Caged Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  Nynn remained wary. “But wouldn’t it have been an Indranan who blocked me in the first place?”

  Ulia scowled. Leto still cringed at the old woman’s free use of such telling expressions. She was too vivacious to be trusted.

  “Could’ve been a Northerner. Who knows what those maniacs believe? Maybe they believe we Dragon Kings don’t deserve to be set apart. But we do. Without our powers, we’re no better than humans.”

  The tightness of Nynn’s jaw spoke loud and clear. She was offended.

  The old woman climbed the steps and settled awkwardly onto the padded floor of the practice Cage. She wrapped a shawl more tightly around her shoulders and spread the fringe along her thin, wiry thighs. “We’ll find a way to undo this damage. Join me.”

  Leto was surprised at how quickly Nynn obeyed, even though she walked with a shuffling limp. Her mouth was pursed. Her hands danced restlessly along her hips. A hard frown creased the skin between her pale, angular brows. But she seemed to have renewed the sense of purpose.

  He didn’t want to think well of the beating she’d suffered. That he shouldn’t have protested. He shouldn’t have fought. Perhaps the doctor had been right in going to such an extreme. Aster had pushed her to the edge of desperation. She would be a different woman after this.

  Leto was surprised at his slight shudder. If he shouldn’t have protested and if he shouldn’t have fought back, then why had watching her suffer hurt worse than the metal that bit into his wrists and the napalm still sizzling under his skin?

  It made no sense.

  What made sense was that Nynn sat cross-legged in front of Ulia. His neophyte was behaving with more clarity than he was. Time for that to end.

  He entered the Cage and backed against its wires. At least Ulia would be more gentle with her charge than how Leto had been treated. He told himself his only concern was making sure Nynn came through the process with as many resources at her disposal as possible.

  But then he met Nynn’s eyes.

  She was as brave at that moment as he’d ever seen her. A pulse of light shone between them, but he could see through it. See her. What wasn’t possible was possible. At that moment, he didn’t want to distinguish between the two.

  Ulia chuckled softly. “So much distance, champion. The light between your gazes says you need to be with this woman.”

  Shared light? It was a rumor. An old, old tale. That certain Dragon Kings had the ability to generate shared powers—separate from their individual gifts. It was as unknown to him as life outside of the complex. He could believe on faith or trust his senses. This required some of both. Not his greatest skill.

  He inhaled very, very slowly as he looked away. In doing so, the golden glow dissipated. The training arena looked drab and hazy in its absence.

  The old woman motioned for him to join them on the floor. “Come. You’re a part of this.”

  “The ceremonies are private.”

  “But she is to be your partner, in more ways than you see. Trust begins now.”

  Again, the word partner rang behind his sternum with more force than it warranted. Yes, Nynn would be his partner in the Cages. He was resigned to that. Ulia, however, suggested a deeper meaning. Her eyes, clouded to the color of dull copper, seemed to hold no malevolence. A by-product of her blindness? Or honest truth?

  He forced his unease to abate.

  Nynn remained still, even determined, but she was not calm. Tendons stood out from her nape. That shimmering blond silk drew him. The softness. The way it framed her golden features. The memory of its luxurious length—long gone. Her hair was one of the only things he’d ever admired that held no purpose.

  Lost now.

  He straightened. Walked. Looked down at the pair. “What do I do?”

  “Sit with her.”

  Rarely did he let another Dragon King direct his actions, but this was quickly becoming very important. A heaviness of purpose, even destiny, hung above their heads. It lowered inch by inch with each passing second. Soon it would touch his shoulders and claw inside until it was reality. He’d resigned himself to such changes before. Easier than thinking about them. Simpler than resisting them.

  “No, no.” Ulia waved her hands, dislodging her shawl. “Together. Behind her. Hold her.”

  Nynn flinched. “Wait, what?”

  “Believe me, child. You will need a link. He is your link to this world, is he not?”

  For a long moment, Nynn stared at the Cage floor. The muscles above her collarbones tensed. She nodded once, but her voice was tissue thin when she asked, “Can we just get this over with?”

