Chapter Twenty-Four
WITH THE BASKET of missives secured behind me, I grip a handful of Ozias’s mane at the base of his neck like a pommel on a horse’s saddle.
A throaty vibration rolls through him as he rumbles his approval, and I squirm as the sensation makes its way between my thighs.
He puffs up with a series of quick grunts that I easily read as amusement.
As we prepared to leave, I fretted about him leaving the safety of the Realm after what happened last time.
Apparently though, Ozias replicated Thrace’s magic years ago and during the day has no trouble wielding a shield.
Without further warning, Ozias launches straight up into the sky.
We clear the trees, and then we’re in the thick mists shrouding the Realm.
The moisture clings to my face and suffuses my tongue and nose with its lichen and floral scent.
Then we’re above and beyond the mists, into the clear, dry morning.
The sky is a crisp cerulean and below the Sere expands far to the south until the landscape shifts with the yellow-green grass of the Nevoban plains, all the way to the valleys and crevices that look like a wasteland of nothing but rocks, belying the truth hidden below the ground—the vast system of tunnels and caves that house my people.
People who know nothing of their truth, who are living their lives as easily as they can, ignoring that longing lodged in their heart, or calling it something else.
Here in the sky, in the Realm, I know what it is.
I finally know what it is that’s been missing from me. And soon they will, too.
Ozias banks towards the mountains, keeping us out of eyesight of Dyēus’s troops on the ground.
He takes his time, picking up speed gradually and smoothly, his dragon eyes seeing more than mine through this mist. We’re heading towards the northern shore, keeping Dyēus far off to our east. I may not be on my own wings, but I can’t deny the fullness in my chest at being high in the sky with the wind teasing my hair and filling my lungs.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
I squeeze my knees a little tighter on either side of Ozias and drop his mane, spreading my arms out to the side.
I always wanted to do this when I rode Alixor to the sky kingdom, but with him I couldn’t quite bring myself to let go.
With Ozias and no one else watching, I do it.
Once we’re well past Dyēus’s encampments, Ozias veers towards the east, and I hold on with my knees, leaning into the turn, my grin wide and unrestrained.
Ahead, I make out the first signs of the glittering ocean.
The closer we get, the more clearly I see the white caps crashing beneath tall waves, the water a deep, fathomless blue.
Ozias increases his speed, and plunges low so we’re coasting a mere eight hands over dry, cracked earth, careening towards the precipice of a cliff face.
As we crest over the edge, my breath leaves me at the sudden drop visible below us, the wide white sand beach meeting the boundless blue of the ocean.
Ozias dives and then evens out over the sand, the sound of waves mingling with the wind, the scent of salt on the air a balm to my excitement and as he glides his belly close to the rippling water, a sense of contentment washes over me.
The undulation of Ozias’s flight lulls me further, my fingers loose in his mane, my muscles like liquid.
At some point after the sun has dipped past the apex in the sky, Ozias jerks, and I grip him a little harder to maintain my balance.
He does so again a moment later, and then, after a longer time, shoots skyward.
I cast glances around me, searching for danger, but all around us the sky is free of anything save the occasional cloud.
“Are you playing with me?” I ask, leaning down to his ear.
His answer is to drop then raise swiftly so that my chest flattens against him.
I laugh and sit up, engaging my body, feeling how he moves.
I close my eyes and reach down to my dragon, eager to entice her out, hoping that perhaps I could fly on the power of my own wings.
When I find her, tucked tight inside me, I ask, Do you feel this?
Do you know what this is? Come see, come see.
She ignores me, a grumbling, sleeping giant that has no interest in paltry air tricks.
I imagine sitting myself next to her, leaning my back against her neck.
I'm filled with tentative fascination as I mentally coexist with this part of myself that, not long ago, I didn’t even know existed.
My fingers flex on Ozias’s spine and my eyes start to sting with the beginning of tears.
For so long I didn’t understand why I didn’t feel like I belonged, like my sense of yearning was unfounded and ungracious.
Inside, I feel the dragon shift against my human self, drawing closer, comforting me.
I’ve been here all along, she seems to say. I am with you always.
