Page 9 of The Omega Slave

“I know. I know. You can’t take so much as a piss until you get those fancy jewels on your head, let alone free slaves.”

“Why would you want any sort of jewels on my head?” Kamir challenged, and Draul grinned.

“Because a certain pickpocket called Attiker taught me that sometimes I’m wrong, and that I have to choose my battles.” He stepped forward. “I can help, but make sure you don’t let me down.”

“I don’t care about your expectations,” Kamir said bluntly. “I’m too busy worrying about the people of Rajpur.”

Draul grinned. “Good answer.” He turned to Veda. “Remember Tam?”

Veda pursed her lips. “One of Ash’s lads? Flame-red hair? More freckles than anyone has the right to?”

“That’s the one. I’ll make sure he’s arrested within the hour. Petty shit, because we both like his head exactly where it is.”

“But how will he get a message out?” Veda asked.

“Mice.”

“But mice—” Kamir shut his mouth just in time because he was going to say something ridiculous like mice can’t talk. Veda would never let him forget it, and he hoped one day they would all be in a place where she could tease him again like she had when he was young.

Draul’s expression softened. “He has a trick with animals. Don’t ask me how he does it, but if either of you find a mouse in your pocket tomorrow, you’ll know that’s a yes. As in yes, your sl—boy’sin the cells.”

“Then we’ll just have to work out how to free him,” Veda said.

Draul didn’t sayeasyin a sarcastic tone, but Kamir heard it just the same.

“Actually, I might have an idea about that, but we need to know he’s there first.” Draul bent his head, and they made aplan. It was ridiculous and too many things could go very wrong, but it was a start.

Tsaria was floating in that state between consciousness and wishing he was anything but. The nobleman had summoned him again some time ago and when he hadn’t been able to change his story, he’d been tossed back behind bars. But not before they’d tried to change his mind first.Painfully.

And by the goddess, he’d been so close to breaking. One more hit and he’d have spilled. He knew it. To be honest, he didn’t know why he hadn’t. He knew the second he said the emir had shifted into the dragon, he’d be dead. But at this point, he’d gone from being afraid of death to wishing for it. It would be so easy to make the pain stop.

He roused briefly when there was a lot of shouting and swearing as a new prisoner was flung into the cell next to his, on the opposite side from the child and his mother. He knew he should be trying to do something for those two. The child had cried inconsolably after a few guards had been in there with his mam, but she hadn’t said a word after she’d stopped screaming. He wished he had the strength to comfort him, but if he was right about what might have happened, then nothing he or anyone else could say would make it better.

After a while the guards left them in the dark and Tsaria might have been able to drift if the annoying little shite in the other cell would have shut up. Tsaria’s straw pile was close to his bars, and had he thought for a second that he could actually get on his feet, he would have moved.

“For pity’s sake,” Tsaria moaned. “Do you want me to curse a pox on your whole family?” It was a common curse.

“Haven’t got one left,” the whisper came back. “What about you, dragon-boy?”

And of course, that roused him faster than the threat to drown him in the lake water had done earlier when the guards had to carry him back to his cell.

“Thought that might get your attention,” the whisper came again when Tsaria didn’t reply. He’d come to kill him. The emir—that beautiful man was dead.

“I don’t want fever white before I die.” If he was going to die, he wanted it on his terms.

And the whispers that he hadn’t been listening to stopped abruptly.

“How in seven hell’s did you turn we’re going to get you out of here into we are going to kill you?”

“Because I killed him. I touched him, and then—” But he pressed his lips together because he didn’t want to shame himself further.

“You daft sod,” came back a little too loudly. “Now listen, will you?” And the whispers continued. Apparently Tam, as he was called, had been sent to make sure he was in here and not dead as the emir’s uncle and everyone else was insisting. The emir was very much alive and, according to Tam’s boss, was very keen on getting to know Tsaria a lot better. In fact, his boss might have even used the wordsmitten.

“I have no idea what that even means,” Tsaria said. He assumed Tam was from Cadmeera, somewhere down by the port, he would guess. Not even the beggars in the Market of Lost Souls had that type of accent.

“They’ll be coming to release me in the morning, probably before you wake.” Release him? No one got let out of here. Maybe Tsaria had taken one too many blows to his head, andhe was hallucinating? “Tomorrow the guards will get an order to say you’ve been summoned by that bastard upstairs, except he won’t have sent it. Once the guards get you out of the cells and into the passage to upstairs, there’ll be a little bit of a set-to, which will basically end with two dead guards. The ones that bop the guards will take you the back way and out to the horses.”

He was hallucinating. He was a slave. People didn’t kill guards and arrange mounted rescues for him. “And here.” He felt something like a small stick land on his chest. “Chew it. Tastes like shite but it will make you sleep. Nothing’s gonna happen until tomorrow, and it’ll help if you can at least stand on your own when the time comes.”

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