Page 54 of Spellcast
I blow out an exasperated breath. Clearly, I won’t get anywhere reasoning with him. I will have to figure out how to escape him and find my way out of these mountains. Apparently I’ll have plenty of time to do that as hisguestfor an undefined time.
He glances to the knife I still hold against him. “Are you going to keep that thing pointed at me much longer? It’s been a long day. I’m hungry and would like to eat.” He arches a dark eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you?”
In response, my stomach growls.
I can’t even recall when I last ate, and yet I resist backing down and lowering the knife. Withdrawing the knife feels like a concession, and I don’t want him to think anything about this is acceptable.
He continues. “I’m sure you haven’t eaten in a while. You’ll need your strength for what lies ahead.”
I narrow my gaze on him. Could he read my mind? Does he know I’m already plotting escape?
The others return then, their voices overlapping.
“Tage,” one of them calls out. “We’re hungry.”
He looks at me mildly. “We require frequent feeding.”
Danhy spots me with the knife pointed at him and gives a disgusted huff. “Such disrespect. You haven’t put her on her back yet?”
I bristle.
Tage steps closer, overwhelming me, blocking out the others. “Arden? Are you going to lower that knife?”
I forgot that I gave him my name.
He utters it so softly a tremor runs through me at the sound, at the realization that this is the first time someone has spoken my name in a decade.
I drag in a raw breath, overwhelmed, swept up in that awareness, in the sting of emotion too complex and myriad to identify.
My knees turn weak and wobbly as I drown in his impossible violet eyes.
Impossible eyes. Impossibleman.
Because he isnoman...even if my name in his mouth makes me feelhere,seen, andalive, and the most human I’ve felt in years.
He lifts a hand and touches the tip of the blade with a finger. Using the barest pressure, he lowers it, and I let him, knowing that I could not summon the will to use it on him.
“Food?” he inquires.
I hesitate before nodding my reluctant agreement. “Food.”
23
Wind, Leather, and Loam
They eat well.
I don’t know what I expected—for them to toss a goat’s carcass on the ground, pounce upon it, and call it supper? Instead, we sit at the trestle table in a perfectly civilized fashion, enjoying roasted boar mixed with wild greens and some kind of berries I’ve never tasted. I console myself with the knowledge that they don’t intend to starve me. There’s that at least.
They’re wearing clothes now, and it’s deceptive. They look and behave as humans. It’s hard to reconcile this sight of them with the dragons I know them to be beneath the surface, at their cores. Even if they’re not the ones who butchered my village, they’re still dragons. Still killers.
I’m seated at the end of the table on a stool that was dragged in from another chamber. I feel small and ridiculous on the seat that’s so much smaller than the bulky chairs holding everyone else. They’re already so much bigger than I am that I feel like a child in their midst.
Tage never looks at me. He eats and interacts with the others like I’m not present. I can almost pretend I’m not here as I study him without acknowledgment, no recognition at all.
He sits at the head of the table, the four others flanking him.Danhy and Arvos have no difficulty ignoring me. Viggo, with his bright green gaze, glances in my direction from time to time.
A new dragon arrived just before we sat down to eat, a bountiful line of fish in one of his big hands, revealing how he had spent his day whilst the others flew to Penterra. I wonder if more will make an appearance, or if this is it. Five in total.
