Secret Secrets: Chapter 3

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He surged up off the ground, but instead of lashing out at the mirage of his former lover, his left arm collapsed under him and agony seared up through his shoulder and into his chest as his chin struck hard floor. His teeth clacked together in a way that made his eyes vibrate and he was left sprawled on the floor, unable to breathe from the pain. 

Several painful moments passed before Milarose could finally draw a breath. He choked on his own spit, coughing and hacking until his eyes watered. His chest, arm and shoulder were a mass of hot, throbbing pain and he found no relief until he rolled over onto his back. The muscles in his spine and his left hip protested the movement, but it hurt significantly less to lay there on his back and stare up at the ceiling. 

Ceiling? Wasn’t the sky—where was the wheat field? No, a different field, grass plains rushing up at him, crashing into the ground with children in his arms. 

The children! Azrinal needed him, he had to—no…no, Azrinal had left, he’d delivered him to Leonidas at the Mariss Tanglewoods. Milarose had worried Azrinal was too young to go, especially given his difficulties. Sammal had insisted that he let the young dracus go—Sammal! He’d seen her in the field, with the colorful child he’d tried to save. Were they okay? 

Milarose blinked rapidly, blue eyes finally taking in the ceiling. No dirt, no roots, no wood—not a cave or a shack. The material was completely smooth from what he could see in the dim light, except for a few hairline cracks here and there. 

He turned his head to the side, his breath stolen once more by pain as the movement made the wrong muscles tense. His eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched together so hard he feared they may shatter under the force. He waited for the wave of pain to pass before he opened his eyes again, looked up to see smooth concrete walls around him, a chain dangling from the corner of the room with a hook at the end. 

The last wall that he couldn’t see very well was made up of metal bars as thick around as his forearm with half as much space between them. He could see nothing beyond the dull, flickering circle of light a bulb outside the bars cast upon him. 

He moved his hand across the floor and paused when he felt a metal grate under his fingers—a drain in the floor. 

“Are you awake?” 

The voice made him jump and Milarose hissed through gritted teeth. He tried to roll to sit up and find the source of the voice, but the pain was overwhelming and he fell back to the floor, panting. 

“I will take that as a yes,” the voice sighed, sounding unimpressed. “You are one tough son of a bitch, I must give you that.” 

Milarose didn’t even have the energy to roll his eyes, though he thought the statement deserved it. The dizziness and nausea that the pain brought with it kept him from trying to sit up again, and he wasn’t fond of being talked to while prone. 

“Hey,” the voice spoke again. When still he didn’t respond, he heard two snaps in quick succession. He was being snapped at like a dog! “Did they make you deaf too? I am not talking to hear my own voice. I am a healer trying to make sure you aren’t bleeding into your skull.” 

A healer? Why was she—ah. She must have been the one who worked on him before. He could hardly remember more than her voice and that accent, also the fact that she’d had her hand inside of his chest. But from what he did remember, he thought she must also be a prisoner. 

“What is my name?” she asked. 

A jolt passed through Milarose at the question and he looked sharply to the bars, accepting the dizzying pain that made him bare his teeth once more. The shadows cast by the light beyond the bars were too thick to see properly through, but he thought he saw the shadow of a form moving across the hall that separated their cells. 

“What did you just say?” he demanded, voice ragged as if he’d spent the night screaming himself hoarse. 

“Your name, what is your name?” she said as if it should have been obvious. “Do you remember it? Those bastardi made you sleep, you could have a concussion. I told them not to.” 

Milarose struggled to keep his eyes open as he let his head rest back on the cold floor, having to concentrate to take one breath after the next. 

“My name is Milarose,” he croaked. 

He heard the shifting of chains and glanced toward the bars again. He saw a slender, pale muzzle poke through the bars, long fangs and a familiar-shaped nose lit by the lightbulb only enough for him to just make it out. Her whiskers wrapped around the bars, and he watched as her nostrils twitched as she sniffed. 

“I do not smell infection, so I suppose we can count you lucky for that, given the conditions they keep us in,” she muttered before turning away again. More chains scraped across the floor of her cell and Milarose thought himself lucky that he hadn’t also been chained—not yet anyway. 

A spasm wracked his neck and shoulder and he gasped, holding his breath until it passed. 

“My name is Esperanza,” the female drakiri said. “Daughter of…well you wouldn’t know him, he isn’t from here.” 

“I don’t need your family history,” he snapped. Or at least he tried to snap, there was little venom behind the words in his exhaustion. 

“I will take the lack of painkillers as your apology,” Esperanza said dryly. “The scales on your shoulder were cracked beyond repair, one of them was clinging on by a thread and the other was half separated from the flesh beneath. I had to remove all three. The ones on your chest did not suffer as badly but they will scar and be forever weakened.” 

Removed? Milarose looked down to see the bandage that covered his shoulder and chest, thick sheets of gauze that were held in place by wrappings that stretched around behind his neck and between his front legs. The gauze must have been white at some point, but now it was stained with blood that looked almost black in the darkness. 

He reached across his chest with his right hand, grunting in pain and breathing shallowly as he grabbed the bandage by the corner and pulled. His head fell back and it was all he could do to keep his grip on the bandage as the weight of his arm falling back to the floor pulled the bandage away from the wound. 

He couldn’t move his head enough to look at the wound but he could smell blood and meat, a combination that made his stomach churn knowing it came from his own body and not some prey animal he’d just killed. 

“Will they grow back?” he asked weakly. 

“If they do they will be weak and soft,” Esperanza replied. “Though I doubt that will matter for long.” 

“Why?” Milarose asked suspiciously. 

“These people take scales as often as they can,” she stated matter-of-factly, as if she were listing off ingredients she needed to buy at the store for dinner that night rather than describing a drakiri rights violation. “They have magic to heal wounds and restore what was taken, but it takes time and a skilled caster to perform. They have to know what they’re doing or it won’t work.” 

Listening to her exhausted Milarose further, and he already had such little energy to work with…if he just fell asleep, would it matter?

“You are lucky though,” Esperanza said, cutting through the weary fog that tried to settle over Milarose’s mind.

“How’s that?” he asked bitterly. 

“Other drakiri Boadicea has brought in have been missing limbs and entire sections of their bodies,” Esperanza said, her voice more distant as she must have moved farther back into her cell. He heard her lay down before she continued, “She brought a nightmare in once and he looked to have been half-eaten. Even magic could not fix that damage. You are lucky they have started sending her out with a partner to keep her in check.” 

“So I should thank the cannibal for not eating me?” Milarose muttered as his eyes closed once more. 

“She would probably try to eat you on principle if you tried,” Esperanza said. “Rest now. I will wake you if anything happens.”

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