Chapter 62
“What do you mean run?”
Ahvi shrugs. “I know you don’t like fire, so …” He flicks back the lid of his weald. A bright-orange bulb of Moltenmaw flame bursts from the coil, and my heart drops into my ass.
I also don’t like watching folk burn to death.
The egg wobbles again, jolting in the other direction.
“Shit,” I mutter, twisting sideways. I lurch forward and try to smash my upper body through the opening, hoping to drag the kid out.
Ahvi moves his tongue around his mouth, then crunches down on something. My blood ices as a silver sheen ripples out from his mouth, then smothers him like a net. Like a—
Shield.
He peers up at me through his floppy hair, a shy smile stretching across his face. “That’s because it is a shield.”
I still, the backs of my eyes bursting with a flare of sting.
Essi would be so impressed by you, kid.
He begins to lower the weald.
“Wait—”
“Can’t. He’ll die.”
I groan.
He drops the weald amongst the flammable nest, the dried leaves catching light much too fast for my liking.
Muttering a chain of profanities probably not fit for a youngling’s ears, I try to jerk free of the opening. The moment the nest finally regurgitates me, I turn on my heels and bolt for the door, leaping free of the runed tiles—
The nest erupts in a hot rage of flames.
I spin, heaving breath as the dragonfire consumes the sphere of branches and vines, filling the room with an explosion of thick, billowing smoke.
A dense shroud that soon hides the rabid orange flames, though they still whip at me, like they’re trying to claw free of the chamber—striking an invisible barrier somehow keeping the blazing chaos contained.
Not even a puff of smoke makes it past the doorway.
My heart lodges in my throat as I watch from behind the barricade. Body tense.
Mind wild.
Suddenly—almost violently—the smoke evaporates. Like some great being just sucked it free, flames and all.
The chamber’s walls come into view, illuminated with thousands of silver runes. Then the sloped floor, cradling the crumbly remnants of the broken-down nest and Ahvi … sitting cross-legged in the center of it all, still wrapped in his shimmery shield.
A choked sound ruptures past my lips, gaze dropping to the egg in his arms—no longer the same powder blue as it was before.
It’s charred black, bearing a hairline fracture down the side that’s widening.
I edge forward onto the rune-lit tiles, breathing humid air tainted with the smell of smoke. Two steps closer when a cracking sound fills the room. Like bones breaking.
A large shard of the egg comes loose but doesn’t fall away, still tacked to the sticky membrane beneath.
Ahvi smiles, murmuring soft words as he eases the bit of shell free—gentle as I’ve ever seen anyone move. Something that reminds me too much of my Other’s memory.
Of seeing another boy help a silver, wonky-winged Moonplume edge free of its sticky shell.
I spin. Look elsewhere.
Pretend I’m giving Ahvi the space and privacy to bond with his hatchling and not choking on a past I’m not yet ready to look in the eye. Pushing it away.
Gone.
More cracking sounds fill the room as I scratch the tips of my fingers, scanning the carnage I left in the antechamber …
Time nips at me.
I passed numerous slumber quarters on my way down here, and although there’s a lot of bodies in that room, evidence suggests there are a lot more soldiers inhabiting this place.
All it takes is one scout to come across the slain soldier in the corridor for a contingency wave to come crashing down on us. Fighting for myself was easy. Worrying about a kid and his freshly hatched dragon will be less so.
Time is of the essence.
“Isn’t he perfect?”
At Ahvi’s words, I turn.
Still cross-legged in the guts of the charred nest, he heaves the fleshy pink hatchling into the air, gripped beneath his disproportionately large wings.
The tiny beast is bare of plumage bar a spray of pin feathers poking from between his closed eyes, his crest, and the tip of his otherwise naked tail hanging so limp I’d almost believe him perished …
if it wasn’t for the garbled squark he makes as he tries, and fails, to lift his dangling head.
“Majestic.” I charge forward, the nest’s remains crumbling beneath my boots. “Time to go.” Crouching beside them both, I wait for Ahvi to release his shimmery shield, then slice into the hem of his oversized cloak, ripping a swath free.
Then another.
Seeming to follow my thoughts, he lowers the hatchling into the makeshift sling, plucking shards of shell from his … skin while I ease suddenly flappy wings against the tiny beast’s plump body.
“You said you can’t run fast?”
“I can run really fast,” he corrects, puffing his chest, “just not fast enough.”
“My mistake.”
“I have really bad lungs. They flare up sometimes …”
Good to know.
I fold the material over the hatchling and tuck it in until he’s swaddled tight, like he’s back in his egg. Something that seems to calm him a little. “May I?”
Ahvi nods.
I press the squirmy bundle against my chest, then with Ahvi’s help, use the second swathe to bind the hatchling against me. Once firmly secured, I spin, one knee on the ground, hands fist-deep in the ash and coal. “Hop on my back.”
No movement.
I look over my shoulder to see Ahvi’s lips twitched up in a shy smile. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry.” His cheeks flush. “You’ve never done this before.”
I see my mind’s a free-for-all.
Lovely.
I arch a brow. “Do I need tutelage?”
He shakes his head, still smiling as he edges forward. “Just good balance.”
“Well, you’re in luck.”
He binds his arms around my neck, then hoists his legs up over my hips and gives me his full weight—surprisingly light for his height. “Unless Sereme hurts you again,” he murmurs, close to my ear.
I sigh, wrap my arms under his knees, and shove up. Silently praying to the Creators that we don’t come across anything that wants to kill us on our way out.
I reach back and tug Ahvi’s hood far enough forward that it covers half his face, then charge through the busted antechamber, leaping over bits of rubble and bloody limbs.
Past burnt faces and flat, lifeless eyes that stare at nothing.
He may be blasé about the things he saw in my mind, but I know a front when I see it.
There’s a quiet brokenness in the nonchalance.
In the shoulder shrugs and pretend smiles.
In the easy stillness of those who’ve gotten too used to the world bleeding around them, leaning into chaos like a close friend.
The only trustworthy thing that’ll be there—dae after dae.
The only thing that won’t die.
This child … he needs all the protection I can offer, lest he turn out as cold and bitter as me.
I’m sprinting past the lone soldier in the corridor, still sprawled in the gory remnants of his mulched lungs, when Ahvi says, “Is this a bad time to tell you that most of the soldiers are hiding in the forest, waiting to ambush your Kaan?”
I slam to a halt, absorbing his words like a gut-punch.
Shit.
That explains the empty slumber quarters. The quietness. The soldier who took time away from his station to take a piss.
The contingent I took care of … was only the backup plan.
The tips of my fingers flare with so much itch it’s an effort to keep my grip on the kid. “Perfect timing, actually.” I burst forward, powering through lofty corridors as the cold rage inside me simmers.
“I know what you’re planning to do …”
Darting left, I jerk Ahvi higher on my back. Something that makes the hatchling squirm, releasing a garbled squawk as I power up a flight of dimly lit stairs. “Think it’ll work?”
I feel him shrug against my back.
Not exactly a glowing endorsement. Unfortunately, I have no other options that don’t also risk his well-being.
Not sure how I keep collecting folk to care about, but fuck me, this is getting out of hand.