  Kneeling behind Nynn, Leto splayed his legs on either side of hers, in a pose that mimicked how he’d held her after her climb down from the whipping post. She smelled of sweat and blood. There in the Cage, his senses were free to search for more elemental shades of her perfume. The primal bitterness of fear. Salt from her tears. Damp mold from the age-old whipping post. And even him—he smelled his own scent layered over her skin.

  Then more and more. Details upon details. He could hear when her heart slowed and sped. See individual hairs prickle to life on her bare left shoulder. Feel the heat of her body with each cell of his. His senses bathed in her.

  With his chest gently shielding her injured back, he crossed his arms around her stomach. She tensed, then forced an exhale. Their hands twined. He rested his forehead against her nape, just below where a slight trickle of her blood had crusted.

  “Good,” Ulia said. “We’ll begin. Leto, keep this woman safe.”

  He did not look at the crone. He was too busy absorbing the cadence of Nynn’s breaths. Until they . . . aligned. He’d never felt anything like it, while four words echoed endlessly in his mind.

  Keep this woman safe.

  SIXTEEN

  Nynn could not remain stiff. The woman Ulia’s voice intoned sounds like bell chimes, urging Nynn to sink deeper into a recessive state. With her last conscious thoughts, she clutched tighter to Leto’s hands. So intimate once again. Wrapped together. Arms over arms. Legs twined with legs. They sat like lovers offering respite after an arduous task—in their case, surviving Dr. Aster.

  They weren’t lovers, but that comforting pose was not entirely unwelcome.

  Part of her still rebelled at the idea of including Leto in this ceremony. What if some part of her slipped free? What if Ulia opened his mind, too, and let him see all her secrets? He’d see how much she’d come to rely on him, even desire him. She shivered. He gripped her fingers more tightly.

  His presence couldn’t be helped. There was danger in this operation. Ulia could lose her grip on Nynn’s consciousness and leave her somewhere dark and adrift forever. Perhaps a physical anchor—Leto’s body-to-body strength—could help lead her home.

  They both faced Ulia. Their skin touched. He burned and she burned. His heavy muscle pinned hers. Pinned, but embraced. Large, strong hands seemed to be everywhere. Or was that her mind slipping? She only sighed when he found more skin to hold. Fingertips, throat, cheek.

  The room was dark. Ulia became a bronzed glow between Nynn’s temples. The woman’s lined face, stooped back, and prosthetic leg never materialized. Only the color that matched her faded copper eyes. Nynn blinked against the disorientation.

  Leto was there, too. She couldn’t see him. No other senses found him either—smell, touch, sound. Even taste. She wanted more of his taste.

  That shock made her struggle past the anesthetizing hold Ulia had over her mind. But again, Leto held her stable. Some element of him, beyond senses. Outside of the darkness, he held their bodies together on the floor of the practice Cage. Held her. Held . . .

  What sadness do you bear?

  Nynn flinched. The bronze glow was sharper now. The living entity of Ulia without taking her shape or form. “My husband was murdered. A Dragon King stood by while the Asters’ men ripped us from our home. Caleb was already dead in the kitchen. My son is being tortured. I’m here alone. My family is gone.
”

  Even in her mind, she cried. The grief was more raw there. No inhibitions. No physical limit to how loud she could scream or how deeply sobs could rock her body. No one to hear her, look at her, punish her for what could not be contained. Dr. Aster had used a scalpel. And he’d handed Hellix a whip.

  What do you fear?

  Nynn flung hideous images toward the glow that centered just behind her forehead. Worst-case scenarios. All of the nightmares she’d had time to conjure for more than a year. Jack . . . oh, Dragon be. Jack in pieces. How he’d cry for her. He’d think she had abandoned him. He would die alone and so would she.

  What else do you fear? There is more. Deeper.

  An ancient memory surfaced. Nynn gasped. Struggled. Had she been outside her mind, she would have vomited. Only, in that place, she was the silently screaming witness to an old, old crime. A crime she’d committed.

  She’d used her powers. Only thirteen years old. A house demolished. A woman dead.

  Some things are too dangerous to set free.

