The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(31)

But as her rage boiled ever hotter, a voice echoed through her mind:

The Old One bestows his second gift tonight.

Asha stopped walking.

She fixed her gaze on the shadow in the trees.

You must keep it from harm.

This—this dragon—was her second gift?

“No. . . .”

As realization sank in, Asha screamed her rage—at Elorma, at the Old One, and at the bloodred moon waning above her. And when she was done screaming, the shadow dragon remained. Head tilted. Eyes fixed on her. As if to say: Where are you going? Can I come too?





Fourteen


Asha dragged herself through the temple, then up the dark and dusty stairway. Leaving the flamelit corridors below, her feet tripped on the steps. The slowing thud of her pulse echoed in her ears. Her legs dragged, heavy as chains.

Stay conscious. Just a little longer.

It felt like years passing before she fell against the door, breathing in the sweet cedar. Asha pressed her forehead against the flower carved into the wood, willing it to hold her up.

“Skral!”

Silence answered her. She slammed her palm against the door.

“Please. . . .”

A match struck on the other side. A lock clicked. The door swung in, creaking as it did, and an illuminated face came out of the darkness. Freckled. Sleep smudged.

With her support swinging away from her, Asha struggled to stand and found she couldn’t.

“Iskari?”

He caught her, pulling her into him.

“What have you done to yourself?”

But no words formed on Asha’s tongue. The skral set down the lantern. He hoisted her up into his arms and kicked the door shut behind them.

Asha woke in the night to a low-burning lamp and the skral bent over her. Someone had changed the yellowing bandages wrapped around his torso. These looked white and fresh.

A sharp pain pricked her side and Asha bolted upright, gasping as the sting flickered through her ribs.

“Hold still,” he said, grabbing her shoulder with a warm hand and pushing her back down. His other hand held a needle. It glinted in the lantern light. “I’m almost finished.”

She tensed against his touch, but did as he said. He let go of her shoulder. Hunching like a hawk, he frowned in concentration as he gently stitched up her wound—which bled now from the sudden movement.

“Who washed me?” Her blood-soaked tunic was gone and her hair was wet and braided tightly over one shoulder. But that wasn’t the worst thing.

She wore a slave’s shirt. The linen was thin and plain and rough against Asha’s skin.

His shirt, she realized.

She wore his shirt and nothing else.

In order to stitch up the gash in her side, he’d pushed the fabric up to her chest and thrown a wool blanket over her waist and legs for modesty. Her entire torso was visible, including her burn scar, which ran down the length of her side, creeping toward her navel.

He met her horrified gaze, saying nothing. He didn’t need to. Asha knew in that moment who had washed the blood from her body.

He’s just a slave. He’s been undressing and bathing his masters all his life. It doesn’t matter.

Except it did matter. He’d seen everything. The full extent of her hideousness.

For the first time in a long time, Asha didn’t feel proud of her scar.

She felt ashamed of it.

Falling still against the cot, she turned her face away from him.

“Here,” he said, lifting a tray from the floor and setting it on her lap. A small plate of olives glistened next to a loaf of bread and olive oil. “You lost a lot of blood. You need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Iskari.”

Asha looked up into his face.

“Please.”

Gritting her teeth, Asha propped herself up. She tore off a piece of bread, soaking it in oil before putting it in her mouth.

“What happened?” he asked when the needle went in again.

Asha winced and swallowed the bread. “I found him. Or rather, he found me.”

“The dragon you were hunting?”

Asha nodded, tearing off another hunk of bread and dipping it into the olive oil. “This”—she pointed to the gash he was stitching—“is from his tail.”

The slave’s stitching stopped. “Did you kill him?”

She put the bread in her mouth and shook her head, thinking of the shadow in the trees. The swish of a forked tail.

This is the first time I’ve come back from a hunt empty-handed.

The fist of her left hand tightened at the thought.

When she remained silent, the slave went back to work. He started humming the tune of a song only to stop, rearrange the notes, then sing them again in a different order. He did this over and over. Like he was testing the song and it kept failing him.

Asha lay back, letting his voice distract her from the teeth-grinding pain of his needle sewing her up.

A story rose to mind, unbidden.

Rayan strode through his mother’s orange grove and stopped sharp. Someone was singing. Someone with the voice of a nightingale.

Asha shook the story away. “Can I ask you something, skral?”

The tune halted. Keeping his face tilted toward his work, he raised his eyebrows, peering up at her with just his eyes, making his forehead crinkle.