Chapter 8
Eight
“Everyone’s all right,” Fieran told me.
I’d jolted away from him, but his hands slid gently across my shoulders, his touch soothing.
How did he know? Was there something about being dragon shifters that made it not only possible for them to be so perfectly in sync with each other but also to know when the others were all right…and when they were not?
His fingers brushed my throat, and I felt my chin tilt, my body reacting to him in an undisguised, embarrassing way.
He didn’t seem to notice, though, intent on fastening the cloak. Purely business. I swallowed.
“I’m too slow wearing your cloak,” I said.
“Cara, we’re not running.” He sounded confident, as if the thought that dragon shifters would ever run away was ridiculous.
He took my hand, striding confidently through the woods, and I went with him.
We were climbing up, and my legs began to burn, though he didn’t seem to even notice our steady climb. He might as well have been strolling through the village, window-shopping, while my breath began to come in desperate, humiliating pants.
I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to keep moving.
The forest thinned until we reached a small clearing.
When I looked back, I could see the village far beneath us, looking like a toy.
Beneath was laid the unpredictable paths and the neat green and yellow of our fields and our little cottage.
Only movement made the few figures discernible, distant and small as peg dolls.
I looked back up at the peak that I couldn’t quite see, but that I knew was close. If I kept walking, I could see what was over the mountains, as Lidi intended one day.
Fieran had paused with me, as if he knew I had to catch my breath. “Ready to go on?”
“Of course,” I panted, as if there were anything “of course” about it.
But he was polite enough to pretend he didn’t notice that I was dying.
We finally reached the others. They were moving around busily. Anayla was painting on the trees, moving quickly from one to another and painting runes in shimmering gold magic.
“What does that do?”
“It enchants the mortals that aren’t as wise as you, who come into the forest,” Fieran said with a smile, “to feel afraid and turn back. So they don’t get stuck in one of the traps with the monsters.”
The thought of being trapped with one of the monsters, transported to the capital city in a monster’s cage, only to be a corpse at their feet when they arrived, was too vivid and easy for me to imagine. “Does that happen often?”
“No. Because Anayla protects us all.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, smiling.
“Where’s the rip?” I asked, because they were spaced so far apart from each other. I hadn’t realized how vast and enormous the traps they set were.
I was a little afraid of it, as if monsters might come through if I came anywhere near it, but just like the night forest, it was something I could only see this once, with them.
Fieran called to Maura, who was across the clearing. “Where is the rip?”
She folded her arms. “It’s a good idea to indulge mortal curiosity. To show the girl who’s never seen the next village the next realm.”
“It is, I agree,” Fieran said.
Maura sighed, but she pointed.
Hopefully, the darkness hid the way I felt stung. I followed Fieran who led me to a place between the trees that was strangely bright.
I realized, looking through it, that I was looking at another sky. This sky was mottled with purple and green.
“Northern lights,” he told me. “We have them here, too, in the northern kingdoms. But we’re peering into another realm.”
I took a step closer, and suddenly I was looking down, down through the layers of sky and clouds toward the ground. The rip might be vertical in our world, between trees, but it had been torn open in the sky on their side.
I felt a strange, discombobulated sense as if there was no up or down. Bile pressed in my mouth, and I doubled over, my hands on my knees, doing my best to swallow back my nausea. The last thing I needed to do was to puke in front of the beautiful dragon shifters.
“This is why no one ever listens to me,” Maura called. “I never have any wisdom to share.”
“The rip is in the sky,” I said, to absolutely no one, since everyone else knew and looked bored rather than sick.
“You’re fine,” Fieran offered in response to this rather stupid observation. “Here.”
There was the sound of rattling paper. I looked up at him only to find him taking the wrapper off of candy, which seemed random and strange. He slipped it between my lips, and I found myself surprised by the gesture, by the way his fingers brushed my mouth so casually.
“Peppermint. It’ll soothe the nausea.”
The flavor of chocolate and peppermint melted onto my tongue. I swallowed the thickening spit that had filled my mouth as my stomach threatened to upend itself all over the toes of his shiny boots, and it was replaced by the pleasant sweetness of the candy.
