Chapter Twenty
Perian opened his eyes. They felt gritty, like he’d laid down on a beach and then rubbed his face in the sand—which was a terrible idea, why would he do that? He blinked and tried to make the world come into focus, but it swam alarmingly a few times before it started to resolve itself.
He was… in a dungeon?
He tried to track back through his memories. Cormal. Venoran. The fire. He’d tried to save himself, and he’d had to—
Oh.
Carnalion.
A dungeon.
He wondered if he was lucky he’d woken at all.
He managed to push himself upright, and that was when he realized he was on a pallet that had been mounded with blankets. They fell off when he sat up, and he found that he was wearing a shirt and sleeping trousers, different from what he’d been wearing before. He wasn’t restrained at the moment, and there were bandages aroundhis wrists.
His head still hurt a little, but it was a distant throb, like it had gotten better, or like he’d been given a tonic. Everything still smelled a little smoky, but he was pretty sure he must have been cleaned at least a bit.
And he’d woken because people were fighting.
“How dare you have him thrown in the dungeon!”
His heart leaped. It was Brannal!
“You aren’t thinking straight!”
Cormal. Ugh.
The angry redhead continued, sounding angrier than ever. “You haven’t been thinking straight for months! He’s been using you! You’re lucky I didn’t run him through with my sword!”
“Not if you value your life!” Brannal snarled.
Perian had never heard Brannal sound quite like that before, and his heart did a funny jump in his chest.
“Listen to yourself!” Cormal was yelling. “It’s a carnalion, and it’s seduced you! It’s tricking you, and you’re letting it!”
It. Ouch. Perian wasn’t even a “he” anymore?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Brannal yelled back.
“Oh, don’t even get me started!” Cormal snapped. “You’re being a blind fool, and you’re putting everyone in danger! It’sdangerous, Brannal! It kills people! And you could be next!”
“Perian would never hurt me.”
“What, because you’ve made sure that he has lots of people to feed from? Spreading the danger, letting it get its claws into more of us?” Cormal was really yelling now, like he was genuinely incensed. “Fire and water, we’reMage Warriors, Brannal. You’reSummus. We find carnalions and we kill them toprotect people!”
Perian wasn’t sure that he could forgive him for what he’d done, but he… maybe understood a little bit, when he thought about what carnalions could do.
“I don’t mean any of you any harm,” Perian called, voice a rusty croak.
There was sudden silence, and then Brannal appeared, with Cormal trailing behind him. Brannal’s face was tight with anger and worry.
“Perian! Cormal had you dragged to the dungeon while I was getting the fire under control. This isn’t what I intended.”
Perian blew out a breath, tried to summon a smile. “It’s better than the alternative. Did you find me, then?”
Brannal nodded, eyes shadowed. “The flames had nearly reached you.”
