Chapter thirty - two - Prove it

I swallow the persistent retching as the foul stench of death and mold from the cellar-like dungeons washes over me with each step. In some way, I knew the queen would take me here, I had a hunch as she'd not spoken a word, and I'd trailed behind her the deeper we went underground.

Fire torches stuck to the walls illuminate the narrow paths, and prisoners hiss out their insults at us. Though the queen ignores it, and I remain my best not to hurl all the breakfast I'd had at the rise of dawn.

"Why are we here?" I ask. My one thought is that if she is taking me down here, then I might never come out again. This could well be my next home, a well-deserved one.

The queen doesn't answer me. Her steps never loosen, and instead, she says, "Naralía, do you know why we hold trials for trainees?"

"I've always assumed it's to see who is capable of becoming a Venator warrior."

Her slight laugh reflects off the bricked walls. "And to test one's loyalties."

I give a slow nod despite her not looking at me and the tightness in my chest constricting every breath. What loyalties have I shown since I arrived in the city? None, I'd failed even before the trials.

Shuddering out a breath, I scan the paths leading towards other cells. Some even go further underground that I frown as we pass it. And when we turn a different direction, my eyes spot tattoos, two of them on each hand—belonging to a man crouching on the ground. It's a shifter.

Lifting my head from the chains on his wrists and the ones at his ankles, my gaze meets with his. Haunting and dark eyes follow my movements that I never break my stare from his until I reach the end of his cell and others of skin and bone come into view.

A sickening place to be in and one I'd not thought a shifter would still be alive. Freya hadn't mentioned if shifters were put up for arena fights. Then again, I've only attended one.

"Tell me, Naralía." The queen stops and turns to face me. She places her hand atop an iron lever, and dread digs its way into my chest. "Why is it you want to become a Venator?"

"To honor my father's legacy." That's what it'd always been for me since the moment he perished. Now it's more a lie than anything else.

The queen dips her chin, twilight eyes showing no shine. "And do you feel as though you are doing that?"

No, not at all.

And she can see it too, feel it within her that I'm not honoring my father.

"Why are we here?" I repeat, sharper and with no means of showing any cowardice.

The queen simply smiles, pulling on the lever. "To see where your loyalties still stand. The Golden Thief or me?"

My head turns to the creak of steel gates as they drag up, and there at the end, resting through the dimness, is a dragon rattling in chains. It doesn't even take me a minute to recognize it's the one from my village and the one I'd so desperately wanted to win in the first arena fight I'd attended.

As if she remembers me, the dragon's head lifts. Soft vibrations rumble the cracked grounds, and I crane my neck, gazing at the thick horns just starting to grow on her.

Yet realizing what the queen had said, I return my gaze to her and say, "I have no loyalties to the Golden Thief."

"Prove it," she practically whispers in a taunt as her eyes travel down to my sheath strap and the few daggers I'd placed early this morning.

Hesitant, I look to my left where the dragon cocks her head, a purr emitting from her snout. Knowing what the queen is implying causes my chest to upheave and my throat to close as if being choked. "It's just a fledgling." A painful plea in my words as I turn back to the queen.

Her stare is cold, ruthless, not the one I'd seen when she'd smiled and laughed during the dinner we'd had. "As a Venator, you'd be expected to hunt as far as hatchlings."

A horrid sickness twists in my gut, rising to my mouth that I swallow at the thought.

"Oh, come on, Naralía," The queen huffs out like I'm a child needing guidance. "Is this not the dragon from your village?"

I can just about move my head to indicate any form of a nod.

"Then kill it," she orders.

I step back that my legs quiver, and I'm surprised to be still standing. "I can't." Before I could have, I've killed, even shifters, but this? Everything? It's all changing for me with each rising morning I wake up in Emberwell. "I can't," I repeat.

The queen's hand snatches my wrist, tight enough to bleed as she raises it and grabs the blade from my sheath. Forcing it into my palm, she says in a controlled, calm tone, "Kill it, or you leave me no choice but to set forth a punishment."

My breathing pants out from my nose as I stare at her. Chains rattle in the background, but I don't dare look at the dragon as she snarls—an act I consider protective. "Then punish me," I say through clenched teeth startling the queen.

Silence stills if not for the distant cries from prisoners, yells of them taunting each other. And then the queen releases my wrist. A slow smirk creeps upon her gold-flaked lips. "And what would your brothers think of that? You care deeply for them, no?"

I clutch onto the dagger. My brothers. She's using them against me, knowing how much I love and would do anything for the three. My mouth is incapable of forming any words, and her smile sharpens, likely at the troubled expression I must have on my face.

