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As they walked on, Nesta said, “When we stop again … can you show me how that contraption works?”
“The phone?” The word couldn’t be translated into their language, and it sounded outright silly in their accent.
But Nesta nodded, her eyes fixed on the tunnel ahead. “Trying to figure out what it does has been driving us all crazy.”
* * *
Tharion cornered the dragon in the pit’s bathroom. He could barely stand on his left leg thanks to a gash he’d taken in his thigh from the claws of the jaguar shifter he’d faced as the lunchtime entertainment. No prime time for him tonight, though—not with Ithan in the pit.
“Do not fucking kill Holstrom,” he warned Ariadne.
She tilted her head back, eyes flashing as they met his. “Oh? Who said I’m facing him?”
Tharion and the others had spent most of the last twenty-four hours debating who the Viper Queen would select to face Ithan. And now, with less than an hour left until the fight and no opponent announced … “Who else would the Vipe unleash on him? You’re the only one here who’s stronger. The only one worth a fight.”
“So flattering.”
“Don’t kill him,” Tharion snarled.
She batted her eyelashes. “Or what?”
Tharion clenched his teeth. “He’s a good male, and a valuable one to a lot of people, and if you kill him, you’ll be playing into the Vipe’s hands. Make the fight fast, and make it as painless as you can.”
Ari let out a cool laugh that belied the blazing heat in her eyes. “You don’t give me orders.”
“No, I don’t,” Tharion said. “But I’m giving you advice. You kill Ithan, you hurt him beyond repair, and you will have more enemies than you know what to do with. Starting with Tristan Flynn—who might seem like an irreverent idiot, but is fully capable of ripping you apart with his bare hands—and ending with me.”
Ariadne let out a snort and tried to stride around him. Tharion gripped her by the arm, the claws at the tips of his fingers digging into her soft flesh. “I mean it.”
“And what about me?” she sneered.
“What about you?”
“Are you warning Ithan Holstrom not to harm me?”
He blinked. “You’re a dragon.”
Another one of those humorless laughs. “I have a job to do. I swore oaths, too.”
“Always looking out for number one.”
She tried to pry her arm free, but he dug his fingers in further. She hissed, “I’m not a part of your little cabal, and I don’t want to be. I don’t give a shit about you, or whatever you’re trying to pull against the Asteri. It’s clearly going to get you all killed.”
“Then what do you want, Ari? A life of this?”
Her skin heated, searing his palm, and he had no choice but to release her. She stalked toward the hall door that led to the eerily quiet pit. As the Viper Queen had promised, only she would watch.
Ariadne opened the door, but tossed over a shoulder, “Do you like your wolf cooked with barbecue sauce or gravy?”
* * *
“So a phone,” Nesta said, overpronouncing the word as they crossed yet another small stream, hopping from stone to stone, “can take these photographs that capture a moment in time, but not the people in it?”
“Phones have cameras,” Bryce answered, “and the camera is the thing that … yeah. It’s like an instant drawing of the moment.” Gods, so many words and terms from her own language to explain. She forged ahead. “But with all the details rendered perfectly. And don’t ask me more than that, because I seriously have no idea how it actually works.”
Nesta chuckled as she landed gracefully on the opposite bank. Azriel strode ahead into the dark, the carvings around him lit by Bryce’s star: more war, more death, more suffering … this time on a larger scale, entire cities burning, people screaming in pain, devastation and grief on a whole new level. No paradise to counter the suffering. Just death.
Nesta paused on the stream bank to wait for Bryce to finish crossing. “And it also holds music. Like a Symphonia?”
