The (Not) Satisfied Dragon - Colette Rhodes Page 0,98
the trial begin.”
Chapter 21
I was terrified. Ezra had asked me to trust them, and I did. But at the same time, I thought I might wet myself. Could Nerio tell? I felt like he could tell.
Aside from the crippling panic that I was about to be found out, I was exhausted. The past two nights had been mental torture. Even though I knew logically that I wasn’t in Glendower Castell’s cave prison in his back garden — the Council’s prison was much nicer — my mind had continuously played tricks on me.
In my darkest moments, it felt like the past few months had never happened. Like I’d never been free. Whatever the Council had set up to protect that prison had blocked my mates’ presence from my mind, and I felt the loss of them keenly. The absence of the bond between us had been the most jarring change when the Enforcer had led me to the cavern. It was like someone had sliced off a limb.
“As Seff of Flight Galon recently pointed out, no murder trial would be complete without angel root tincture to ensure whoever on trial is telling the truth.”
Fuck.
//Fuck,// Hiram and Seff repeated in my head.
“Alchemist, would you be so kind?” Nerio asked, with a smirk. I looked around in surprise and sure enough, The Alchemist was waiting on the edge of the floor. The Scribe was next to her and was leaning nervously away despite being twice her height. She’d dressed up for the occasion, wearing a sweeping magenta robe that clashed terribly against her gray skin.
Despite my terror, relief briefly trickled through my system at seeing the Scribe. He still looked a little frail, and his skin was still pallid, but he looked worlds better than when we’d last seen him.
“It’s The Alchemist,” she sniffed, glaring at Nerio as she shuffled onto the floor towards me, rifling through her bag. The glass vials clinked together ominously as she moved and I struggled fruitlessly against the Enforcers holding me.
“Be still, little dragon,” The Alchemist murmured. Her face gave nothing away, but the softness in her tone caught my attention. The Alchemist was almost always snarky. The only time I’d heard her use this gentle tone was when she’d told me about her sister.
Somehow I knew that The Alchemist was asking me to trust her. I wasn’t sure how much trust I had left to dole out, but she hadn’t let me down yet.
I opened my mouth for her to tip the vial of liquid she was holding down my throat. If I had nothing to hide, which is the theory we were running with, then I wouldn’t be afraid of a little truth-telling serum, would I?
Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction as the tasteless liquid hit my tongue. This was no angel root tincture. I distinctly remember the horrible, bitter taste of it when she’d forced it on me back at her apartment. Whatever this was went down smooth and tasted like watery honey. I made a show of scrunching up my face and The Alchemist gave me a discreet, approving look as she backed away.
Some of the aches and pains in my joints from lying on a hard, lumpy bed eased, and the cloud of exhaustion in my brain cleared a little.
By the gods, she’d given me a healing potion. If I got out of this, I was going to find her five goblin mates of her own. She deserved it.
“Shira of Flight Galon,” Nerio began smugly. “Tell the Council about your interactions with Flight Milain.”
That was a very broad question, and I was supposed to be telling the unguarded truth. I could give them enough truth to make them uncomfortable. To show them who the real villains were in this story.
//Don’t freak out,// I whispered in my mates’ minds. I’d been careful in the details I’d shared with them so far. I didn’t like reliving them, and I knew it would upset them to hear about what I’d been through. They couldn’t protect me from the past.
“When I was eight years old, the males of Flight Milain broke into my family’s den at the bottom of Glasdon Mountain in the middle of the night. They murdered my family, including my mother and my two-year-old sister.”
The outrage was deafening, the rage and disbelief pouring from the crowd, palpable. To say nothing of the anger I could physically feel radiating from my mates. I doubted I was saying anything they hadn’t already worked out for themselves.