The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)(5)
“Something better than the satisfaction of killing a Dragon and the reward of a fresh heart?” She hummed. “I doubt it.”
“I’ll give you a boon.”
Ari paused, considering this. She’d heard of boons before, but oh, they were rare. A Dragon rarely lowered himself to the point of giving a boon, and especially not to a Fenthri. Dragons saw the Fenthri as the servant, not the other way around. A boon would make him hers.
“Any one wish of me.” The Dragon’s eyes kept darting skyward. “You can demand anything of me as the terms of the boon.”
“For letting you keep your heart?”
“For taking me to the Alchemists’ Guild.”
It really didn’t matter to Ari what she had to do for the boon. A wish. There were so many things she could wish for. So many old wrongs she could right with the unquestioned help of a Dragon and his magic. It could be a chance for redemption—for vengeance.
Or, at the very least, she could always wish for him to cut out his own heart and give it to her. Then she’d get the satisfaction of watching him do it.
“Fine, Dragon.” The agreement was an ugly smear of magic across her tongue as the boon was formed. It tasted of disgust peppered with loathing. “You have your deal.”
2. Cvareh
“We’re not going in there, are we?” Cvareh made a scene of squinting into the dark manhole. He could actually see perfectly fine.
The woman shot him a dull look and pointed into the hole. “Go.”
“It smells rancid.” He scrunched his nose. He’d known he’d need a Fenthri’s knowledge of Loom to escape the King’s Riders, but he’d hoped for something or someone a little more…elegant.
“So don’t breathe.”
“You must be—” Cvareh never finished his statement. Her legs felt dense as lead and the sharp kick to his lower back had him pin-wheeling his arms to avoid falling forward.
He landed nearly headfirst, choosing to crack a few bones in his wrists over taking yet another assault on his face. The ground was covered in a thin, cold film that had him frantically rubbing his hands over the walls—no cleaner—the moment he stood. Filthy, filthy, filthy.
The woman pulled the manhole cover back into place and slowly descended the metal ladder cemented into the portal wall.
“Do you have a light?” he asked, massaging the newly knitted bones in each of his wrists.
“Afraid of the dark?” she called over her shoulder. She’d begun walking confidently along the narrow path that was the only thing keeping them from the flowing sludge of the sewer.
“Ah, my darling—”
“I am not your darling.” She wheeled and the dagger point pressed into his neck, attempting to pop the words from his throat.
“Will you ever talk to me without brandishing a weapon?” Cvareh sighed. They both knew the dagger would do nothing more than annoy him, even refined. Pointing it at his chest was at least threatening. The only way his neck would be a cause for worry was if she somehow planned to cut his head clean off.
“I’d rather not talk to you at all,” she ground out through her flat teeth.
“Where are you from?” He tried a different question, trying to ease the ever-increasing tensions between them. She had no guild mark on her face. An illegal.
The woman twirled the dagger in her hand, slicing up his mouth. He licked his lips, tasting his blood and then the flavor of the magic on her blade. He didn’t recognize it; whatever Dragon had given parts of their body to refine that steel was one Cvareh didn’t know personally.
But the weapon wasn’t just refined; it was tempered. There was a layer of her power embedded above the original Dragon’s magic that told him the weapon would only respond to her will. He wouldn’t be able to command it no matter how much magic he exhausted.
And that wasn’t all he learned. Cvareh pulled his lower lip between his teeth, his sharper canines nearly drawing blood, and ran his tongue over it. He tasted her, and wasn’t that the most interesting of flavors…
“What did you do that for?” He narrowed his eyes.
“A threat.”
“Of what sort?” Dragons smeared blood as warnings. They communicated through trace amounts of magic left behind. Had she been intentionally communicating with him as a Dragon would?
“That I will cut you every time you show idiocy.”
“You wouldn—”
He didn’t finish before she had him slammed against the wall again, her dagger half into his mouth. He’d have to cut through his cheek to move, or cut his tongue to speak. This woman was really starting to annoy him.
“Listen, Dragon, I will not repeat myself.” Her words were level and calm, but they had a wild timbre at their edges, like chaos was trying to pull them apart into raw cries of rage. “You set the terms of the boon. I didn’t ask why you need me to take you to the Alchemists’ Guild because I don’t give a bloody cog about who you are or why you want to go there. I won’t pretend to enjoy this. So do us both a favor and don’t make this something it’s not.”
He stared through the darkness at the Fenthri’s face. It was round, like a loaf of bread, or a pork rump. The goggles pressed over her eyes, leaving small indents on her ashen-colored cheeks at their edges. Scraggly-cut white hair fell over her ears in messy parts. Fenthri were hideous creatures, really.