Chapter 11 Rae
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RAE
Grabbing a drak isn’t as easy as it had sounded.
Going after a drak in its lair is pure madness.
I should have guessed.
“I thought you didn’t want Jai to die,” I hiss and duck as the yellow Goldfinch drak screeches and sends a plume of fire in our direction. Its round red eyes flash like flames to match the fire spewing from its fanged mouth.
“Stand back, human. I can protect Jai but not you, not if you get in the way.”
“I’m in the way? It’s a tunnel! There’s nowhere to go.”
Ignoring me, he takes off running toward the drak.
I repeat: he runs toward the monster that fills the tunnel with scales, claws, fangs, and fire.
What in the hells, right?
Then he takes a flying leap that has me cursing and racing after him despite what he said—as he swings himself onto the drak’s leg, using invisible handholds to climb.
“I thought you could just command the dragons!” I shout, stopping.
“I’m still recovering from drowning, if you don’t mind, khora,” he grates, his voice bouncing around us as he keeps climbing. “My power is somewhat dimmed.”
“So you’re going to what, wrestle the drak? Are you out of your mind?”
“Can you just kindly shut up?” he mutters, still climbing, trying to reach the dragon’s back where a darker patch is visible.
A saddle. The drak is wearing a saddle. Are these squadron draks, conscripted in the king’s army?
Phaethon reaches higher and the drak curls its long neck in, mouth opening, going after him.
He’s going to be fodder. No matter what he says about keeping Jai safe, right now he’s out of his element.
He won’t make it. He’s where I’ve been since I joined this insane mission: without the bulk of his magic, floundering, trying to get by without it, and although this is Phaethon, sarcastic, arrogant, cruel, aggravating, and a damn bastard… he’s still Jai.
That’s why I don’t want him dead, I decide. That’s all. Because despite Jai’s dismissal of me last night, I don’t want him to die.
“Listen to me!” I shout at the drak, my voice reverberating through the tunnel, but it’s no good. No magic follows the sound. “Help us!”
“Stop yelling, you idiot,” Phaethon says, “and stay back!”
He’s kind of rude for an ancient being, if you ask me. And I am staying back. Why does he think I’m yelling my throat raw?
I’m still debating how best to insult his ancestors when the drak turns toward me and belches fire.
I throw myself against the wall, plastering my back to it, as the flames pierce the gloom of the passage.
Why are the draks here? Did the king tear this piece of rock out of a mountain and transplant it into the middle of the arena, bringing the nests along? Or did he shove the draks in here and they stayed, lulled by the scents they love?
Distracting the drak worked, though, and Phaethon has reached the drak’s neck. Now he’s working his way over it to reach the reins.
You’re welcome, asshole.
But the drak now doesn’t look so happy about it. He tries to throw Phaethon off, twisting inside the narrow passage, scraping against the walls. Dust and earth tumble down. Phaethon hits the wall but stays put.
“Stay,” he says, his voice sonorous, vibrating with power—but will it be enough? “Stay!”
The drak hits the wall again, and Phaethon sways, hanging from the reptile’s long leg, trying to get a foothold on its body.
Stay still, I think, sending the thought just like I had done with the sea dragon. Let him climb you.
Another thought replies to mine. “Does that line work for you normally?”
Joy explodes inside my chest. Remi!
“In the flesh. Where are you? How am I supposed to help if you don’t speak to me?”
Me? How about you speak to me, too?
“You were the one in need of help, last I checked. I’m out here flying up and down, running about like a headless chicken—”
We’re inside.
“Inside… where?”
The platform. It’s full of drak nests in here.
“Why in the hells would you go inside…?” Exasperation. Worry. Never mind. What can I do?”
Create a distraction? We are on the side facing the palace.
“A distraction for a male or female drak? And what color?”
Yellow. No idea about the gender.
“On it.”
“Easy, drakon,” Phaethon is saying. He has one foot near the saddle and he’s hanging between the dark leather and the drak’s yellow, scaly neck. “Easy now.”
The creature twists again and tries to bite his head off.
Ow.
Then screeching intrudes from outside. It sounds like… another drak? The sound is approaching us, and fast.
