Kaz cried out as he was thrown onto the floor of his cell, all of his wounds screaming on impact. He didn't move aside from curling up into a ball, even as he heard the door of his cell slam shut and the guards walked away, muttering something to each other.

But Kaz was too tired and in too much pain to care that he was probably being mocked again. He didn't think Zriannis had hurt him too much, but he wasn't used to pain, so even a few cuts were agony to him. His tolerance had gotten better while traveling with Rhen, as it seemed that simply traveling on foot involved quite a bit of pain. Pulled muscles, cuts from bushes and thorny plants, blisters.... Unfortunately, none of that had prepared him for this.

But he'd told her nothing. She'd wanted to know about both Rhenor and Elaya, but he'd managed to hold his tongue. Anything he said could be enough to put them in danger. At least they were hopefully far away from Sigallah by now, and everything had gone according to plan.

Kaz for a moment wondered if Rhen was getting along with Elaya, or if they'd already split ways. He hoped that Elaya wasn't thinking about trying to rescue him. She was capable of doing something that reckless, but she also usually didn't let impulsiveness guide decisions like this, and without help, it was very doubtful she would try.

That at least gave him some peace of mind, though that wasn't likely to last. He'd only been brought here because the pain had made him delirious, and he had been barely able to understand the questions, let alone answer them. His mind was a little clearer now, but so was the pain from the cuts on his arms and chest.

He wished he could at least check his wounds, but his hands were still shackled together behind his back. If he wasn't in so much pain, he'd probably feel how much his shoulders hurt from that. The best he could do like this was to drag himself into a sitting position and look down at his chest, though given the fact that Zriannis hadn't bothered cutting open his tunic and had just cut him through it, he wouldn't be able to see the wounds well.

But he still should sit up. He dreaded it, though. The cuts burned as they were, and moving was going to just make it worse. But he might get an infection from lying in the dirt and who knew what else that was on the floor. Kaz doubted Zriannis would bother trying to help him with that. She'd probably just use it to hurt him more.

Gritting his teeth, Kaz pushed himself up, trying his best to stifle a gasp as pain stabbed through him. But at least now he was on his knees, which was better than the previous position. He moved a bit more, grimacing as he pulled his legs from underneath him and leaned onto the wall.

Kaz let out a sigh of relief. His wounds felt like they were on fire but at least now he was more comfortable. As comfortable as he could be after being tortured by his cousin and locked up in a dungeon. He glared down at the chain binding his feet together as he pulled on the cuffs binding his wrists. He only ended up hissing in pain as they bit into his wrists, having fought against them too many times during his interrogation, but that didn't stop him from trying again.

"You're a dragon," said a woman's voice from his left, making Kaz turn his head the way it came immediately. Oh, it was the woman he'd seen here before. She wasn't unconscious anymore, it seemed.

Kaz couldn't help but note the scar over her right eye, cutting through her dark eyebrow, and the dirt and bruises on her face. Her hair wasn't much longer than his own, so it didn't cover up any of it. And she was very thin. Sickly thin, even. How long had she been here?

"What did you do to end up here? I didn't know it was possible for a dragon to be in this position."

Kaz hung his head. He didn't feel like he had the energy to talk, but at the same time, there wasn't much he could do in the meantime. Maybe it would distract him from the pain of his slowly closing wounds. A dragon's healing was quicker than a human's from what he'd gathered in his research and comparing how quickly he and Rhen healed, but it wasn't quick enough.

"I...helped steal some money from the King."

He didn't want to go into detail about the heist or the others involved in it, in case this was a plot by Zriannis. She could have one of her guards listen in on what they were saying, after all.

The woman frowned and leaned onto the bars between their cells, grasping the bars with her cut-up hands.

"From a ship?"

Kaz blinked, shocked that she knew. Or her guessing abilities were insanely on point. "How do you know that?"

The woman put on a wry smile. She looked tired and weak, which wasn't a surprise. Was Zriannis giving her water, at least? "I planned that heist."

Kaz stared at her for a moment, completely stunned. Oh. So this was Nova. That would explain why she was here, though he was still surprised Zriannis hadn't just killed her. Especially given the fact that the rest of her people had scattered now that the heist had been completed.

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"So it wasn't successful, I take it," Nova muttered, sighing. She looked even more exhausted now, with her shoulders slumped like that.

"Oh no, it was." Kaz shook his head. Discounting the fact that he'd gotten captured, of course. But he wasn't going to theorize about how much the people involved thought of that as a drawback. "The money was successfully stolen."

"Why are you here, then?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "And why were you involved in the first place? I don't understand why a dragon would want to take part in stealing from his own kind."

