CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE ISI #3
Lexie gasped, her back arching as her bones began to shift. Derren reached for her before his own transformation caught him, dropping him to his knees. Kerralyn made no sound at all, but her fingers splayed wide as her skin began to stretch and tear and reform.
Horror and fascination paralyzed me as I watched our friends become monsters before my eyes. I clung to Trew’s hand. There was nothing else to do but hold on and not look away, because they were doing this for us, and the least I could do was witness it.
Lexie’s face elongated, her jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. Bone plates shifted through her skin, forming armor across her chest and back. Six eyes appeared on her monstrous head.
Derren’s limbs cracked and popped, stretching to impossible lengths. His skin darkened to mottled gray-black, scaled in places, weirdly smooth in others. Claws erupted from his fingertips with wet, tearing sounds.
Kerralyn’s torso elongated, joints appearing where none had been before. Her neck cracked as it stretched, her head flattening into the segmented skull I recognized from the creatures that had nearly killed us in Silverstream a few weeks ago.
Trew never faltered. His hand gripped mine so tightly I lost feeling in my fingers, but I didn’t pull away. Our magic continued flowing through the pendants, reshaping our friends into perfect replicas of the creatures we feared most. The pendants had disappeared.
When it was done, three Skathes stood with us in the parlor, breathing hard, adjusting to their new forms. If I hadn’t watched the transformation myself, I would never have known they weren’t genuine monsters.
Only their eyes revealed them. Behind the black orbs, I could still see the friends I loved.
Levar approached Lexie cautiously, sniffing her changed form. After hesitating, he pressed against her leg. Keek and Dare followed, recognizing Kerralyn and Derren despite their monstrous appearance.
“Can you speak?” Trew asked, his voice strained from the effort of the transformation.
Lexie’s mouth moved, and a guttural sound emerged. She tried again, forcing the words. “Yes. Difficult…but possible.”
“The disguise will hold for a week,” Trew said. “After that, the magic will start to fade. Make sure you’re not still in their camp by then.”
“Enough time,” Derren rasped, his clawed hand flexing as he tested his new form.
Their companions nuzzled them one last time before reluctantly moving away. They would return to Syllavar with us, waiting for the time we could fly south again and meet up with them near this valley. If things went well, they’d have Fenmark with them.
We kept our farewell brief. None of us had the heart for lengthy goodbyes. We gathered our supplies, moving outside where the dragons waited on the lawn. Pherin fluttered between me and our disguised friends, distressed by their transformation.
“If you’re compromised,” Trew said, the muscle in his jaw jumping, “abandon the mission. Stay alive. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lexie said, the words strangely formal coming from her Skathe mouth.
“A week,” I said as they prepared to leave. “We’ll come back for you.”
They nodded, their movements unsettling in their new forms.
Derren's clawed hand found Lexie's, the gray-black scales of his fingers interlacing with hers. She looked up at him, or whatever looking up meant now, with her elongated neck and her bone-plated skull, and something passed between them that had nothing to do with the monsters they were wearing.
His thumb moved across her knuckles. One slow stroke. The same gesture I’d watched him make a hundred times at dinner tables and while sitting in classes together.
Still him. Still them.
She released a strange, guttural sound from her Skathe throat, but I knew what it meant. I’d heard its human version a dozen times. I know. I know. Me too.
He released her hand.
Turning, they crossed the open area and slipped into the woods bordering the edge of the valley, aiming for the wasteland beyond the wards. Within moments, they had vanished.
I swallowed hard, forcing back tears. Trew’s arm went around my shoulders, and he tucked me into his side.
“They’ll be safe,” he said, though we both knew it was just wishful thinking on his part.
Addie walked over to us slowly, her silver drake by her side. “I can never repay them for this.”
“They’re doing it because it’s right.”
We turned toward the dragons, preparing to mount. Lakast lowered his enormous head while Trew climbed up and secured our bags on his spine. Kyreth waited nearby for Addie and Commander Thorne. Wairen would fly alone.
Trew paused where he stood on Lakast’s spine, peering around. He suddenly grappled for the blades strapped to his hips.
Hide, Pherin shrieked in my mind.
A burst of magic, and she and the other companions shifted into their huge forms.
Shrieks cut through the air, grazing across my bones.
Skathes raced from the woods on the southern side of the valley and slithered from among the trees.
“The wards,” Addie gasped. “They’ve breached the wards.”
I drew my blades and shouted for Addie to watch out.
“Get your sister on that dragon and fly,” Trew shouted. “Now!”