The Goldfinch drak screeches back, then retracts its triangular head and turns toward the end of the tunnel as if listening.
“Will this do?” Remi’s voice says in my mind, smug.
What did you do?
“I brought you another yellow drak. Draks pay attention to their own colors. They hear the similarity in their calls and are attracted to them.”
I had no idea.
“I know. Didn’t I say I’m useful? Indispensable.” I almost hear the wink in his voice. “What would you do without me, huh?”
Meanwhile, Phaethon loses no time in clambering onto the drak’s back, at last. He finds his feet and runs up as if scaling a dune, straddling the base of the neck and grabbing the reins as he slides into the saddle. Pulling the key from his belt, he rams it into place.
The drak jerks and squirms, then suddenly goes still, long forked tongue flickering between yellow, saber-like teeth.
My heart is banging wildly against my ribcage. Phaethon is sitting there, cutting a dark silhouette in his black clothes and hair. A dark shadow against the bright yellow of the drak.
Then he seems to shake himself out of whatever thoughts occupied his mind and reaches a hand down. “Come. It’s time to go.”
Unsteadily, I walk up to the drak. I fully expect it to turn around and snap me in half with those saber teeth, but its red eyes only blink slowly.
A thin rope of shadow snakes down from Phaethon’s hand and wraps around my waist. As I scramble to climb the slippery, scaly hide, it wavers, and he only has time to grab my hand before I fall.
“Still having trouble with the shadows?” I wheeze as he drags me up. “Maybe you should release your chokehold on Jai, let him use his powers.”
He doesn’t speak until I’m seated behind him, in the saddle, my arms wrapped around his hard middle once more.
Then he says, “Jai and I want different things. When he awoke in this world… I didn’t.
Not immediately. After a death, it takes the twinned soul some time to surface, to bore like a worm through to the other soul. ”
I shudder.
“We are all here because an important desire drives us,” he says. “All three of us.”
The three of us. Including me.
Such a weird notion when it’s only two bodies present.
I can’t believe I’m having a civilized conversation with an Eosphor, the strange creature driving Jai crazy and willing to assist the fae king in conquering another world.
Even if it’s his own home world.
The king who is the boy I loved and who put his mark on me.
Could this be any more complicated?
As we launch out of the tunnel, my arms locked around Phaethon’s waist, my mind lost in thought, I sense him shift in the saddle.
He turns his head slightly as we fly into the sky. “I thank you.” His tone is so grudging, I smile in spite of myself. “For your aid in capturing this drak.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I won’t be requiring your aid again, however. My power is returning and—”
“You’ll be all powerful again. I see.”
He’s silent as we fly level for a while, circling over the arena… then spiral downward again.
Toward the palace.
“Hey.” I frown. “What are you doing?”
“I told you, I’ll fly you to the palace.”
“And I told you, not without the other contestants.”
“Jai wants you alive and knows you will die if you go after them, so no.”
“It’s not up to you.”
“What will you do to stop me?” he asks mildly. “Your magic is buried deep, as deep as I was buried when Jai died in the water just now.”
“He didn’t die. I saved him.”
“If you say so.”
Frustrated, I glance down at the surface of the arena, trying to locate any survivors. “Stop with the riddles, just…”
“It won’t be the first time he died, if it’s any consolation.”
“Consolation? No, it’s not.”
“And it wasn’t a riddle. I speak plainly.”
“Sure you do.” I unlace my arms from around his waist. The water shimmers below, studded with the white towers bobbing on its surface. “Here are some plain words for you, too: if you won’t look for the survivors, I’ll jump.”
He flinches. I feel his body jerk against mine. “You will do no such thing. You know I will stop you if you try.”
“With the weak tendrils of shadows you can command at this moment? Because Jai cares about me?”
“And because the king does, too, and I serve the king as long as he serves me.”
I freeze. “Phaethon—”
With what sounds like a mumbled curse, he digs his knees into the sides of the drak and leans forward, pulsing with power. It’s all I can do to throw my arms around him once more and hold on for dear life as the drak turns around and dives down.
Toward the top of the platform.