  Among the Tigony, she had been suspect because of her mother’s indiscretion with Nynn’s Pendray father. Barely trusted. That explosion had marked the end of even that scant trust. Where had her mother gone then? Gone . . . gone . . .

  No . . . dead.

  Nynn thrashed against the pain stabbing through her mind, lashing, like that whip across her back. They’d stripped her gift and made her fear it. Made her think it had never even existed. Most had cast her out in all but deed.

  Then let go.

  “Let go? I have nothing left! Why am I here, if not for my son?”

  You are here because you have no choice.

  Certainty began to seep deeper and deeper. It slid like molten rock through her veins, arteries, and every pinched little capillary.

  “No choice?”

  No choice. Let go.

  “My son!”

  Will be returned to you in one year. Remember?

  “One year.” She was slipping. Even Leto’s ethereal presence had faded, as distant now as a man waving across a vast chasm. “I must fight.”

  With your powers, Dragon King. Harness it. No distractions. Join Leto in victory. You are Nynn of the Asters.

  That name didn’t sound right. She was spinning and falling without moving. Only the most important thought refused to be submerged. “I will have my son back.”

  The promise will be kept.

  “And I will burn down this hellhole.”

  Of course not. This is your home now.

  Was it? Nynn was sure she’d hated this place. The gentle lulling of her thoughts, however, set aside images of such violence.

  The dull bronze light faded. In its place, a rush of stinging energy burst to life. She shrieked. It surged through her limbs, shot out her fingers and toes. Even the ends of her hair lit and lifted. She ran through her thoughts, hearing bittersweet memories that gouged her heart into crimson strips.

  Memories. Deep memories.

  The first time . . . she’d exploded. And her mother had been put to death.

  Nynn’s gift from the Dragon was a curse. An abomination.

  She grabbed at flashes of remembered light. Caught every strand. Formed electric pulses into potent, controlled beams. From her eyes or from her hands, she was in control. A sense of power unlike any she’d known filled her chest and made her laugh. When was the last time she’d had control? All she knew was that it felt good. Right.

  Devastating.

  She closed her hands, her eyes, and breathed out. Her raw gift was tamed. She coiled it back within her breast. Even among that vacant, formless place, she remembered Leto’s snake tattoo. Now she had a serpent, too. Waiting to strike.

  But a trade, Nynn. Put them away.

  Ulia’s voice was whip-sharp now. An undeniable command.

  At first, the only sound in that infinite space was Nynn’s heartbeat. Others soon joined. Overlaid. And cracked open her heart. She heard her clan’s laughter when a pair of acrobats had performed at a Tigony feast in honor of Mal’s ascension as Honorable Giva. Then fire. Crashing wood. Terrified shrieks.

  She felt her mother’s touch across her cheek. “So beautiful, my child. You will not be ignored.” Then . . . that touch was gone forever.

  Caleb next. Oh, Caleb. His quiet voice never entirely left her thoughts.

  At the bookstore where they’d met. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  At the topmost pod of the London Eye, on their first vacation together. “Will you be my wife?”

  At an outdoor altar in Central Park on a sunny spring afternoon. “I do.”

  Their first kiss as husband and wife. Gasps of passion. Groans. Awed whispers in the night. So many plans.

  And the best. The most perfect. The hardest to hear again. “It’s a boy, Audrey. Our son.”

  After Jack took his first breath on a gusty cry, their nighttime whispers had been for him, about him, centered on keeping their little family happy and whole.

  Her mind was crying again.

  “Hush, now,” she’d whispered while trapped in a cell in Aster’s lab. Jack’s baby-fine hair had smelled of antiseptic and iodine. “Everything will be all right.”

  She’d lied to her boy. Nothing was all right.

  Everything will be all right. The voices . . . That pain is gone now.

  Yes. Gone now. Thankfully gone. The painful weight Nynn had carried for more than a year lifted and lifted. The agony was a bird escaping, flying, disappearing into a blue too bright to follow. It carried away the sharp brambles of her mind.

  The space was empty now, quiet now. What had been there? She’d lost something.

  Just the pain, child. You’ve only lost the pain.

  “What do I do?” she called into the black. “Ulia, help me!”