“Thank you,” I said. I turned my back on the rip, and then felt a disquieting sense ripple up my spine, as if something might fly in after me. “Is the trap activated yet? Are we in it?”
He shook his head. “We can’t set the trap until we’ve escaped it.”
“So something else could come through that rip at any point.” The creeping feeling up my spine, like there had been a spider dropped down the back of my shirt, was powerful enough to have me retreating from the rip.
Fieran moved with me. “It’s unlikely anything would come through now, though. Sometimes things come through by accident, of course. But it’s up high. Only winged things are coming through.”
“Like the wyrms.”
“Like the wyrms. But something else might have come through and is just living out here. We’re not in any more danger near the rip than we are further away, not much, anyway.”
“What a lovely thought.”
“You’re safe,” he reminded me. “If anything were to happen, you can just drop down and throw the cloak over your head. The monster won’t be able to see you.”
“I don’t like the idea of playing hide and seek with monsters.”
“I feel I’ve been doing that all my life,” he said, and I wanted to ask a follow-up question but he was moving on as if there was nothing else to say. “I’ll show you how the trap works. You’ll be the only mortal in the village who knows.”
“Well, that will be useful if, Gods forbid…”
“Cara. Don’t worry. Any monster that comes through is transported to the cells below the arena for the Trials. They can’t escape. You and Lidi should never see another monster again.”
I let out a shudder despite his promises. “Why not just kill them?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Dairen asked with a roguish smile as he passed us.
He was joining Maura, who was setting up near us, the two of them working together to chisel runes onto stones that they were laying to set the trap. Magic sparked beneath their blades.
“I don’t understand why we have these Trials, why we have these games, if shifters die during them. We need you—”
I cut myself off, because Fieran began to smile at my admission that we needed the shifters.
Maura smirked. “So people can believe that we have our dragons under control. And more importantly, they can prove they have us under control.” She drew her knife, lightning fast, and tossed it up in the air, catching the blade as if she were about to throw it.
I jerked back. I couldn’t help it. She looked so threatening.
Her gaze met mine, frank and scornful. “See? No matter what we do to protect you, you’re afraid. But you get to cheer us on while we die, so then you have the power.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t find the right words to argue with her, but I hated that she had just grouped me in with mortals who watched them fight in the Dragon Trials. “I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
“Then you’ll be very happy in the Fae world, where everything is rainbows and butterflies and you can be sure to serve those who are safe and kind,” Maura told me.
I felt jolted by the realization that she had been able to overhear me when I talked to Fieran, when I made my request. It seemed so far away, but of course, they had their heightened senses.
I never really had privacy with Fieran. I’d been stupid to think I had.
He had known, but he hadn’t said anything.
My cheeks were hot.
“Maura,” Fieran warned.
“What’s it like being mortal, anyway?” she asked. “We’ll be here together long after your whisper of a life. I can’t—”
Fieran stepped between us. “Not another word.”
I couldn’t see anything but his broad shoulders. I stepped out to one side and caught a glimpse of her face, scrawled over with jealousy, and the burn of hurt I felt faded.
She turned to storm away, but then she paused. They all paused, stopping the way people do when they’re listening for something.
I froze, too, not wanting to distract them. My breathing, and my breathing alone, seemed too loud in the clearing. Was I panting? The more I tried to breathe quietly, the more it felt as if I were gasping for air.
“This isn’t the only rip,” Fieran said calmly. “Something’s coming.”
I made myself stay rooted where I was, when every instinct was to throw myself behind the dragon shifter.
I had no idea what was coming, but the very thought of it—this unimaginable thing—terrified me anyway. Fieran, on the other hand, looked as relaxed and casual as he had at the dinner table.
“I’ll take Cara with me to finish the trap,” he told the others. “We’ll get it closed. You deal with whatever came through the rip, and we’ll head back for dessert.”
Maura scoffed. “Keeping the little mortal safe at your side? Even if that means sending us into danger without you? Aren’t we more valuable than a sentient broom?”
“There’s a fine line between banter and disrespect, Maura.” Fieran’s voice was calm but carried a sharper edge than I’d ever heard. “You’re coming dangerously close to stepping into a place you don’t want to find yourself.”