Golden lines erupted all over Nerissa’s skin, her blood magick sparking out of control. She snatched at Veskor, only managing to grab his leather bag. He let her have it, not fighting.
“Calm, love. Please. For me.” Canavar stroked a finger down her forearm and Nerissa shuddered. Slowly the golden lines sank back into her skin as she regained control. Something fell out of the leather bag, old and tattered.
“What … what is this?” Nerissa asked, voice higher than normal.
Ronan moved forward, scooping it up in his fingers. His bloodmagick sparked once and he blinked, dropping them in shock.
“What is it?” I asked, alarmed.
Veskor’s ears went red.
“Flowers,” Nerissa supplied, voice still filled with wonder, “from my island. Blood Lotuses. I created them with the help of an earthwitch. They help ground wards, but weren’t enough to stabilize ours permanently, I’m afraid.”
Her gaze cut to Veskor.
“I … they were pretty,” he muttered, refusing to look any of us in the eye. “I couldn’t get to your island. These floated to me on the waves.”
A bloodthirsty, kidnapping draken who stole flowers?
The other drakens and witches looked at each other, confused.
“Veskor,” Benedict said, voice carrying across the crowd. “Tell us who you are. All of it. Perhaps then a better judgement could be made.”
My heart swelled as I turned to smile at Benedict, my cheeks hurting. The rogue draken looked at him, then at me, and something shifted: resignation, and weariness. It was not the beginning of trust, by any means, but a foundation of something else.
“I don’t know where I came from,” Veskor said softly. “I only remember the fighting pits.”
A collective gasp from the crowd had Benedict tensing beside me. He took a deep breath, then gestured to Veskor to keep going.
“I don’t know how I got there. To me I’ve always been there. It was west—far west. It took weeks of flying to get anywhere else. The sand there burns your feet, and the sun cooks you alive. Humans ran the pits. They had stories—legends—about dragons. They thought I was one. They said I was broken because I never grew big enough. They were upset when I reached adulthood and wasn’t a real dragon. They punished me for it.”
Anger flared through me: hot, protective, nauseating.
“They made me fight,” Veskor said. “Humans with swords and bows and spears. Then creatures twice my size. Things with tusks. Things with claws. Everything was only about survival. Survive to my next meal. Every hour. Every day.”
Several drakens snarled at that. How familiar the storysounded, too familiar. Human cruelty was always the same, no matter the continent.
“I lived,” he said simply. “So they kept throwing bigger things at me.”
He stared at his hands and claws: scarred, calloused, trembling. “One day … My opponent was a real dragon.”
The clearing froze.
My breath caught.
“It was old and blind, and could barely move. But it was so massive, its golden scales scalding to even touch. But it could still breathe fire, and it grew angry. I saw a chance. I didn’t kill him. I made a plan with a man with dark skin, he had magick. He said there was someone in the crowd who would help us. When the time came, I broke the dragon’s chains. The dragon turned on the humans, storming the crowd and breathing fire everywhere. It was glorious chaos.”
A few drakens hissed in satisfaction.
“I killed my overseer,” Veskor said, eyes distant. “Drove a metal spike through his throat. Then I flew. I didn’t stop. Flew until I collapsed.” He swallowed. “When I woke, buzzards were eating me.”
My stomach flipped in horror.
He shrugged. “So I ate them instead.”
A ripple of uncomfortable agreement went through the crowd.
“I kept flying until I reached the southern islands—Nerissa’s—I don’t know their names, but I smelled my own kind. I watched for weeks. Wanted … badly … to be part of it. Other drakens. I’d never seen other drakens before. I’d thought I was a freak of nature: a disfigured dragon.”
