Chapter 30 Rae
CHAPTER THIRTY
RAE
I open my eyes in dappled darkness.
It feels strangely familiar and comforting. It’s dark, heavy blue, pressing around me, and high above me something flickers.
A reflection.
… I’m underwater…
The realization arrives slowly and wraps around my mind. I’m deep in the sea. Yet I am in human form, and the second trial is over.
I shouldn’t be here, I think. I was walking on dry land. I was inside the palace.
Is this a dream?
But in most dreams you don’t know you’re dreaming, and this one feels too real. I lift my hands, watching the play of distant light on them, the blue reflections dancing on my palms.
I fell, didn’t I?
Fell from the palace, from a balcony…
I was pushed.
Who pushed me? What happened?
Memory returns in jumps and starts as I float underwater, Jai’s jacket open at the front, baring my pale breasts, the skirt of my sodden gown weighing me down.
A handsome face, a blond guard… “Don’t worry, Athdara. I will accompany her to her room.”
Tru.
“Jai is a good man and I won’t let you kill him.”
There had been a sense of weightlessness—much as I’m feeling now, suspended in the water—and a crash that rang my head and knocked the breath out of me…
If I didn’t have gills, I’d have drowned. Tru doesn’t know I’m finnfolk, though he thinks I work for them.
He tried to kill me.
And there is no guarantee I’ll survive this, especially since searching for that flicker of power in me, I find none.
Fine, then. I can’t stay here without my power. I’m lucky nothing has come to take a bite out of me while I was unconscious.
Righting myself in the water, I kick my feet and swim toward the broken mirror of the surface. It’s quite far, and I dodge a few water snakes and a shoal of smirking fish on the way.
Smirking or toothy? Yikes.
My head bursts out of the water and I gasp. That moment when my gills stop working and my lungs draw their first breath is always scary. I cough out some water that I managed to swallow before my gills took over and look around me.
I’m in the open sea, waves smashing into me. I spit out salty water and tread in place, orienting myself.
There. The palace rises over me, which means I can’t have been out for long. I haven’t drifted very far.
That’s good news.
The bad news is, I don’t know how to get back up there. The rocks on which the palace sits look steep and the waves smash into them repeatedly. If I’m thrown against them, I’ll end up broken into pieces.
I look up and I see a drak circling against the sky. Does it have a rider?
Jai? I think.
But Jai doesn’t know what happened, I remind myself, he’d gone to the infirmary with Arkin. If I could fly to the palace…
Fly. Who could…? Remi! Gathering my wits, I call for him. Remi, can you hear me? Remi!
“No need to yell,” his grumpy voice echoes in my mind. “I’m not mind-deaf, you know.”
It makes me smile even under the present circumstances. Where are you?
“Close to the shore, hunting.” His voice in my head changes. “Why? What’s wrong?”
I may have need of your help.
“Figures. You only call me when you’re in danger, don’t you?”
That’s unfair, I think, though maybe it isn’t. But… could you pop over?
“Over, where?”
Somewhere in the sea, close to the palace.
“Are you serious? This is a prank, isn’t it? Why would you be in the sea?”
No prank, I swear. A long pause follows in which fear grips me that he won’t come. Remi?
“I’m on my way. Stay put.”
I’m staying, I think back at him, so relieved I could cry. And thanks.
“Where are you? Wait, I see you now.” The white and gray darakin is a speck in the sky. He spirals down toward me, growing larger and larger. A lance of flame spews from his open mouth as he hisses. “What the hell happened?”
I fell from the palace. Listen, Remi… Is Keres nearby?
“I don’t keep tabs on your one-night-drak.”
Don’t be a prick, Remi. Help me out. You can’t lift me out of the water, so I need—
“Keres, the big bad drak. I knew it. I knew you preferred him over me!”
Tears prickle the backs of my eyes. Gods, Remi. I need a means of transportation. If I sit on you, you’ll die.
“So you care if I live or die?”
Of course I do, you silly darakin.
A smug grin fills my mind. “You love me best, right?”
Best of all the darakins.
“Best of all the dragons,” he haggles.
Anywhere in the world?
“Yes, anywhere. Ever.”
Fine, I admit, then yes, I do.
“Thanks, Aethry,” he whispers in my mind and whirls around, speeding away against the blue.
Leaving me to stare after him, sinking a little, kicking my feet harder to stay afloat.
He didn’t just say that. My mind made it up because he shares my brother’s name and the mind likes to create echoes around the things we’ve lost, around their names.
