Page 49

49

CHARLIE

I knew. From the moment I glimpsed a silvery gray dragon winging through the night toward the tower, I knew. Perhaps that’s why I had been standing in the window in the first place, staring out at the darkness, waiting. I knew Essa would come. I even had time to throw on my cloak and pull on my boots.

The window shattered, sending a sparkling of glass across the moonlit floor. Then Othura’s tail whipped across the window’s muntin bars, dashing them aside.

I leapt into the window frame and froze.

There was Essa, her hair windblown and wild, her eyes filled with starshine.

“Hi, poet,” she said. “Come fly with me.”

Despite everything, a smile lit my face.

The door behind me banged open. Guards were there—but not the normal royal guards. It was the Brotherhood’s dreaded Lacunae—five of them. They gave a shout of alarm and charged, swords drawn, but I was already leaping, landing on Othura’s back, wrapping my arms around Essa’s waist and holding on as Othura winged us off into the night.

“You lived,” I whispered into Essa’s ear. My lips traced down her neck, a trail of kisses.

“Stop.” She shrugged me off. “You have a lot of explaining to do. But not now. I have to concentrate on getting us out of here.”

“Wait. What about Parthar?”

“Who? Oh, your dragon. My friends are working on freeing him. I’ll meet up with them later and we’ll get the two of you back together. First step is getting you out of Maethalia with your head still on your shoulders.”

Knowing that Parthar would no longer be in the hands of those disturbing Gray Brothers, I felt a pressure release in my chest. Parthar would be okay... but our danger was far from over.

I looked back. No dragons were flying after us—yet.

“Can they catch up to us? When they realize I’m gone?”

Othura huffed beneath us. I’m a libran . Not likely.

I still wasn’t used to hearing Parthar in my mind much less another dragon, but I took comfort in her words. At that moment the wind jostled us, shifting into a strong tailwind. Othura opened her wings and pumped them hard, propelling us forward like an arrow. Essa leaned down, laying her chest down against Othura’s back, and I leaned with her, though my mind was less on escape and more on her body as it pressed back against me in the saddle. I pulled her tighter and she gave a teasing squirm, wresting a groan of longing from me. She flashed me a dark smile, then looked ahead once more, and we flew even faster toward the darkness as, behind us, the light of dawn began to seep into the horizon.

I lay my head against Essa’s back and closed my eyes. For a fleeting moment I felt completely content, grateful and at peace—even as thunder rumbled in the distance.

* * *

We feared dragons pursuing us. But as the wind picked up and the first raindrops began pelting down, it soon became clear that the greatest danger lay not behind us, but ahead. Fast-moving thunderheads swept in, dousing the stars and blackening the moon. The angry clouds flashed from within, unleashing booms so powerful they stuttered my heart. Shards of forked lightning cut like jagged, glowing veins across the night. For a while we climbed, Othura trying to gain enough altitude to get us above the storm, but I doubted we’d get there. A storm of this magnitude probably topped out over 40,000 feet, far higher than dragons or airplanes could venture—especially a small, injured dragon like Othura. Sure enough, we soon stopped climbing. Othura glided, panting with exertion, her spread wings buffeted by the storm.

Kortoi warned me of a storm… Essa said, the words in my mind meant for me and for Othura. When she glanced back at me, I saw something in her eyes I’d rarely seen: fear. Then she was conferring with Othura, but allowing me in on the conversation.

How far to Dorhane?

We’re close. A few more leagues, maybe, the dragon replied.

I frowned. We’d never make it that far in a storm like this.

Can you control the wind? I asked. Make it calm down?

Othura grunted in annoyance at my question.

We can direct a gust, but not a storm like this, Essa said. It’s too big.

Then we need to get to five-thousand feet, I said. Descend.

Essa turned and gave me a sharp look.

Are you telling me how to fly my dragon?

I’m telling you how to save us. Five-thousand feet is the best altitude for penetrating thunderstorms, Princess. Trust me.

She might have argued. But the wind hit us again, blasting us in the face so hard our forward progress nearly stopped, leaving Othura wobbling. Then a second draft came, along with a change of air pressure, and we dropped so fast that even I felt a nervous flutter in my belly.

Without further argument, Othura angled us into a descent. We squinted ahead, rain spattering our faces, wind blasting and buffeting us, and for a while it seemed as if the storm was only worsening.

Then suddenly, we broke through. The winds that had assaulted us diminished and our wobbling flight path steadied, though rain still stung us and thunder still rumbled ominously above.

You’re a very knowledgeable poet, Essa said. Speaking mind-to-mind as we were, I could feel the wonder, the relief, and also suspicion in her thought.

I would have to tell her the truth as soon as we landed. And before…

Before we parted.

It hit me with the force of a bullet: I didn’t want to be parted from Essa. I couldn’t be parted from her. Somehow, I had to?—

There!

It was Othura’s voice in my mind. Below us, through the gauzy gray clouds, I could just make out a shape against the vast expanse of dark water. A horn-shaped land mass.

Rograd Point, Essa said with relief.

Here it was, the epicenter of the battle between our two nations, a piece of land that held both the world’s last viable dragon hatchery and vast stores of valuable petroleum. The Isle of Dorhane. Off to our left, where the point widened out to the larger landmass, light flashed through the fog. Mortar explosions. Muzzle flares. Flashes of fire magic. I knew what lay there. Miles of trenches and scorched fields, the blood and misery of war. The Front. Dorhane had once been a paradise, it was said, but decades of war had left it a scarred hellscape, a place few sane people had the courage to visit willingly—and yet tonight it was our only refuge. And so we veered toward it, descending through the storm.