Page 86 of Fear the Flames
“How do I unlock the chains on my dragons?”
He doesn’t wait for me to apply pressure on his hand before answering, “You can’t open them with a key.” His lips turn upward. “You need an object that you’ll never find.” He makes the mistake of glancing toward my neck. I know an object related to the dragons that goes around there.
“The amulet,” I state. Disbelief blankets his face before he tries, and fails, to mask it. The priestess said it was essential, in more ways than one apparently. “Pain makes you stupid.”
“Age has made you stupid,” he spits.
“Indulge me in your reasons, oh wise-one.” I brush a hand through the air, encouraging him to proceed.
“Only a fool would go against your father. You’ll die in this war.”
“A death with a blade in my hand is far more enticing than a death in chains.” My eyes flick down to the shackles on his wrists, and my lips rise in a bloody smirk.
“You were born into chains for a reason, and you’ll return to chains when you fail. He tried to save you from making the stupid decision of going against him,” Robick snarls.
“Saving me?” I raise my brows. “So that’s what he was doing; forgive me for not recognizing his generosity sooner. Is that what he was doing when he forbade you from taking the torture down a different route that you wanted? I thought that was because his outdated brain still believed in the concept of preserving my virtue.”
The only thing that stood between me and being sexually abused was my father’s belief in the old ways. He believed that even though I was his prisoner, I was still his princess. If they managed to break the dragon link without killing me, I needed to be a virgin for my husband. It wasn’t because he had some semblance of a heart when it came to the torture of his child. I was seven when Robick asked this of my father.
Cayden’s sword clatters on the ground, and his footsteps rush forward. He slips between Robick and me and lands a punch so severe that the chains strain against the bolts that fasten them to the ceiling. “You sick bastard!” he shouts, wrapping a hand around Robick’s throat and continuing his fierce punches. Robick thrashes against Cayden’s hold but can’t escape his iron grip. Just when I think Cayden is about to snap Robick’s neck, Ryder is there, pulling him back.
“Not yet,” he hisses at Cayden, trying and failing to restrain him. He manages to get Cayden’s hands off Robick, but Cayden is about to lunge for him again.
“Not yet,” I echo Ryder’s words, and Cayden looks over at me. His eyes blaze with a rage I have never seen in them. Those eyes would make someone end themselves before he ever got hold of them. He hesitates but nods. Ryder releases him from his hold when he knows Cayden won’t pounce again.
“I may have been born in chains, but make no mistake when I tell you that you will die in them,” I state, turning back to Robick. He’s gasping for air like a fish out of water. “I want to thank you for a lesson you taught me.”
As I got older and realized what it was like to feel hatred in the place of desperation, I stopped begging for myself. Whenever he beat me, I only ever begged him to stop when he brought my dragons into it. I never begged for myself. I begged for them. He told me he would torture them just as he tortured me. My child-brain didn’t register the fact that it would have been impossible for him to hurt them as he hurt me. The dragons would have killed him. The only thing I could think of was how badly I failed to protect them and that I’d do anything, even beg, to save them. I was beaten to the point I couldn’t form sentences. But even when I couldn’t form sentences, I could still feel my dragons.
“You taught me that desperation to save someone is the greatest leverage.” I walk around his body and direct my next statement to Cayden and Ryder, “Did you know the king’s guards all have a series of numbers sewn into the inner collars of their shirts?” A confused expression crosses Ryder’s face, and he looks to Cayden, but Cayden doesn’t tear his rage-filled eyes away from Robick. It looks like he’s not even registering what I’m saying. He’s a predator waiting to jump on his prey.
Robick strains against his chains, splashing more blood onto my face in the process, but he can’t escape the bloody knife I bring to the collar of his shirt. I drag the tip of my knife along his skin as I cut the piece of fabric that has the numbers on it, flipping it over in my hand. I’m careful to keep the fabric as blood free as possible and hold the silver thread up to the light. It’s used in case one of them dies on the road or on a mission, their body can be identified by anyone in the Imirath army, and their family will be contacted.
“Leave my family out of this,” he chokes out.
“You didn’t leave my dragons out of it,” I argue, walking between Cayden and Ryder again.
“I can tell you things about the dragons, please!” I smirk at his words.
He’s desperate.
He’sbegging.
“We actually know quite a bit. So if you’re intending on leaving your family out of this, then you better give us something good.” We don’t know as much as we can, but he’ll offer me more if he’s trying to find some new kind of information to tell me.
“Do you know what room they’re kept in?” he asks.
“You will speak to me in statements, not questions,” I declare.
“They’re kept in the East Tower,” he says in a quivering tone. He’s giving basic information; I need something better.
“Perhaps your family would like to know how you stripped an eight-year-old bare before you hit her with a cane.” I wave the piece of his shirt in the air to express my growing impatience. Ryder sucks in a breath and Cayden takes a step forward before catching himself and staying by my side. Shame bubbles in my throat when I say it out loud, but I need information more than I need pride. “Perhaps I’d like to lock them up.”
“There are runes on the door!” he shouts.
“Tell us something we don’t know, or I’ll be happy to cut this meeting short,” Ryder growls.
“The runes can be deactivated by the key to the door; the alarms won’t sound if you have the key!”
