Throne of Dragons by Morgan Rice

Author:Morgan Rice [Rice, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2020-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nerra did her best to settle into life in the refuge. Under Kleos’s watchful eyes, she fit in with groups of others like her, helping to prepare food in the kitchens, and chop wood, and clean the compound. She had never been afraid of work.

The others around her seemed to have come from all over the known world. Several were from spots that meant they spoke no language Nerra understood. More had come on boats from the Northern Kingdom, and when they found out who Nerra was, they looked at her strangely.

She could feel the weight of those gazes as she worked at a well, drawing water. A girl stood beside her, twining strands of wool into cord.

“They’re just wondering how a disease like this can affect a princess,” the girl said. “And how a king would send his daughter to a place like this.”

She was probably Nerra’s age, a little shorter but broader and stronger, with round, almost heart-shaped features. The scale sickness, dragon sickness, Nerra corrected herself, had been particularly cruel with her, not in what it had done, but in what it had left alone. On her left side, this girl was a vision of perfect loveliness, untouched by the marks of the illness. Dark hair fell in waves past her shoulder, while a one-sided smile quirked across her features.

On the other, the black lines of the sickness spread everywhere, leaving only scarred skin on that side of her head, while half of her face was twisted and almost inhuman.

“He didn’t send me,” Nerra said, thinking of all the things that her father had done to try to save her. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to order her death, the way the law, and his nobles, demanded. “I left myself, and then… a dragon brought me here.”

“A dragon?”

Nerra would have expected most people to scoff at that, or to call her a liar, but most people didn’t have the circling forms in the far distance, over the continent.

“I’m Lina,” the girl said.

“Nerra,” Nerra replied, even though it was clear that the girl knew who she was. “How long have you been here?”

“Since I was little,” Lina said. “My parents saw that I had the sickness, and they couldn’t bring themselves to… to kill me, so they brought me here.”

“They brought you here and just left you?” Nerra asked. “They haven’t come back?”

Lina shook her head. “They send money sometimes, to help Kleos maintain this place. They haven’t returned.”

Nerra couldn’t understand how a parent could do that. Her own parents had done everything they could to help her, to protect her. How could someone just send a child… here?

“You’ve been here all your life?” Nerra said. “And you’ll stay here until… until you die?”

It was the kindest way to put it, because what else could Nerra do? Remind Lina that she might transform into a monster, or that Kleos might eventually thrust a knife into her heart?

“Well,” Lina said, with a surprising smile. “Unless I go up to the temple fountain to drink the waters, of course.

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