Chapter 69 #2
After an hour of windsurfing, the joy Millie first experienced wore off and was replaced with stoic determination.
She would’ve rather been practicing her flips or harebrained evasive maneuvers, something thrilling, but she knew this was the Business of Sailing 101.
Sometimes monotony was the order of the day rather than excitement.
And keeping them on course was the purpose of this time upon the dune skiff, not seeing how high she could launch the skiff into the air.
By no fault of her own, the sail would suddenly lose the wind and Dirk would have to supply it with his magic until the desert decided once again to do its job.
Eventually, but not sooner than she expected, Millie needed a break.
Her whole body was stiff and sore from maintaining tension against the sail this entire time, and if she did not get to sit down and rest, and preferably pass out for a blissful hour or two, she would faint.
“Stop on the crest of the next dune. I’ll take over.”
The skiff bucked as Millie jumped at the sound of Bradley’s rough voice. But she regained control and let the skiff slide to a tenuous halt. The apprentice unfolded himself from the bow, ripped off the hem of his robe, and knotted it around his head to keep his hair from flying into his eyes.
Millie winced at the sight of the ragged hem, and not because she was a fashionista at heart.
Despite the robe being worn homespun and the drabbest of browns, up until this very moment, the apprentice’s treatment of the garment had been nothing short of reverent.
When it was not on his body, it was hanging up in his closet or folded with crisp, clean lines.
To ruin it now to make a simple headscarf, when she had handkerchiefs packed away for just that purpose, told her he really had lost hope.
And even though she was nothing short of miffed at him for his beastly treatment of her, no one should have to feel the emptiness of despair.
Balanced as they were on the precipitous slope, they held hands and shuffled their weight carefully to trade places.
Bradley’s hand was rougher than she remembered—then she recalled how he’d wrecked what remained of the workroom in his grief.
Like when they had first met, he seemed repulsed by her presence, and was quick to let her go the moment the skiff was balanced.
Millie pursed her lips to keep from calling him out for his surly attitude, silenced by a pleading look from Dirk.
Well, the apprentice was the dragon’s problem now.
Millie threaded her arm through the netting that secured the luggage so she wouldn’t accidentally slide off the skiff, and the moment her head rested against his knapsack, she was out like a snuffed candle flame.
Bradley kept the dune skiff skipping across the desert until sunset. His gaze never once left the horizon, never flicked to the princess tucked away into the bow nor the Mini Red coiled around her legs. Dirk watched him, though, he knew, yellow eyes slitted against the sun and sand.
As they journeyed across Ashburnum, the monotony of the boom’s pull against his muscles and the steady heat of the sun quieted his churning emotions into a still pool.
He thought nothing other than maintaining the wind, and thus felt nothing.
In that time, though his jaw remained firmly clenched, his eyes had cleared.
This small feat had restored a smidgeon of his confidence, that he could do something right.
When the desert began to change from sand to rock, he stopped the skiff to prevent damaging the hull.
He nudged the sleeping princess with his foot. “Tula.”
She woke with a start, limbs flailing. Bradley leaned away as her backfist sailed past his knee.
“Is it my turn?” Yawning, she swept the loose stands of auburn hair, now reddish-gold from all her time spent out in the sun, away from her eyes. “Why is it dark?” She sat up with alarm. “Have you been sailing us this whole time? With one arm? How’re you, like, not dead from exhaustion?”
“Is this the part where I take off my shirt and flex so you can see how virile I am?”
Millie appreciated his snark—it was better than his sulking—but not the image the suggestion conjured in her mind, especially since he’d recommitted himself to treating her with derision and she’d resolved to keep the emotionally constipated apprentice at arm’s length.
She gave him an imperious up-down glance that would’ve earned her a small round of applause from Miss Dama.
“Go on,” she challenged. “I love a man with confidence. Let’s see if it’s earned.”
Bradley rolled his eyes and gestured for her to rise. “We’re near the canyon. Get up so Dirk can hide the skiff.”
She did, and the apprentice shoved past her to get at the luggage.
“I got it,” Dirk said with an overabundance of chirp. He snaked forward and unloaded the skiff with his magic.
Millie knew what he was doing—ingratiating himself by being helpful.
The Mini Red piled their gear neatly to one side and buried the skiff beneath a whirlpool of sand, grunting with the effort.
With a few flicks of his tail, he redistributed the sand and rock until the burial site was completely indistinguishable from the rest of their surroundings.
Bradley crossed his arms over his chest. “Great. Now how are we supposed to find it for the way back?”
Millie sauntered over to her suitcase and extracted the tin Dirk had given her earlier that day. She popped the lid and dumped an enchanted mongoose turd onto the sand. It glowed a steady pink like a coal freshly fished out of the fire.
The Mini Red wrinkled his nose. “I can smell now why Sir Eustace wanted to use these to protect his bezoars. Skin my scales, that’s disgusting.”
Millie withdrew her map, too. “If you don’t mind, Master Dirk.”
The Mini Red flapped high into the star-studded sky, paused to assess their surroundings, and returned to pinpoint their location on the map. Millie marked it with an X and returned the map to her pocket. She gave Bradley a smug lift of her eyebrow.
He snorted and helped himself to the waterskin.
After they’d all refreshed themselves, Dirk selected the appropriate spells from his satchel.
“This is why you wanted all those extra endurance spells, isn’t it?” Bradley accused. “So you could sneak off.”
The Great Red coughed and said nothing. Bradley was rough in his mounting, shoving off scales and pulling on horns.
Dirk winced and whimpered once, but didn’t protest. Millie followed much more gently, and, when she shifted her weight to slide into position behind Bradley, the apprentice caught her arm.
“You’ll sit in front of me, Tula. That way you can’t stab me in the back again.” He pulled her down in front of him.
Millie wrenched free of him and elbowed him in the ribs for good measure.
He merely flexed, tightening the muscles there, so her elbow hit only a firm wall and bounced off.
He slipped his arm out of his sling so both of them could encircle her, constricting tightly as he gripped the horn in front of them.
She elbowed him again. “You’re crowding me.”
“This isn’t a cushy palanquin like you’re used to, Tula. Get over it.”
Millie considered head-butting him in the nose, maybe jamming her thumb into his shoulder joint.
Dirk must’ve sensed her intentions, for he rolled a large sad, pleading yellow eye up at her.
She huffed and decided, for herself, that she didn’t want blood on her lovely sun hat. “Tally-ho, Master Dirk.”
The Great Red lifted off, picked up the luggage net, and headed for the sea.