Kaz sighed, squeezing himself against the wall of the prison more. He wasn't sure how to answer this. He hadn't wanted to get involved in the first place, but there had been no convincing Rhenor and Elaya otherwise. Thinking back on it, it almost seemed as if Rhen had tried to make Kaz upset by not listening to him and not taking his opinions seriously at all. Kaz wondered what he'd overheard when Kaz and Elaya had talked without Rhen in the room. Not that it mattered now.

"It's...complicated."

Kaz almost shook his head at himself. What a great explanation, though it was easier than explaining how he'd gotten here in the first place. Where would he even start? He doubted that Nova had any love for dragons, just like most humans, so he didn't feel like trying to explain. She probably wouldn't give him a chance, anyway.

"You're an interesting one, aren't you?"

Kaz didn't reply to that, only closing his eyes for a moment as he desperately tried to ignore the way his whole body ached. He wondered how long Zriannis would give him before continuing this. He didn't think he could hold on forever, but thankfully he wouldn't have to. All he needed was to not give Zriannis what she wanted until Rhen was at a safe distance away from Sigallah.

"Grrikari has been trying to get me to tell her the plan, but I haven't. It's nice to know that at least that was useful for something, even though she has no use for me now," Nova muttered, looking like she was going to fall asleep at any moment. She must have been here for a while, then. Not that Kaz was surprised, looking at her. She was definitely much better at handling torture than he was, which was also not surprising.

"Those damned traitors," Nova muttered under her breath, mostly sounding resigned to it. "At least Grrikari killed them afterward."

Kaz's eyebrows flew up. Zriannis was so uncompromising and cruel as to kill informants as soon as they gave her the information promised? He hadn't expected that. He'd mostly assumed that Zriannis would give them less money than they'd agreed on, or possibly no money at all, and then send them on their way.

But Kaz couldn't say he was completely shocked by this approach either.

"Just like she killed everyone else." Nova sighed, looking directly at Kaz again. "I've been a professional thief for ten years now. I thought I knew better than to trust backstabbers."

Kaz didn't add anything, not feeling confident he would say something useful or comforting. If Nova wanted to rant about this, he didn't see why he shouldn't let her.

"Have you ever been betrayed by people close to you, dragon?"

Kaz thought about it, firmly ignoring the contempt in her voice when saying the name of his species. He hadn't had many people he would call close, so he supposed he hadn't been. In fact, the only betrayal he could think of was what he'd done to Rhenor. He may have not betrayed him quite like Nova's associates had betrayed her, but in a way Kaz had done a very similar thing—he'd betrayed Rhenor's trust, and that was similar enough.

"Wait, don't tell me—unlike mine, your kind sticks together."

Kaz huffed at the dismissive tone. But instead of getting annoyed, he just became sad. "No. We don't. There are just fewer of us."

He hadn't given this much thought, but it was true. There were hundreds of thousands of humans in Istamid. But there were only a few hundred dragons. They had children much less often than humans, so even if they purposely tried to increase their numbers, it wouldn't have much of an effect.

If they went around betraying each other, there would soon not be enough dragons to rule the kingdom, and with that, there would be the risk of the human population overthrowing them. Kaz wasn't going to make guesses about whether that would be good or bad, but it would certainly be a very real threat. And if there was one thing the dragons feared it was losing control over their monarchy.

"I've heard from Grrikari that there has been some infighting, though," Nova argued. She was now keeping her eyes closed as she was leaning against the bars. She seemed to be paying the same amount of attention, however.

"I haven't heard about it before now."

Nova hummed as Kaz frowned in thought. He had completely forgotten that he'd been told about that by that guard on the ship. He truly hadn't known about anything like it when he'd still lived in the Capital, but maybe it was a very new development.

He did know that a few of the lesser dragon clans weren't entirely happy with what the Dragon King was doing, but they'd never gone beyond privately complaining about it. And this fact was only known to him because his clan was one of them.

"So you aren't one of those dragons, either?" Nova blinked owlishly at him and then shook her head, letting out a tired laugh. "Well, thank you for the help with the heist at least. Whatever your motivations were."

And with that Nova fell unconscious again, sinking onto the dirty floor. Kaz sighed, swallowing as he adjusted the way he was sitting, which upset his wounds again. The conversation with Nova had distracted him from them a bit, but now both the cuts and the awfulness of his situation had made themselves apparent yet again.

He let out a miserable groan, curling in on himself even though it made all his injuries sting. He wouldn't mind losing consciousness either, but he wasn't sure it would happen. His mind was too preoccupied thinking about all the terrible things that had happened.

Still, he could at leasttry to sleep and let his wounds heal before inevitably being made worse byZriannis. That thought brought very little comfort to him as he huddled closerto the wall, but at least the exhaustion he'd felt when he'd been thrown back herehad come back now, and it was making his eyelids heavy. Maybe there was hopefor a moment of respite yet.