The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(32)
Arianna put the hesitation aside with a smile, an expression somewhere between an exhausted triumph and a bitter sneer. “So, pretend this is nothing more than what it is: you earning my trust. And get out.”
His claws shot from his fingers and an equal measure of hurt and anger was fresh on his magic. It dotted his pores like a midday sweat. She wanted him to fight, she realized. Arianna wanted him to tell her she was wrong and insist that there was some purity beyond simply overlapping desires that strung them together.
Instead Cvareh retreated. He left with wide, hasty steps.
She paid him no further mind. The truth of her words had made them pointed, not the bitterness that had been building in her chest at the weeks of being saddled with Cain. She was here for a purpose, a shifting, changing, elusive purpose, but a purpose all the same.
Arianna walked over to the door, dragging the spare chair behind her. She sat heavily in it, placing some of her makeshift tools in her lap. Running her fingers over the lock like a lover, she made quick work of the panel. She was Arianna, and she would be kept nowhere she didn’t wish to be. She’d do nothing she didn’t wish to do. She’d let the Dragons think otherwise for weeks, but now it was time to remind them that she was a force of her own.
Within a few minutes, and a few precise movements, she’d dismantled the lock into the engaged position. Arianna stood and swung the chair around, wedging it under the door handle for good measure. She didn’t think anyone would have even the slightest bit of interest in coming to her side, especially not after she warned off the one Dragon who could—for some inexplicable reason—have half a mind to do so.
But she could take no chances.
She was about to be in the most vulnerable state imaginable. She was about to spill her secrets upon the table with every drop of blood. And she would risk no witnesses.
Like a ritual, Arianna drew the curtains over the windows, candlelight the room’s only glow. It was more than enough light for her Dragon eyes to see with precision. She sat heavily at the table, her reflection a flickering visage in the polished mirrors. Purple eyes stared back at her from every angle.
Arianna remembered when her eyes had been black. She remembered when they had been violently gouged out. She remembered losing all sight, and the moment of stomach-churning terror when she thought she might never see again. She remembered coming to peace with the notion that the face of the woman she loved could well be the last thing she ever saw.
Her eyes had opened again. Sharper, clearer, more precise than she could’ve ever imagined. Now Arianna inspected her hands. They were the hands that Master Oliver had trained, hands that could dismantle a Rivet lock like it was nothing more than a simple bank vault.
Arianna rested her palm on the table and reached for her sharpest dagger. Her chest tightened. Nature fought against what she was about to do. Her mind flooded with endorphins as it fought against itself. Instinct commanded she jump from the table and drop the knife. It struggled with her hand, trying to force it to shake, wanting her movements to suffer so much that she gave up on them entirely.
But Arianna was stable. She kept her churning stomach quelled. She kept her breathing even.
The knife pierced her ashen flesh. It gouged sharp and true, bit to bone. Arianna bared her teeth, gritting them so hard they ached straight through her jaw and into her neck. Golden blood pooled across the table, mixing with marrow as bone splintered.
Two hands waited for her, the same color as her ears. They held the same scent as the man who had given her organs in a gesture of trust, only to turn and betray all that she loved. Arianna’s lips curled back. Her body shook. But she remained focused. She would take his magic once more. She would use it to find him.
She would kill him in blood more frigid than snow.
Arianna repeated it over and over in her head, uttered it like a violent prayer of the darkest variety. She did it again and again to keep the agony at bay as her magic fought to heal her body, to keep her mind right in the wake of shock.
She was Arianna the Rivet. She was the White Wraith. And she would not scream.
14. Cvareh
He could hear her.
He could hear every labored breath. He could hear every drop of blood splattering the floor. He could hear each dull thud of flesh that served as a chilling auditory reminder of what was happening behind the door he faced.
Cvareh hadn’t moved since being cast out. He had made no motion when he heard her quiet tinkering with the lock. He did not attempt to force entry by breaking the door frame and smashing the chair she’d propped against the latch.
She had not wanted him there. She had chosen to endure the self-surgery on her own. It was as foolish as it was brave. It clouded his emotions with both admiration for her ferocity and aggravation at her persistence that every burden be shouldered alone.
But that was Arianna. That was the torrent that pulled him under every time his eyes rested on her. And it was no wonder why he had purposefully avoided seeing her. Every complex emotion combined with the draw of the boon was too much for him. For weeks he’d wanted to run from it, and now that he was faced with her once more, literally carrying a reason to loathe her, he wanted nothing more than to be by her side. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to be alone.
Cvareh sighed heavily, closing his eyes. He pressed his forehead to the door. He could smell the bright, unique signature of her magic. It was overwhelming, no doubt from all the blood being spilled from the process of severing her own hands.