CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
There was a pause, a silence that was far louder than the busy room around us. There wasn’t any more time to argue. Nothing Theo could do would change the fact that Thorne was on his way.
‘Understood.’
I’d expected some of the panic to ebb away, but the suit was still having to cool me down. I wondered what it would be like to not be on the edge of a panic attack before every race. At the very least I’d gained Theo’s assurance that he wouldn’t make things worse when it all came to a head.
Swallowing as much of the worry as I could, I returned to Gottyk and swung up into the saddle.
I strapped myself in. The familiar routine of belting the loops together started to get me into the right headspace.
He stalked along the tunnel towards our launch, the Kiestral team surrounding us in a flurry of activity.
I kept my breathing deep and even. Preparing myself not for the race – I was more than ready for that – but for confirming the news to Josie.
‘Hey, comms are open. Can you hear me?’ Josie’s voice rang clear inside my helmet.
My heart jumped up to my throat.
‘Yeah, I can hear you.’
‘Okay, weather update: it will be clear for launch, but expect rain within the first ten minutes. It will escalate to hail before lap fifteen.’
‘Josie,’ I said, hesitant to break her flow. Unwilling to crush her hopes of doing this for any longer.
‘I think Plan C will be our best option, given you’re in the middle of the pack today. We’ll see how the weather affects everyone. If you can stay ahead for these first ten minutes you might be in with a shot.’
‘Josie, Thorne is out there somewhere. He’s had enough time to make his way here. He could show up any moment.’
There was a long pause before she replied.
‘Get on with the race and we’ll deal with him later.’
‘You’re … calm? This is our last race—’
‘Every race could have been our last race, Lena.’ Her voice was even, no hint of nervousness.
‘I’ve been prepared for it all to come crashing down at a moment’s notice.
This isn’t unexpected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we know, but there’s no reason to change our plan for him once the race starts. ’
‘Josie, whatever happens, don’t come forward. Don’t defend me. Don’t intervene.’
‘Focus on the race,’ she replied, brushing it aside.
‘Sixty seconds from launch,’ Hector unknowingly interrupted us.
Gottyk perched on the lip of the cave. Below us was a steep drop into the circuit where snow and ice frosted the mountainside.
‘Promise me, Josie. There’s no use in both of us getting into trouble.’
‘Fine,’ she huffed back to me. ‘If it will make you focus on the race.’
Hector cut in. ‘Thirty seconds to launch.’
‘We can do this,’ I said.
Gottyk shifted underneath me. I settled low against the saddle. The mist was gathering close in the air outside.
‘Ten seconds to launch.’
I closed my eyes, listening for the whistle of the flare. It cut through the faraway cheers of the dedicated crowds. My eyes opened – a pop of sound and colour burst in the sky. My legs tightened.
Gottyk threw himself off the ledge, keeping his wings tucked to cut through the mist as fast as possible. We plunged down. I pulled on the reins, arcing myself to the left so Gottyk would scoop to the side, putting us facing forwards on the circuit.
The proximity sensors rippled across my right-hand side as a flash of blue caught us. The tucked wings of a Prevere nearly brushed Gottyk’s as we fell side by side. The sleek dragon of the home team was nearly invisible against the mountain clouds that enveloped us.
‘Visibility is shit!’ I roared to Josie against the rush of air buffeting my armour. The copper threads washed warmth over me to compensate for the ice-cold climate.
‘It’s only going to get worse. Do your best with the range you’ve got.’
I checked to my right and the Prevere was eking ahead, ninety-nine painted on its wing – Colly.
I nudged Gottyk to the right. We were on the racing line, or at least I hoped we were, but Colly was going to want to go ahead into turn one. The Prevere riders were known for racing clean, but the last thing I wanted to do was crash and take Colly with me.
‘Bank now!’
I followed Josie’s instruction the instant I got it. She had far more information than I did. The tracking augments on Gottyk’s saddle gave her a better idea of where I was. We tilted to the right, Gottyk flinging his wings wide to catch the air. Colly followed only a split second after us.
