Leto was the alpha she needed in order to survive. To get her son back. To make the Asters pay.
The guards returned them to Audreys cell and locked them both inside.
Leto leaned against a damp wall and crossed arms that bulged with sculpted muscles. Everything he did led back to the Cages. Be the best. Save his family. But he was incurably brainwashed by the Asters. He was part of the system she was going to burn to the ground. Only when it came to surviving the matches did their goals align.
Are you going to tell me what happened in there?
He lifted his brows a fraction. With Hellix? You were there.
No, in the Cage.
Hard masculine features shifted into an expression of . . . confusion? Disbelief? You really dont remember?
I damn sure remember you kicking the crap out of me.
Audrey dared to approach him, which she wouldnt have hours before. The energy buzzing in her blood was like a venomous toxin, but she didnt feel sick. Only different. More radiant, although that word didnt make sense. People werent radiant . That was the stuff of cosmetics commercials and descriptions of brides in wedding white.
Still. She couldnt deny that shed come away changed. Whether that was good or bad would have to wait.
Within arms length, she touched his blasted armora burnt edge of leather and flame-curled iron. His chest remained concealed, but the pitted metal and singed padding were exposed. The champion had been bested.
She preferred him whole and shielded. Powerful. Useful.
More potent.
But I dont remember this, she said. What did this much damage?
You did.
No way. I told you, my gift never manifested.
Dont make me repeat myself, neophyte. You blew a hole in Dr. Asters lab. Thats how the Old Man found out about you, and thats why youre here.
Flickers of memory pushed through. Fire. Lightning. Pain and rage fused into energy she couldnt control. She wanted to protest, but she was too uncertain to contradict Letos outrageous claim.
Thats how Reed escaped.
How had she forgotten? Shed unleashed
chaos enough for him crawl to freedom. In her previous memories, hed simply . . . gone.
The truth remained stark. Her hopes were no stronger now than when rage had given over to a burst of power she couldnt remember unleashing.
Instead, she was left with a new truth. She had a gift from the Dragon.
Shed become reconciled to her lack. Dragon be, she hadnt lived among her own kind for years. Now she recalled kinship, deep roots, and matched instincts. It should have been a joyful realization. Only, Audrey was ready to vomit. Sick, shadowy fear clenched inside her chest. She sank to the damp floor and leaned against one of the algae-covered walls. Eyes unseeing, she fought to remember just as hard as she fought to forget.
We start again tomorrow, Leto said. Sleep now.
The sound of the clanging gate echoed through the dank space. Audrey barely noticed. She pushed her fingers against her temples. Something was there, lurking in her mindsomething dark and terrifying and ready to erupt.
FIVE
Sath Wisdom sat forward in her chair. Watch your tone.
He whirled his gaze toward the seemingly ageless woman. What did you say?
She pressed her hands flat against the meeting table hewn of wood older than memory. It, like everything else in the Fortress of the Chasm, was storied and inviolatea functional memorial to the creature that had given life to them all. Even their robes were hundreds of years old, sewn from heavy black cloth and accented with each clans color. Copies of copies of copies of those worn by the first Council of the Five Clans, when Sath, Tigony, Pendray, Garnis, and Indranan bridged their divisions to secure an armistice that had kept the Dragon Kings strong for millennia.
Only the Sath knew their peoples entire history. They kept secrets they werent meant to hide, just as they took powers that werent their own.
You heard me, Malnefoley, Sath Wisdom said with narrowed eyes. You wont get anywhere by bullying us into submission.
For the sake of harmony and, more important, as a means of keeping his temper, Mal didnt call her on the obvious slight. His family still called him by his given name. To everyone else, he was the Honorable Givathe only one of the Council to wear robes of endless black. No clan color. Senators relinquished their identities when they assumed their positions, the better to secure nonpartisan consensus. Two came from each clan. The old women were referred to as Wisdom for their sagacity and maternal patience, while the impetuous men were dubbed Youth for their spirit and eagerness to go to war.
Checks and balances, with the Giva as their fulcrum.
Of all the senators, Sath Wisdom was his most formidable opponent. She was a Thief.
No .
She was Sath. That she challenged him at the start of their twice-annual assembly was not a good sign. It was not a Givas place to resort to name-calling, and with what he had planned, the meeting was only going to become more contentious.
Outside their mountaintop Tibetan shelter, a snowstorm raged as if it would wake the Dragon from its forever sleep. Snow swirled against the wall of glass tempered in the deep fires of the Chasm. Unbreakable. Shimmering and golden. Only its unknowable properties kept them safe from the force of a Himalayan blizzard.