Page 90 of A City of Flames

He regards me silently, the spark of curiosity firing up again inside his eyes. “You’re right. You’re not a venator.”

Hearing him say that forces my limbs to lock. It’s the first I’ve had someone else say it aloud. He places his hand out, motioning his head to the vial. The only thing barricading us is the steel bars and the shadow lines it casts onto his face as he moves.

I retract the vial to my chest despite him being unable to reach it from where I’m standing. “First, the answers.”

His lip curls into a half-grin. “Smart move.”

I get straight to the point, knowing I can’t stay down here for long. “What do you know of Sarilyn Orcharian and the Rivernorths?”

His eyes widen, and he blows out a breath. “It’s been so long since someone asked me of the Rivernorths.”

My gaze narrows. “How long?”

“Centuries,” he answers, and seconds of silence pass by. “They were a bloodline that dated to millennia before my time, shifters so powerful everyone believed that they were born of the moon in the Northern rivers of Emberwell.” He swirls a finger over the dusted floor, drawing a circle and lines. “They controlled the oceans, the light, and skies. Zerathion thought them to be invincible. Normal weapons, steel, poison of sorts couldn’t kill them.”

“Yet the queen managed,” I say and notice once he lifts his finger, he’d drawn out the same symbol that was on that pendant. Three rivers and a compass pointing north. This means there aren’t just three dragon types because the Rivernorths were a fourth.

“Sarilyn grew up thinking she was mortal. Back then when Aurum Rivernorth ruled as king, he enslaved humans, used them as servants,” he says. “Witches provided for shifters, bonded with them like no one could, and around that time, sorcerers detested it. They wanted a new leader and to overthrow the Exarees.”

“And so, they ended up fighting wars against the witches. Where does Sarilyn fit into this?”

He lifts his index finger like he’s implying that he’s getting to that. “When she was young, soldiers including me were sent to a village by orders of Aurum to gather mortals. She lived with her parents and a brother, but that day—” Wincing to himself, he glances at the floor and the Rivernorth symbol. “When we were capturing civilians, her family fought back to not have their children taken. It resulted in them and her brother being slaughtered by a shifter in front of Sarilyn.”

My hands curl around my throat as if that were to stop any nausea. Slaughtered in front of her by a shifter. The very beings she despises.

“What happened at that moment,” he continues, but I’m staring at the bars. “Unleashed something within Sarilyn. We all witnessed her magic destroy the village with flames, escaping before we could do anything.”

“A sorceress,” I whisper, and my eyes bounce back to the shifter. “What happened after?”

“We searched among sorcerers for Sarilyn, but when years passed, we presumed she was dead.” He rises to his feet, stretching out his full height. He’s unnaturally tall but I do not show any dread over it. “Until a girl... grown, beautiful and kind came to the castle. She claimed to be a witch, here to help against the upcoming battles as well as with trading. Immediately she caught Aurum’s eye, and months went by without anyone realizing who she truly was.”

She was out for revenge. “How is that possible?”

“When she escaped that day at the village, she found a woman named Sybil, a sorceress like her, who taught her everything. Sarilyn has always been a smart person, but...” He trails off, shaking his head.

“But what?” I step further into the light of the dungeons, my tone coming across agitated.

His eyes cut to mine with cruel amusement. “She was never able to fool Aurum.”

“He knew it was her all along?” I say what has already been implied.

The shifter nods. “She couldn’t kill him, but we know she wanted vengeance either way. The only problem was that she fell for him.” He pauses as soon as he sees my expression fall, and it’s as if my body liquifies. “She fell for the one person she despised the most.”

I shake my head slowly, not able to grasp what the shifter is saying. It spins at the vision of the queen in love with the man she ended up murdering.

“Of course, Aurum, only having loved himself, played her just how she had intended to do. And one day, he led her to where he had captured Sybil without her knowledge. Before she could realize what was happening, he killed Sybil as punishment.” The shifter paces in the little confinement he has, my eyes tracing him and the chains scraping against dust. “He showed Sarilyn how cruel he could be as she fought back with power while he was prepared to end her life too.”

Aurum killed everyone she’d loved, ending what she’d too felt for him along with it. “But she survived it,” I say, knowing where it’s all led her now.

“Even in her weakened state, she did. She fled, and the cold, heartless Sarilyn emerged from then on.”

My eyelids lower solemnly, and I channel the pain she must have felt then, to lose everyone she loved, to be betrayed.

“What no one expected was for her to come back at the time of the war with a crafted weapon that could kill the Rivernorths so easily.”

I snap my head up at him and blanch, only to see his stare so bleak and distant.

“I saw it happen,” he says, voice gruff and low. “On the battlefield, how she gained the upper hand on Aurum with all her wrath and finally plunged that sword through him. I then watched how she proceeded to murder the entire bloodline; children included and shifters, with the help of mortals she’d trained at her disposal.”

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