I ducked my head down as far as it would go – at this angle the talons of Colly’s Prevere blue were dangerously close to the top of my helmet. We’d managed to get ahead by a few feet, but Colly had the inside line, with less distance to cover.
We flew into turn one literally neck and neck. An orange shadow to a blue dragon.
We alternated back and forth for the first ten laps. Sometimes I would pull ahead, then I’d fall behind to the tail. I was locked into the fight, battling against the bird-like arcans not only to get them out of my way, but to keep up with Colly.
It was thrilling to be able to race against a Prevere.
The crowd had other opinions though. The cheering as we blew past the stands each lap was incredible, but none of it was for me.
None of it was for Thorne. But it wouldn’t have mattered if they had known – I was going up against a dragon and rider in their home race.
As for the others, I’d not seen horn nor scale of them.
Josie had kept me up to date as they’d passed or fallen back, but the mist was too thick for me to see them for myself.
Occasionally a ripple from my proximity sensors told me someone was near, someone bigger than an arcan, but as far as I could see it was only me and Colly on the circuit.
The rain arrived just as Josie had predicted.
As the droplets drained away from my visor I looked to my right, seeing Colly push forward into turn six.
We’d been competing to beat one another out of this turn each lap and it was about to be mine again, whether he liked it or not.
I nudged Gottyk downwards, using the drop in altitude to up our speed.
We could fly underneath to take the same racing line and come out ahead.
We ducked and moved right, but the dull grey expanse around us wasn’t empty air.
The proximity sensors only picked up other moving objects: dragons, people and arcans. Stationary objects, such as mountains, were presumed to be avoidable by the rider.
Gottyk’s wing tip clipped the wall, shooting loose shale at us.
It sent sharp pings through my suit and hit the saddle augments so hard that some went flying off into the circuit behind us.
I tucked in tight as Gottyk rolled. His whole body spiralled, taking the energy of the impact and letting it move through him.
Without a clear sky there was no way to tell which way was up.
My flight suit compressed my legs, forcing my blood to stay with all my important organs.
My neck strained to keep my head from snapping back.
Panic threatened to rise up, not from the collision, but the memory of the DNF at the Mirendi track.
I couldn’t let this happen. Not today. Not in my last Volitant race.
I rocked to one side and tapped my feet on Gottyk. He flung out his wings, catching the air. We levelled out.
‘Are you okay? I’ve lost access to Gottyk’s readings.’ Josie’s voice was a welcome sound after being thrown around.
‘We clipped a wall and lost a few augments. Not sure which. I can barely see my own hands.’ The deep clouds had blocked out the sun and the rain had made the air thick and blurry. In all my years of racing I’d never flown in conditions like this.
‘Have I lost Colly?’
‘He’s just ahead of you. The clip slowed you down. Everyone is struggling with visibility though. Omar and Ellas flew right into each other a lap ago and have dropped way back. You’re in third.’
Third. I was halfway through the race and I was third. A podium was within my grasp. An actual trophy could be in my hands in the next hour.
‘Lena, Bach is behind you, followed by the Bolls. I can only get your location from your helmet. The locator augments on Gottyk are gone. Be careful.’
I was flying blind in the storm and Josie was planning blind without her numbers. The casting orb in my helmet only saw what I did, which wasn’t much. If we managed to pull off a decent finish from this mess we’d have worked a miracle.
Gottyk wove through the mountain crags back across the start–finish line for yet another lap. The proximity sensors tingled and then shot up in intensity just as a flash of orange pulled up alongside us. Bach.
‘Team orders: let him pass.’ It was Hector. They didn’t have faith that Thorne could stay ahead so told me to give way to the rider with a better chance.
It made sense for the Kiestral strategists to ask for this, thinking I was Thorne. Even if they’d known the truth, it was still the right call. Bach was a legend for the history books and I wasn’t even a footnote.
I tapped my helmet to reply. ‘Understood.’