Page 19 of Season of Naga: Volume 2
She sets the lantern down. The golden light catches in her lashes, casting delicate shadows across her cheeks. Her gaze locks with mine, steady and unflinching, where others would have looked away from a wounded predator. I search for the revulsion, the fear that should be there, but find only quiet resolve and something that makes my chest tighten. Something dangerously close to tenderness.
"Wait here," she says, her voice tight with urgency. "I have an idea.”
I try to respond, to demand an explanation, but she is already rising and moving away. "I'll be back as quickly as I can. Try to rest."
Rest. As if a naga warrior would rest while a human female rushed to his rescue. The humiliation burns hotter than my wounds. I reach for her with my good arm, but she's already climbing the stairs, her movements swift and silent as a shadow. The trapdoor above closes with a soft click, leaving me alone in the tunnel with nothing but the small lantern and my pain for company.
My back presses against the cool earth floor, my chest rising and falling with shallow, labored gasps as I stare up at the rough-hewn ceiling of the tunnel that seems to pulse and waver as myvision blurs. I blink hard, trying to force my eyes to focus, but the effort only sends a fresh wave of dizziness crashing over me. I stare at the dancing flame of the lantern, watching as it shrinks to a pinpoint of gold before darkness rushes in from all sides.
I do not realize I have lost consciousness until sensation returns. A small hand shakes my uninjured shoulder, a voice calling my name with increasing urgency.
"Lurok! Lurok, wake up!" Serin's face swims into focus above me. "Please, you have to stay with me."
I blink slowly, struggling to orient myself. The tunnel is the same, but something has changed. A large, shallow wooden cart now sits at the base of the stairs, its wheels crude but sturdy.
"How long..." My voice sounds distant.
"Not long," she answers, her hand still on my shoulder. "I wasn't sure you were going to wake up."
"It takes more than this to kill me," I mutter, though I know how hollow the boast rings.
"Listen to me," she says, her voice dropping to an intense whisper. "You can't give up now. My sister, your people, and all of Vessan-Kar depend on us reaching them before my father's plan unfolds. I can't do this without you. I need your knowledge of the tunnels to guide us there."
Her words cut through the fog of pain and defeat that has settled over me. She is right, of course. The warning must reach Vessan-Kar before I heave my last breath. Nothing honorable comes of my demise if I fail this final duty.
"I brought a wagon," she continues, gesturing to the wooden cart. "It belongs to Cook. She uses it for hauling grain from the storerooms to the kitchen."
I eye the crude contraption.
"You'll need to... curl up," she explains, looking away briefly. "Your tail will have to trail behind. It's not ideal, but it's the only way we can move quickly enough."
The suggestion stings my pride like salt in an open wound. To be pulled along like cargo, helpless and humiliated. Yet I cannot traverse the tunnels on my own strength. Not in this condition.
"Will it not be missed?" I ask, stalling the inevitable submission to this final indignity.
Her lips press into a thin line, and something in her expression shifts, hardens with resolve. "Not as much as I will be," she answers quietly. "We will have to travel fast and far before sunrise, before they find me missing and raise the alarm."
"You cannot return," I say, the realization settling between us like a physical presence. "Once we reach Vessan-Kar…”
"I know." Her voice remains steady despite the gravity of her choice. "I've made my decision."
Something stirs in my chest, an emotion I have no right to feel for a human. She should mean nothing to me. Her sacrifice should be irrelevant to my mission. Yet I find myself troubled by the thought of what she is giving up. For her sister as well as my kind.
"Now," she says, her moment of vulnerability passing behind a mask of practicality, "let's get you onto the wagon. We need to move quickly."
She positions the cart alongside me, and I brace myself for the pain that will accompany every movement, for the shame of being hauled like baggage through dark passages. But also, unexpectedly, for the strange sense that this small human female has shown as much courage as the Talons, the naga warriors with whom I serve alongside.
This is not about me,I tell myself silently.This is about Vessan-Kar.
"I agree to use your wagon," I tell Serin, the words bitter on my tongue despite the necessity behind them. "The warning must reach them in time.”
She nods once, her eyes revealing nothing of what she thinks of my capitulation. "I'll help you," she says, moving to my side.
The process of transferring my massive body onto the wagon's shallow bed is an exercise in methodical agony. Every movement sends fresh fire racing along my nerve endings. My good arm trembles beneath my weight as I attempt to drag myself onto the wooden platform. Serin positions herself at my side, her small frame providing what support she can, though the difference in our sizes makes her effort nearly symbolic.
"Slowly," she urges as I hiss in pain. "There's no rush for this part."
But there is. Each second spent on this pathetic struggle is one less second available for our journey. With a final, supreme effort that leaves me gasping, I heave my upper body onto the wagon's bed. The wood creaks ominously beneath my weight, the entire structure shifting as I pull my massive coils after me.
