Page 93 of Exquisite Monster
I don’t recall asking, and yet here I am.
Shifting, I donned pants just as Gleym appeared, staff in hand, glaring at me with burning violet eyes. “And to what do I owe thishonor?” Her words dripped sarcasm.
“You’re smarter than that, Gleym.”
She snorted but turned on her heel, going back inside through the arch and further through another one. I followed her, taking in the rooms that had clearly been carved from pure rock.
“I see your mate found you.”
“She did.” I paused. As horrified as I was by the dark and the damp, this dragon was still the only reason Lena was alive. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
The old dragon sat heavily in front of what looked like a meal I’d interrupted. “Don’t thank me yet. They tried to kill her once. They’ll do it again.”
“Then help me.”
Gleym watched me and sipped a drink I could smell from here. It was strong. I didn’t blame her. If I had spent centuries in this place I would drink too.
“I already told your mate I can’t help you. I cannot undo that binding. Not the way they made it.”
I blinked. Lena had told us she had asked Gleym to lift the command against us resisting our captors. Shehadn’tmentioned asking Gleym to lift my punishment. But if the dragon in front of me told Lena no, I understood she was trying to spare me pain.
It was the last line that drew my attention. “The way they made it?”
A sharp look crossed her features. “So you didn’t know. I wondered.”
“Didn’t knowwhat?”
Gleym shrugged and lifted a hand, calling the pitcher of whatever she was drinking from across the room. Like Lena had mentioned, her power ruled over the relationship between things. Any dragon could do small magic like levitating an object from across the room. But seeing that, I knew Gleym could do it from much farther. Especially this close to asheyten. “When they bound your power, they bound that command to their own life force. One of the six has to lift it, or they all have to die.”
Dread seeped through me, but I didn’t let it show. All this time I thought they’d kept the punishment in place because they were still angry or because of their strange, misplaced hatred of humans and my actions. I hadn’t realized they never evenintendedto lift it.
“Fuck,” I muttered, stepping back to lean against the wall.
“That about sums it up, yes.” Gleym lit something that smelled like Idroal’s pipe, and I couldn’t help but smile. “For what it’s worth, I would lift it if I could. Stars, I would have lifted it the second they forced it on you had I been able.” She rolled her eyes at the look I gave her. “You think I didn’t know what happened when you bound that barrier to mysheyten? They clipped my wings, not my power.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to lift it when I came here,” I said quietly. “But I guess… I guess I had still hoped.”
It hurt more than I wanted to admit. I wastiredof living in a bodythat didn’t feel right. Or trying to use my power just to feel its limits curl around me like a vice and dig into me like the Elders’ claws.
Gleym said nothing, smoking and taking a bite of her meal. Restlessness writhed beneath my skin. This place felt wrong in a way I couldn’t put my finger on. If Andaros had kept us down here, he might have been proven right about us going mad. It was different from merely being underground. It was like beingentombed. “May I see?”
She gestured to arches that led further inward. “Her scent still lingers. Feel free.”
Lena’s scent did still hang in the air, helped by all the moisture. The first trail led me to the room containing thesheyten. Where she’d admitted to sitting and hoping it would project our bond further than it was capable of.
Reaching out a hand, I called my power and felt the strain. But I didn’t care. The imprint of my hand sank into the metallic stone. It was the only way thesheytencould be altered. With pure power. Tools didn’t mark it. It could be broken with enough force, or shaped with extreme heat and power. Nothing else.
My handprint stared back at me, and something eased. That I had made a mark on the place that had caused Lena so much pain. And mine.
Thissheytenwas what my barrier was bound to, supported by the others around Viria. If I hadn’t?—
If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have Lena. All of humanity would have been slaughtered. Were centuries of rage and frustration worth it?
Yes.
No question about that. But it didn’t make the experience of those years easier. It was harder to turn away from that room than I had thought.
I found an open space that must have been where Gleym trained her. Her workshop, with a book still open to a recipe. Finally, I found where she’d slept. Her scent was strongest here.