Aethry. Only my little brother has ever called me that.
And he’s dead.
The white and gray Magpie drak with the black crest is flying toward me, Remi a smaller version of him by his side.
Keres! Over here!
“I see you,” Keres says in my head. “I am not blind.”
Gods, dragons really are prickly. That stick up their asses is enormous.
“I can still hear you,” Keres says in my mind. “I am not deaf, either.”
Oh dear. Is this Grumpy Dragon Day?
“And… still hearing you.”
Damn. How do I turn this mind-meld off?
“It’s your panic and the fact that you are already in communication with me. Which is a good thing as it helped me locate you.”
I draw a bracing breath. Please, Keres. Can you come get me and take me to the palace?
“How can I get you? You are in the sea.”
Can’t you float?
“Do I look like a duck? No.”
Gods. Do something! I will die out here.
And just like that, the panic is back. I had counted on Remi and Keres to get me out, counted on… Jai. He was the first person who came to my mind, the first person I wanted to see.
Jai, Jai, where are you?
Something big brushes against my feet. A long dark mass slithers in the water.
Oh shit. Sea serpent.
This can’t be the end.
“Fated mates,” Jai had said. “Hair like ebony and eyes like the night.”
I need to hear him confirm the truth. And for that, I need to survive.
There has to be a way. And it has to be fast, before the mermaids hear me and come calling, before any monster of the deep decides to grab me.
Like the serpent, circling underneath me.
Keres! Can you fly lower? Lower still. Hover over the waves.
“I’m not a dragonfly.”
The serpent returns, faster now. I see its dorsal fin, red and fluttering, coming at me.
Yet I bet you can do it! Do it now!
“Command me, mistress,” he speaks softly in my stunned mind and flies lower and lower, his great wings sending gusts of wind, pushing out the water from around us. I struggle to keep afloat so I can see.
So I can raise my hands.
I will grab your claw and you can lift me up to the lowest palace terrace.
“That’s a terrible plan. You will fall to your death.”
I won’t. Let’s do this before I become fish fodder. Here we go. Lower!
He dips a little lower and I propel myself upward, grabbing his talon, as the serpent jumps out of the water, snapping razor-sharp teeth at me. A line of fire blooms on my leg and I hiss, clutching the talon, gathering my legs up as best I can.
Fly! To the palace!
“You’ll slip,” he says in my mind.
Just… fly, Keres! Flap those big wings of yours and carry me to safety.
“As you wish.” The tone is sullen, but I can’t worry about that now, not when I’m hanging and twitching from his talon like a worm on a hook, gusts of wind slamming into me, making me sway precariously.
My arm muscles are screaming, and my damaged shoulder from the first trial feels like it’s about to pop out of its socket.
All the while, at the edges of my consciousness, I feel the birthmark in my lower back throb, just as I feel the hot slide of blood down my leg, the cut burning and scorching my blood.
My head spins. Darkness threatens to seep into my sight. I shake it to clear my vision and the dizziness worsens.
I tighten my hold on the talon, but my sweaty hands are indeed slipping. Its surface is rougher than I thought but it’s still impossible to hold onto it for so long while the drak’s beating wings sway me back and forth.
As I swing from the dragon’s claw in midair, I realize Keres is right. I’m going to fall. This was a terrible idea.
My last terrible decision.
“Someone is coming,” Keres thinks and I glance to the side to see a black drak flying toward us, a rider in black sitting astride.
Jai? Can it be him?
But we fly on and I lose sight of him. My hands are slipping down Keres’ talon. Gritting my teeth, I dig my fingertips into its surface, press my hands to it harder, lock my arm muscles.
To no avail.
I slip another few inches, a cry caught in my throat, and then I’m falling again, tumbling through thin air, my hair cutting into my eyes and mouth, arms windmilling, my heart in my throat—
“Hold on!” a deep voice underneath me calls while my fall slows, and it’s Jai’s voice. “I’ve got you.”
I was right.
It was him.
The relief filling me is overwhelming. I know he will catch me. He’d never let me fall.
As I slip further, shadows circle my waist and support me. They wrap around my limbs, slowing my tumble even more.
Then they yank me down and I scream before I slam into a powerful male body, while Keres flies away, a pale shape against the sky.
“Here,” Jai is saying, his hands on my waist, “sit in the saddle. I’m here. You’re fine, makhair. Breathe.”
But I can’t. Can’t breathe, the panic still squeezing my chest, crushing it, and after a moment, everything goes black.