Ozias jerks again, this time more violently, as if he hit something.
Or something hit him. My eyes spring open, teardrops sprinkling down my cheeks.
A snarl raises his lip. The wind whips his mane as he swivels his head slowly left, then right.
I scan the skies, above and below. I note that the sun has dropped closer to the horizon, the late afternoon turning swiftly towards evening.
A shadow catches in my peripheral vision, but then it’s gone.
“What was that?” I ask, my tone taking on the form of a huntress, firm and cautious.
One of the ravaged, Ozias answers.
On full alert, my muscles tense. The sudden disappearance of the dragon chafes along my spine. “So where did he go?”
That’s what I’m trying to—
Before he can finish speaking, the glistening surface of the water below us breaks and a wide open jaw with teeth sharp as blades vaults directly towards us.
Ozias rears back, thrusting us up, then tumbles through the air, evading the attack.
I hold on tight, even as Ozias twists upside down for the barest of moments, before seamlessly turning us upright.
Are you all right?
My blood is sharp as it courses through me, prickling my skin. “Good.” I feel behind me, thankful that the basket is still secure. “How can I help?” Since I have no weapons and no way to transform, I know there’s not much I can do.
Hold on tight. I’ll get to shore and drop you. Keep low.
Ozias hurtles us through the air, back towards the distant beach.
Glancing over my shoulder I see the dragon, droplets of water flicking off its body as it swims through the sky, eyes wholly white and unfocused like a dead fish.
Strangest of all is the vaporous black mist drifting off its form and out into the breeze, as if the beast were on fire.
“It’s gaining on us,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Are you using Thrace’s elahi?”
Ozias bares his teeth. It’s not coming as easily as it should. My fingers tighten into his mane.
Ozias pushes, but he’s been flying for hours now, indulging me in the air, trying to give me the break I so desperately need.
Before we can get to the beach, the ravaged is on Ozias’s heels and lunges for us at the exact moment Ozias lowers towards the ground so close it kicks up a gust of fine sand.
Jump, he says and without hesitation, I leap from his back.
I land hard, rolling through the sand, the granules catching in my hair and sticking to my skin.
I stop myself and look up in time to see Ozias knock his antlers into the side of the ravaged dragon before spiraling back towards the ocean, his body twisting and straightening like a lock of hair caught on a turbulent wind.
He’s trying to draw the ravaged away from me, but the dragon has me pinned in its sights and ignores his jab, instead coming straight for me.
Ozias roars, lunging to catch them, but the ravaged slips past and Ozias’s teeth graze along the dragon’s back hip.
Panic surges hard and fast in my chest, and inside my dragon rears up her head.
I hear her tell me she needs more energy and something in my gut pulls hard.
In a burst of mist I transform, right before the ravaged careens into me, teeth sinking into my shoulder.
My head slams against the cliffside and my vision goes dark.
Gasping, I open my eyes to a blinding whiteness—but it’s not the white of the beach. It’s the white of Dyēus’s castle floors. I snap my head up, my wide eyes meeting Zhoric’s.
Zhoric goes preternaturally still. He’s sitting on his throne and I sense a crowd behind me, though I don’t know how great. I’m on my hands and knees, heaving, shaking my head. Zhoric’s fingers seize around the throne’s armrests. In my mind, he asks, Where are you?
I can’t answer. Elsewhere, beyond this room, I’m thrown to the side, and it causes me to jerk here, a scream grappling its way out of my throat, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
When I open them again, I’m back on the beach, breathing hard, lying on my side in my human form.
My shoulder is on fire, but I push myself up and scuttle back until I’m nestled into the short, scraggly grasses and reeds that cling to life on the huge white rocks pockmarking the land.
I settle near a crevice, but it’s not deep enough to conceal myself from the ravaged.
Over the ocean, Ozias and the ravaged tussle, though it looks more like a dance.
Ozias ducks and weaves, his movements calculated and graceful while the ravaged collector lunges and swipes, jaws snapping and chasing in a relentless drum.
The miasma comes and goes, wisps of it coming off the dragon’s body and drifting away on the wind, but never clearing, merely getting carried away like a passing cloud.