Page 163 of Vasmora

“What sent you to the prison?” he asked.

Dravien chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t want to say.”

“You laughed, though. Can’t be bad.” Kazhimyr lifted his gaze to the dark clouds overhead. The misty blanket seemed to swallow any sense of direction or time. Like walking through an endless nightmare with no possibility of waking any time soon.

“It’s bad. Humiliating, really.”

“Who am I going to tell out here? The dragons? The sand? The cluster of villagers standing around staring at us?”

Dravien flashed him a grin over his shoulder and Kazhimyr’s skin prickled. An observation that left him frowning. “Very well. Stealing,” he said, his steps as sluggish as Kazhimyr’s.

“That’s it? I was sent there for thievery, too. What’s so humiliating about it?”

“What’d you try to steal?”

“Funny that,” Kazhimyr said with an exasperated sigh. “Remember the elixir King Jeret consumed? The one that made him suddenly immune?”

Dravien glanced over his shoulder, brows pulled tight. “You’re jesting.”

“I’m not. It was Melantha who hired me.”

“Melantha?” He spoke the name like a curse he’d rather not say aloud. “Huh.”

“What about you?”

He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous.”

“So was the mortucrux, if you think about it.” It often pained Kazhimyr to ponder the years he’d wasted in that godless prison, knowing damned well he’d never have gotten his hands on that vial. That he had been so desperate for coin, he’d taken on the impossible. “Don’t know why I imagined I’d get past King Jeret’s entourage of guards. Cocky, that’s what I was.”

“Well, it’s funny you mention that.”

“You tried to steal a cock?”

Dravien let out a clipped laugh and sighed. “I was courting this girl at the time. A beauty. Thick blonde hair. Gorgeous brown skin. Absolutely luminous. And I wanted to impress her, but I could barely afford to keep myself fed. At the time, I was working as a deckhand for a fairly renowned shipping magnate, Lord Van Helm.” The name held a vague familiarity, though Kazhimyr couldn’t entirely pinpoint why. “My job was scrubbing and cleaning the ship. So, one day, I’m in Van Helm’s private chambers, performing my usual duties, when I noticed something tucked under his pillow.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Godsteeth, I should’ve left it. One of those moments that, if I could’ve reversed time, I would’ve. Like a fool, I pulled it out, and it was this long golden phallus.” He held out his hands, demonstrating the length of it. “I was young at the time, so I had no idea what the hell it was. Only that it was gold. Pure gold. Probably worth a fortune. Enough that I would never have had to return as a deckhand, if I were to run off with it. So, I stuffed it in my bag, and I hurried to exit his room. Get stopped by the boatswain who apparently saw me take it.”

“You stole a literal cock, then?” Kazhimyr laughed, the hollow in his stomach churning an ache.

“I did. Was gonna sell it, buy her something nice. Maybe even ask her to marry me. But Lord Van Helm was so humiliated by the discovery that he ensured I was sent to General Loyce directly.” A long pause followed. “I learned quickly what those were used for.”

Though he’d muttered those last words under his breath, Kazhimyr caught them, and he ground his jaw as Dravien’s story reminded him of the way the guards would torment Ravezio. How they could be sadistic and cruel for their own amusement.

He pushed those thoughts away for fear they might tear into him when he hadn’t entirely reconciled his friend’s death. “You survived, and she didn’t. That’s all that matters, right?” Kazhimyr scanned to their left, catching sight of what looked to be branches piled just over the hill. “Hey, what’s that?” His feet carried him toward it before his mind could discern what he was looking at.

“Wait!” Dravien called out from behind, but he was already halfway there, desperate to know what it was. “It’s a nest!”

Not even that deterred him. A dragon’s nest might have had carcasses. Meat. He hurried toward it, sand kicking up around his feet as he upped his pace to a run, only stopping when he arrived at its base. Staring up the height of the nest, he estimated the size of it to be bigger than Maevyth’s Corvugon. “You said there weren’t any dragons this far out.”

“Looks abandoned.” Dravien hooked his fingers on the branches, pulled himself up, and peered over the lip. “Eggs left behind. Gods be damned,” he said, waving his hand in front of his nose. “Must’ve been abandoned for a while.”

Kazhimyr climbed up the wall of woven branches and swung his leg over, jumping into the nest. A brown fluid oozed out of one of the gray, scaled eggs. The other appeared to be intact, though. The scent should’ve deterred him, but that sharp, metallic taste flooded his mouth again, and blackness filtered in from the fringes as he stepped closer.

“Are you mad?” Dravien yanked at his shoulder, snapping the Letalisz out of a foggy haze. “Dragon meat would be a horrible way to die, my friend.”

Kazhimyr shook his head, the Elvyniran’s words breaking through whatever had compelled him moments ago.

It was true. The venom in dragon meat was known to be so potent, it would essentially burn organs. What in Nethyria had made him think he could consume such a thing?

Movement caught his attention, a spider scampering toward the egg, and Kazhimyr lurched for it.