Page 153 of The Queens and the Kings
A firmslapto her face brought her out of it.
Cheek tingling, she stared eye-to-eye with a wyvern.
Britt blinked.
Wait.
Had the bastid wyvernhither with his tail? The lance-like pain stinging her cheeks felt like a whip. Her fingers probed the stinging skin. She stared at the ground. This isn’t where she was supposed to be. There were rocks instead of dirt.
How had she gotten here? Moments ago she’d been . . . she twisted around, looking at the wyvern she felt vaguely certain she’d just set free . . . but overthere.
They moved her.
Why?
A jab in her hand brought her awareness down. Her teeth chattered so hard she could barely see.
A key.
Understanding dawned.
She shoved the key into the lock in front of her, twisted. It fit. Tears clouded her eyes. Thank the sea turtles for small miracles. Denerfen rubbed his head into the space below her ears. As she slid the lock free, she realized she could see her feet.
Britt forced herself to crawl, but all went to black. The wyverns must have done the work for her, because she woke up somewhere else. Through her frozen haze, she turned a key, blacked out, and woke up in front of a different beast with Denerfen staring at her. A key dangled from his mouth.
Understanding her job, but lacking the energy, she managed to get the key inside after five attempts. Eventually, it twisted.
“How many?” she rasped.
Denerfen bleated three times.
Britt passed out.
When she came to again, laying in front of another wyvern, the ice had retreated from her lower body to swirl around her chest. Everything was visible below her waist. Soon, it would leech out of her arms, her head. Was that good?
Bad?
She couldn’t remember.
A shout from far away rang through her mind. Denerfen dug his claws into her shoulder, urging her. Half lucid, Britt shoved the key into the lock. Wyverns bellowed. A thunderous stamping of feet shook the ground. The vibrations made it impossible to push the key into the lock. It resisted, rusted from exposure.
Denerfen screamed.
Another shout.
No,manyshouts. Soldiers, were they? Why would soldiers be here? Britt spun the key in the lock, amazed at the weird wayshe began to appear again. Equally shocking was her ability to drudge up the energy to turn the key when she felt so blasted weak.
A wyvern grabbed her with his tail, dragging her by the arm. She bounced over the ground, teeth slamming, while Denerfen flew above her, spitting angry hisses. As the venom evaporated from her blood, the gelid haze of withdrawal began to clear. She understood two things.
One: the situation in the wyvern arena must have escalated, because an unusual number of voices shouted, weapons clanked.
Two: the wyverns werenothappy.
They stamped, shouted, and snorted. A wall of wyverns formed off to the side, but she registered this only dimly as a wyvern yanked her in front of him. She rattled across the ground despite Denerfen’s rampant protests and angry pestering.
Nowondershe felt so awful. They caromed her like a rag doll, forcing her to their purposes. The shadowy prickles in her brain began to fade. Full power over her legs restored, and her arms appeared to be on the mend. Her mental faculties would clear last, with the expiration of her crippling exhaustion.
“They’re going to escape!” someone shouted nearby. “Get those wyverns under control.”