  You will fight for the glory of the Asters. Keep your promise.

  Relief washed her like a cleansing rain. Her skin was new. Her mind was clear. Her gift was ready to surge. She would wield it as easily now as Leto swung his mace and circled the Cage with unimaginable speed.

  Leto. Holding her.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I promise.”

  Although she could no longer remember what promise she’d made.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Leto stroked back the sweat from Nynn’s brow and temple. Her body raged with a sudden, fierce fever. Unnatural. Overwhelming. She shook uncontrollably no matter how firmly he pulled her against his body. Lithe feminine limbs twitched without warning. Strong. Punches and kicks to the air. More than a few struck him.

  The strangest Cage match of his life.

  The consequences extended beyond winning and losing. He wasn’t accustomed to long games.

  All he could do was tend to the woman he held. He focused on Nynn. The hair he’d cut short was not entirely blond, as he’d assumed in her cell. It was tinged with streaks of copper. A half dozen strands here and there. Thin as filaments. Ethereal as ghosts. Her freckles covered more than her cheeks. Nape, shoulder blades, and forearms—all touched by a faint dusting of beige color. He traced a line of them up her neck. He didn’t know what caused her to shiver at that moment, but he tightened his arms.

  He wanted the cause to have been his touch.

  “Promise, promise, promise . . .”

  Her chant grew stronger as her body began to still. More voice. Less frantic fighting. Leto exhaled against her damp skin. He forced his muscles to release. Slowly. The adrenaline rush of combat, no matter how strange, began to ebb. First his legs, where hers no longer kicked. Their limbs were sticky with sweat. Locked together. Then his arms—softer now, as she eased back. His chest became her wall, although he remained hyperconscious of the damage done to her back.

  A quick-fire fury reignited at the thought of what he’d seen done to her. Hellix. That thick, powerful whip. Nasty smiles and debauched taunts.

  Nynn’s breath shuddered with every ragged inhale and sloppy, off-tempo exhale. Even that
pattern wasn’t normal. Warriors breathed hard and fast after a tough contest, yet always with the rhythm of lungs and heart working together. Her body had no grace. No balance.

  He pressed his mouth against her damp, salty temple. “What do you promise?”

  “Save my son.”

  “One year, Nynn. You will.”

  “Burn it all down . . .”

  Leto frowned on a sharp intake of hot, electric air. He banked his surprise as Ulia was the first to emerge from her trance. The old woman looked toward him with those eerie, dull bronze eyes.

  “Was it a success?”

  That was not worry in his voice. He was only evaluating whether a tool at his disposal would be ready for its time in the Cage.

  Ulia smiled in a way that gave him no assurances. “Of course. Nynn will have full control of her powers now. She may even outshine you, champion.” She cackled softly, as if her pun about Nynn’s powers was intentional.

  Shaking off his frustration, he stretched his aching legs. “What happened in there?”

  “We freed what needed to be freed, and tucked away what needed to be tucked away.”

  More foreboding. Leto hated this. He couldn’t remember a time when his skills and reputation hadn’t been enough to solve a problem. The whole night had been a study in just that. Frustration built under his skin. With the collars deactivated there in the Cage, his gift became a flood of water ready to burst through a dam. He could destroy concrete and wrought iron and steel.

  Nynn coughed. Gasped. Jerked nearly to her knees. Only Leto’s arms kept her from toppling. Watching her wobble because of muscle fatigue after a hard day’s training was one thing. Satisfying. Goals achieved. To see her disoriented and graceless for so many hours was disconcerting. This creature hadn’t returned from a hellish place. Not yet. That it existed in her own mind was not something he could shake away. He’d suffered it as well. Looking too closely would mean admitting the same dark places lurked inside of him—darker than he already knew.

  “Nynn,” he said. “Sit still. Breathe with me.”

  Slowly, with exaggerated care, he showed her the rhythm she needed for respiration. He stroked her bare arm with the same tempo. She nodded in time as well. They were more attuned than Leto had ever been with another being. Rather than push that realization away, he hid it. Kept it for later. A Cage warrior could not afford softness.