Page 16 of I Dream of Dragons

Bleeding in the sea is the mother of all bad ideas, but there’s no remedy for that now. Hissing through my teeth, my breaths sawing in and out of my aching chest, I race for that tower.

Until another set of sharp teeth sinks into my calf, and I cry out, yanked under.

Honestly, today sucks.

Turning in the water, I try to see what got me and see a ridged, silvery back.

Holy shit.It’s a mirror eel, almost transparent. I struggle to unlock its maw from my leg, and then shoot back up, leaving strips of flesh between its teeth.

The tower. I’m almost there. Swimming under, I can now see the rounded underside, which is white and flat, pristine withoutbarnacles. They really put these towers into the water for the purpose of this trial. I swim up again, toward the surface. Almost there, almost?—

A hand grabs mine and heaves, pulling me bodily out of the water—and onto the base of the tower.

Shocked, gasping as my lungs take over, I cough and lie on my belly like a stranded fish, waiting for my heart to stop trying to break through my ribs.

Then I roll onto my side, and a bright smile beams down at me.

“Now we’re quits,” the woman says, and I snort.

Amaryll.

“Thanks,” I croak, then spit out some more salty water. “That’s kind.”

Though it leaves us both on the same tower with a single prize to retrieve. Could this be a mistake that will cost our lives?

“God, I love your voice,” she says, still smiling. “I heard you just got it back, which I’d love to hear about, but do you sing?”

“Nothing gets you down, does it?” I shake my head, sitting up. “Yes, I do sing sometimes, as a matter of fact.”

“Great. You should. I’ve always told my daughter she should never stop singing.”

A trickle of ice down my spine. Daughter? A little version of herself? Singing?Oh no…My heart thumps hard. If I was committed to saving Amaryll before, now I’m sworn to it.

Between her and Jai, I’m already defeated.

Jai who saved me many times over.

“He has saved my life many times,”Tru had said. Like it’s understood, obvious, like Jai is that kind of a man.

Then how does that fit with what the king implied about him? That he caused my family’s death. That he refuses to bring back the dead. Does that make him a bad guy?

Why is it so hard to convince myself to dislike him?

“I’ll push you up,” she says. “You climb up there and get whatever is at the top.”

Slowly I nod even as a shiver travels up my spine. I don’t say,What about you?Neither of us knows what I’ll find at the top. Maybe a poisoned spike is waiting to take my life. Or a snake, waiting to bite. I doubt she’s offering out of the kindness of her heart. She’s probably too scared to climb up there.

“Let’s do this,” I whisper.

CHAPTER SIX

RAE

I clamber onto Amaryll’s shoulders, my drenched white dress bunching around my hips. I long to tear it off me, throw it away as I did with my shoes which were the first thing I lost when I jumped into the sea.

I wonder if there is any law in the arena stopping me from undressing—but maybe the soggy fabric will help me climb up. The white surface of the tower looks smooth and slippery.

And like I thought, my wet dress sort of sticks to it as I climb, giving me some much-needed traction.