones in basins.

No weapons, save the baton at Altan’s hip.

“You’re not allowed to kill prisoners,” I whispered.

“I can’t control what a young dragon does, Mira.” He smirked. “Her flame only reaches so far. I suspect it will get rather hot in there, but they’re probably not dead.”

Altan was a liar, I knew that, but I told myself this had to be true. Young dragons did have a very short flame. So maybe . . .

“Let’s start with something simple.” My nemesis moved near his chair, but he didn’t sit. He remained on his feet in a display of dominance. To show that though there was a chair, he had a choice about whether he’d sit.

I glared at him, wishing he’d burst into flames and die.

He did not.

Instead, he pressed a fist to the table and leaned forward, his fury barely contained beneath his skin. “Now,” he said, “tell me why the Luminary Council really sent you here.”

“I told you the truth.”

His mouth pulled back in a growl. “Warriors went to Crestshade and Thornfell. They scoured every port, ship, cargo hold, and warehouse. There was nothing. No trace of dragons.”

Chills swept through me, numbing. If the dragons weren’t there, then where were they? All this time, I’d consoled myself with the knowledge of their whereabouts. Part of me had imagined I might be the one to rescue them, but after Lex—

Well, I’d known then something must be different. That was why Lex and the other two had been at the Shadowed City docks, rather than Thornfell, where the shipping order had said they’d be.

“I’m waiting.” Altan loomed too close.

“They changed the schedule.” My voice was small and weak, but I lifted my eyes to Altan’s and willed him to see that I was telling the truth. “When I came to the Luminary Council with the shipping order, they must have realized there was a possibility I’d tell someone—like you—so they changed the schedule to keep anyone from rescuing the dragons.”

He seemed to grow larger, but he said, “You might be right.”

A knot of tension in my chest eased a little. “I love dragons,” I whispered. “I truly hoped you would find them. Better they return to the Fallen Isles with you than get sent to the Algotti Empire.”

Tense moments passed between us. Three, four, five. Then Altan pulled back and crossed his arms. “All right. Say I believe you.”

He did believe me. Everyone knew what kind of liar I was—a terrible one—so he did believe me. He was just trying to scare me.

I counted the noorestones. Twenty.

“What other route might your council use to send the dragons to the Algotti Empire?”

As if I would know that kind of thing. He was the one with the strategic mind. I was just some girl the Luminary Council had liked to parade around. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why they would do this. The Mira Treaty is supposed to protect dragons—”

“The Mira Treaty is a sham,” he said.

I shook my head. People declared that from time to time, often at me, as though there was something I needed to do about it, personally. “It’s no sham. Just . . . some people are ignoring it.” Like the people who signed it.

Altan blew out a long breath, glaring at me like I was a fool. “You’ve caught the Luminary Council in enough lies, haven’t you? You’ve seen enough to know that they aren’t the benevolent government you once believed.”

Well, that was true. But that didn’t mean that the entire treaty was a lie. “The government is made of people. Humans are fallible creatures. But not the Mira Treaty. It is an ideal.”

“Created by fallible humans.” He stood taller. I forced myself not to shrink back; I couldn’t show my fear. Not now. “The Mira Treaty holds all the appearance of being something good, but underneath, it is a sinister thing. A lie.”