The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(31)

“What I asked for?” She was slow on the uptake, slower than she’d ever been previously. But her mind put together the pieces with ritualistic precision in spite of her vertigo. “The hands?”

“Yes.” Cvareh rubbed the bead of blood on his forehead the second she pulled away the blade. “Is that how you greet Cain?”

“Only if he’s earned my ire.” Her jest fell flat. Arianna’s mind was entirely on the hands. “I smelled the blood, thought that maybe there was some kind of combatant…”

Her words trailed off as she continued to focus on what he was bringing her. For now, she bit her tongue and kept herself from asking him where he’d acquired them. She would guard that particular question until she was ready to act on its truth. Until the time of her vengeance was right.

Arianna set her daggers down on the table and motioned for Cvareh to place the box before her. As soon as he did, the Dragon took a full two steps away from the vessel in question. The whole idea of what was about to transpire clearly set him on edge. It was enough proof of the box’s contents that Arianna didn’t feel the need to verify it with her own eyes just yet.

“I trust you know what to do with them?”

“I do. I will need three stand mirrors, thread, needle, and bandages.”

Cvareh looked to the door frame and Arianna followed his gaze. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Cain there. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see every Dragon in the Xin manor standing there to investigate the potent stink that was now wafting from her room.

The sea-foam blue Dragon looked on in disgust. “You can’t possibly—”

“Fetch them for her,” Cvareh ordered. There was no space for questioning between the sharp clip of his words.

Cain’s nostrils tensed, arching upward in disgust and anger, but he left as commanded. Arianna got a wicked sense of pleasure from his discomfort. The night was shaping up in unpredictable ways. Her plans were changing before her eyes, a new set unfurling like a scroll of truth that had been kept from her until just that moment. Patience was paying off.

“What can I do to help?” Cvareh asked.

“Nothing.”

“But—”

“I said nothing.” She glared at him, wondering what about a singular word could possibly be confusing.

The Dragon blinked back at her. He didn’t understand. He wouldn’t understand the source of the rekindled flame of her rage. If anything, his confusion assured her enough to keep him alive, to prevent her slamming him against the nearest wall and skinning him over and over and over until he told her what she wanted to know.

“I know what you are about to do, and you cannot possibly intend to do it alone.”

“I do intend, and I will.” Arianna was spared further exhausting affirmation by Cain’s return. At least someone among them was competent enough to do as she asked and then leave her be. The other Dragon departed with a pointed glare, the supplies deposited haphazardly on the opposite edge of the bed as though he could not be coaxed into entering her room more than necessary under the present circumstances.

Arianna began setting up the supplies on the table. Her hands moved with the certainty of practice. She had done this before with Eva. She had done worse before. It was not a delight, but it was not something that was cause for fear. It was science, as Eva would say. And science existed beyond right, wrong, and fear.

“Let me help.”

“Do you really want to be involved with this?” Her violet eyes met his gold ones as Arianna attempted to burrow under his resolve. It was a plant with shallow roots, easily felled when the earth around it was overturned. She could feel his magic waver before his stare did. “I didn’t think so.”

Cvareh opened his mouth to speak, but Arianna wouldn’t let him.

“I commanded you to harvest one of your own. I am going to cut off my hands, and stitch these on, and use them forevermore as though I was born with them.” Arianna tilted her head to the side. “The blood of your kin is already on your palms. Do you want to take that further?”

He was completely disarmed, and that told her everything. Arianna didn’t know the depth of the truth yet, but she would find out in time. She would find who the original owner of the hands had been; she’d just confirmed the man she had known simply as “Rafansi” during the last rebellion was someone of House Xin.

“I have been here for weeks, and you could not be bothered with me,” she reminded him. The pain was real and bright and angry like a fresh wound. It hurt more than she thought it would, and that only flared her temper further.

“I have acted in no way that was not on your behalf, or in your best interest,” he insisted. “But I have had other things to attend to. I couldn’t let myself be distracted, and when I am near you… There were matters of my House.”

“I understand,” she said quietly, letting the clasps of the box falling open ring louder than any single word. “Because you are Cvareh Xin’Ryu Soh, peeled from the blue of the sky itself. I am Arianna the Rivet, steam given the shape of a woman. And our priorities only overlap as much as it behooves your sister to seek my help.”

He had the sense not to try to object. Though his face was tormented by enough conflict to make her very briefly question what, exactly, was going through his head.