I push myself up onto my elbows, feeling another sharp throb in my skull. My throat is dry. “Where?—?”
Shadows dance along the walls, elongating the figures standing around the stone slab where I lay.
My heart races.
Human women. Thebrujas.
They are draped in dark robes, their faces adorned with intricate black tattoos that twist and curve like living ink.
One is closer than the others, just near my exposed feet, but they all watch. Some of their eyes are dark as pitch, others unnervingly pale. All of them are fixed on me with unsettling intent.
This is it. This is where I have been trying to reach for weeks. My breath rushes in and out of my lungs.
The woman closest to me switches her position from my ankle, to my face. Her silver-streaked hair falls in full, straight locks over her shoulders, and her face is covered with intricate markings, curling over her cheekbones and down her throat.
She pulls something from her robes, a small vial with a thin, dark liquid, and then removes the small cap with her thumb.
My brows furrow, and she grabs my face. Before I can protest, she jerks on my chin and pours the bitter liquid inside.
I sputter.
“Swallow,”she commands, her voice smooth. “This will be worse if you don’t.”
I do, blinking slowly.
The others hang back, apart from me and the witch. They watch her, and I wonder if she is their leader.
Her expression is unreadable, but there’s a tension in the air, as if they are waiting for something.
“What did you give me?” I ask.
Silence.
If it had been poison, would my Fuegorra have detected it? It should have glowed, right? It does for many other things. It had worked last night, as my inner thighs are much less sore than they had been while flying.
But there is no heat, no rush of blood, no glowing light leaking through the fabric of my shirt.
Another possibility creeps up—that whatever she’d given me could inhibit the gem in my chest. I look for weapons around the room and see none.
“What is your name?” the woman asks.
“Arlet.” My voice cracks, hoarse and weak. "Where is the man I travel with? We brought a dragon as well.”
The woman’s gaze sharpens, and her posture stiffens. “Yourcompanion and steed are being restrained.” Her words are clipped, tight.
“Restrained?” I push myself to sit up fully, ignoring the dizziness that pulls at me. “No. Please. We are not a threat.”
A different woman scoffs, arms crossed over her chest. “Dragons have voracious appetites and your man… He is an elf, and we do not harbor spies.”
Confusion crashes into me like a wave.
“Spies? He’s neither spy nor elf.”
The leader looks away, waving her hand carelessly. “He looks like one ofthem.”
“He is an enduar—a troll. His skin is blue,” I insist.
“Perhaps he is sick.”