pallet, drawing her knees against her eyes in a useless attempt to stop her tears.
Dragon's teeth, she cursed into the blackness; she felt so alone.
* * *
They came for her that night. While she slept, beset by fitful dreams full of throbbing drums and aroused flesh, they came for her. Her door burst open and her room filled with large, sweaty men. She had no time even for a scream before a hand smothered her mouth and cold steel pressed against her flesh.
Then she was tied, bagged and carried away, her only protest the soft whimper of a frightened child.
Chapter 5
Natiya's mind was numb with terror.
She sat on a stone floor slimed with filth, thick and oily and fouled with human waste. No air stirred in this blackened dungeon. Sounds came, too: a skittering of vermin that made her skin crawl, the sobs of the wretched and the giggles of the insane tightening her belly against the nausea that roiled inside her. The steady drip of water made her shiver with chill.
And yet, for all that, she did not move, did not think. Indeed, she barely felt at all, so caught was her mind in the grip of dragon terror—remembered, not present. She heard her father's scream just after Dag Racho's Copper wyrm roared through the night sky. The tremors that wracked her body were the echo of soldiers' booted feet as they tore through her home while she crawled away, slinking out her window and then across the yard only to bury herself in the gap underneath their neighbor's porch. And the air she tasted was hot and burnt and filled with the loss of everything she once knew and everyone she loved.
Why do you live in the past?
The egg had been persistent with its questions: Why had soldiers grabbed her from her bed? What did they want? Where was this place, and who were the people trapped in it with her? The questions continued, but they had no power over the memories that locked tighter than any bars around her consciousness.
Why do you live in the past? This question came most often of the egg's repetitions. Why do you live in the past?
She finally found an answer: to prepare for what is to come.
Death and dragon fire?
Yes.
Why would a dragon kill his queen?
Because he is evil. And because I have failed.
The egg stopped speaking after that, clearly trying to understand. It did not, of course. No more than she did.
She knew about death, of course. No one could live in Ragona without knowing soldiers lost in battle, friends who'd disappeared without a trace in the night. How many times had she heard dockworkers talk of petty thieves caught and eaten by the Copper dragon as punishment?
No dragon will kill his queen.
Natiya did not bother to argue. She did not know what would happen to her, how she would die; she only knew what she remembered, and that was terrifying enough. She tried to distract herself. She tried to think of Uncle Rened, but she knew he had left yesterday on another trading journey and would be gone for many months. Talned and Monik would not help her. They were as powerless as she. And the governor...
Naitya sighed. She would not hope for help from him. She did not trust him, nor did she trust the things he did to her. It was because of him that she no longer felt normal inside her own skin, because of him that she had run home like a frightened child to cower in her pallet where the soldiers had found her.
So she sat on the filthy floor, immobilized by terror, until a man with an iron sword and a perpetual scowl unlocked her cage and hauled her out by her arm. She stumbled after him, fighting his grip out of reflex rather than intention. But he was encased in hardened leather, and she naked except for her dirty sleeping tunic. All her struggles gained her nothing but bruises, until she was unceremoniously dumped into another stone room, this one with a scarred black wood table and a soldier behind it staring at a single sheet of paper. A torch burned fitfully in a wall sconce, its flame echoed
Dragon's teeth, she cursed into the blackness; she felt so alone.
* * *
They came for her that night. While she slept, beset by fitful dreams full of throbbing drums and aroused flesh, they came for her. Her door burst open and her room filled with large, sweaty men. She had no time even for a scream before a hand smothered her mouth and cold steel pressed against her flesh.
Then she was tied, bagged and carried away, her only protest the soft whimper of a frightened child.
Chapter 5
Natiya's mind was numb with terror.
She sat on a stone floor slimed with filth, thick and oily and fouled with human waste. No air stirred in this blackened dungeon. Sounds came, too: a skittering of vermin that made her skin crawl, the sobs of the wretched and the giggles of the insane tightening her belly against the nausea that roiled inside her. The steady drip of water made her shiver with chill.
And yet, for all that, she did not move, did not think. Indeed, she barely felt at all, so caught was her mind in the grip of dragon terror—remembered, not present. She heard her father's scream just after Dag Racho's Copper wyrm roared through the night sky. The tremors that wracked her body were the echo of soldiers' booted feet as they tore through her home while she crawled away, slinking out her window and then across the yard only to bury herself in the gap underneath their neighbor's porch. And the air she tasted was hot and burnt and filled with the loss of everything she once knew and everyone she loved.
Why do you live in the past?
The egg had been persistent with its questions: Why had soldiers grabbed her from her bed? What did they want? Where was this place, and who were the people trapped in it with her? The questions continued, but they had no power over the memories that locked tighter than any bars around her consciousness.
Why do you live in the past? This question came most often of the egg's repetitions. Why do you live in the past?
She finally found an answer: to prepare for what is to come.
Death and dragon fire?
Yes.
Why would a dragon kill his queen?
Because he is evil. And because I have failed.
The egg stopped speaking after that, clearly trying to understand. It did not, of course. No more than she did.
She knew about death, of course. No one could live in Ragona without knowing soldiers lost in battle, friends who'd disappeared without a trace in the night. How many times had she heard dockworkers talk of petty thieves caught and eaten by the Copper dragon as punishment?
No dragon will kill his queen.
Natiya did not bother to argue. She did not know what would happen to her, how she would die; she only knew what she remembered, and that was terrifying enough. She tried to distract herself. She tried to think of Uncle Rened, but she knew he had left yesterday on another trading journey and would be gone for many months. Talned and Monik would not help her. They were as powerless as she. And the governor...
Naitya sighed. She would not hope for help from him. She did not trust him, nor did she trust the things he did to her. It was because of him that she no longer felt normal inside her own skin, because of him that she had run home like a frightened child to cower in her pallet where the soldiers had found her.
So she sat on the filthy floor, immobilized by terror, until a man with an iron sword and a perpetual scowl unlocked her cage and hauled her out by her arm. She stumbled after him, fighting his grip out of reflex rather than intention. But he was encased in hardened leather, and she naked except for her dirty sleeping tunic. All her struggles gained her nothing but bruises, until she was unceremoniously dumped into another stone room, this one with a scarred black wood table and a soldier behind it staring at a single sheet of paper. A torch burned fitfully in a wall sconce, its flame echoed
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