She walks around me, her gown scraping over the rocks. "So let me ask you again." Stopping behind me, her curls brush past my cheek as she says in that same provoking whisper, "The Golden Thief or me?"

Staring at the blade, I curl my fingers around the handle and then glance up at the dragon. Fetters at her hindlegs and front, but the bonds over her snout prevent any use of power. She's defenseless... young.

When I look over my shoulder at the queen, I want to say no again, to disagree and run from this, but her shrewd observation reminds me of her mention with my brothers.

I'd spoken everything there is to know of them when she'd asked me. Blindly and stupidly.

I can hardly note how my legs start moving on that thought, how high above me the light from the arena filters through iron bars. But the dragon's murmurs deepen as I close in on her, and only shadows from the dungeon shield us.

Once I'd stood in front of her like this, and she'd yielded before me. Now it's the same. Her wings tuck in tight behind, and serpent eyes glisten in a fire as she studies me, my blade, the way it trembles in my grasp.

Maybe she knows, I tell myself, she's not thrashing around or trying to get as far away with the bit of movement the chains offer her. She's just... staring at me. A soft exhale from her nostrils blows tendrils of my hair, and a strong need takes over me as I extend my hand towards the scales on her underbelly, growing and fragile, easy for anyone to stab through—the dragon's head bows as I spread each finger along the leathery touch. Like armor, it shines when she moves, and as my hand travels to where her heart is, I raise my head to gaze into her eyes.

Understanding transmits as if thrumming connection waves through the two of us. It's foreign, indescribable, but above it... powerful?

She knows I repeat this time, not maybe, not wondering, not a possibility for it to be otherwise. And the worst is how her eyes tell me that she accepts it.

"I'm sorry," my whisper is so low that I don't think the dragon can hear me.

I lift the blade, steel blazes under my palm, and she cocks her head to the side, the chain denting into the scales of her skin.

"Forgive me." I register how at this moment, I want to escape, take my brothers, see what else there is in this world.

The dragon thrums soothingly, a sound so many would run from; to me, it's what I imagine peace as.

Curling my other palm over the pommel, I inhale like I'd come up from the water in need of air. I look at her again for one, two, maybe three minutes. The time is endless, but then those glistening eyes, fire, and gold, youthful and peaceful, give me that same understanding as before of what I'm about to do.

And with a nod, I thrust it into her chest, into her heart.

She roars out a cry as I squeeze my eyes shut, strangled gasps surface from my lips, feeling the blade go deeper.

When warm thick liquid pools onto my hands, a sob escapes, and I pull free the dagger from the dragon, dropping it. I keep my eyes closed for everything, for the thumping of the body hitting solid ground, the wind drifting through the dungeons... this prison cave and the dragon soundless with chains no longer creaking.

"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" The queen calls out after what feels like minutes. Her voice is tormenting, and I can envision the smile on her face.

I don't open my eyes not until I slowly begin to twist around. With my head lowered, every single breath heaves from me as if I'd run for so long. "Why didn't you capture the Golden Thief?" Forcing myself not to spare a glance at the dragon, at what I'd done, I focus on the queen.

Her narrowing gaze locks on me in wicked amusement. "I wanted to test something out with him first." With lips slightly parted, she lifts her chin. "And he proved exactly what I'd suspected the second he entered."

Before I can ask what that is, she's already turned to walk out. I stare down at my bloodied hand, the dagger on the ground, and sharp guilt consumes me.

***

I barge back into my room with Freya jumping up from her bed as she clutches her chest. "Solaris," she says out of breath. "Nara what—"

"I need you to cover for me," I say, rushing to my chest of drawers and bending down to open it. The first thing I grab is my old sheath and double-ended blade before flipping the pocket over to find the fairy blood as well as my crescent. Taking it out, I squeeze it in my stained hands and exhale loosely. "I won't be long."

Leaving the dungeons, I'd only had one thing on my mind. I'd kept to myself, distant and dazed, while the queen smiled, letting me know where our trust stood.

"Hold on," Freya says, but I'm already making my way to the door. "Cover for you? Where are you going?"

"The Draggards," Is all I answer with, and just as I pry the door open, Freya rushes over the beds, slamming it back closed.

I look up at her and the unsettled furrow of her brows as she says in a low warning, "Nara—"

"Please?" I beg, my voice sounding weak as the memory of the dragon flashes and the blood, the way those eyes glanced at me like she understood what I was about to do—

"I can't," Freya mutters that for a second, the memory vanishes, and I frown at her, prepared to ask why not when she lets go and says with severeness, "Because I'm coming with you."

I open my mouth, not knowing what I want to say, but she beats me to it. "And you're going to explain everything that's been going on with you lately."