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“I found these in her saddle bags.” Her breath hitches. “I thought you would want to have them.”
She’s holding something out, and it’s so unexpected that I nearly drop Zaina.
A small, folded up note, and a singular rose.
My rose.
Chapter Eleven
Zaina
Afamiliar scent lulls me into consciousness: cedar and something else more comforting than it has a right to be. It clashes starkly with images of dragons and charred flesh still burning behind my eyes until a relief, so potent it is almost suffocating, crashes over me.
A soft pillow rests under my head. Blankets are pulled up over my chest. I force my dry eyes open, and panic seizes hold of me, because I am still in Einar’s bed.
My blurry vision tries to focus on the familiar tall posts at the end of his bed, and the same tiles on the ceiling that I slept under just last night.
So none of it was real.
This sick, churning feeling of betrayal in my gut can still be avoided, if I can only think of another plan.
There is no other plan.
I ignore the insistent voice inside my head as I give in to a rare moment of vulnerability, allowing myself to shift closer to the weight at my side, to soak up the warmth that Einar seems to have coursing through every part of his body and let it thaw my frozen soul.
But when I try to move, a tugging at my wrists won’t let me. That’s when my head snaps up and I blink away the blurry vision. That’s when I finally force myself to admit what the niggling voice in my brain has been trying to tell me.
It wasn’t a dream.
The weight at my side is Khijhana. I hardly allow myself to look at the gently snoring chalyx, because I can’t afford a breakdown right now over my only real friend, the one I abandoned and never expected to see again.
Though I am in Einar’s bed, I am hardly here in the protected capacity I was before. Thick ropes bind my wrists to the headboard, not so tight as to be painful, but secure enough that I am held firmly in place. My ankle is bound as well, though whatever is holding it is far heavier than rope. I don’t even try to move my feet yet because I already suspect what is there, and right now I need silence. Silence and composure.
The last thing I remember is dragonfire and pain. It’s an effort to think through the pounding in my skull, but I strive to relive some of the worst moments of my life.
Damian was choking me. Then the dragon appeared. It was so hot. Damian was on fire. He was screaming in agony and burning alive.
Then I was burning, too.
I take stock of every inch of my skin, feeling a little sore and a tightness in several spots on my arms and back and legs as I move my muscles.
But it’s nothing like the pain I should be feeling...
How long have I been here?
My head pounds, and my temples spasm as I try to remember anything after the dragonfire.
There is nothing, though, except darkness and the smell of burning hair.
Another, more pressing question comes to mind.
How did I get here?
Blind panic drowns out any ounce of pain I may feel.
Did Damian survive? Did he bring me back here to follow through with Madame’s plan? Does she know that I tried to betray her?
My heart gallops within my chest so quickly, I think it may burst. Because if I am alive, my sisters are in danger. And until I know if even part of my plan worked, Einar is in danger as well.
