Page 21 of I Dream of Dragons

We’re heading toward the center, I realize, and I don’t want to go there. I need to find a tower first. I see one of the white circles looming to my right as the water streams by my face, and although I have no way of knowing whether the key is still at its top or if someone else got to it already, it’s time to jump ship.

Of sorts.

Timing it as best I can with the breakneck speed at which the serpent is slicing through the flooded arena, I let go of the fin and tumble in the water, head over heels, over and over. Losing any sense of orientation. Losing my thoughts.

… blood staining my clothes, staining the water, a shiny blade reflecting the light, sticky crimson slowly dripping, the world fading…

Pain cuts through the images and haze, and I hiss, managing to stop my tumble through the depths.Ow.I twist about. What cut me? There’s blood in the water.

A small, black blade-fish swims past.

Oh, just great.

Where blade-fish swim, there’s usually a sea drak following, and given I can’t control the sea creatures, I need to get my ass moving.

Sea draks follow blade-fish, like the black moths follow Jai…

Jai is fine. He can summon draks and weave shadows. Save yourself.

Throwing myself forward, I aim for the underbelly of the closest tower. I’ve been in the arena for a while already and I still don’t have a key in my possession.

Is there a clock ticking away somewhere? Is there a time limitation to reaching the platform, or the palace? Or is it simply a matter of making it out before you become too exhausted and simply dying in the arena?

By nightfall, I think. Didn’t the telchin mention nightfall?

The ticking I hear, though, is that of my racing heart as I cut through the water, zigzagging to avoid the razorblade-finned black fish that dart here and there, feeling the push of the water as a sea drak follows.

Shoving me.

The surge pushes me up until I’m surfacing despite my efforts to stay down.

And then I hear my name bellowed over the waves.

“Rae!Makhair, answer me. Rae! Where are you?”

I gape at Jai who’s flying over the arena astride the Raven drak, black as the night.

He must have seen me, though, because without waiting for my answer, he sweeps down and a massive talon reaches for me. The black claws close around me, lifting me out of the water.

And we rise.

CHAPTER EIGHT

RAE

The black drak flies us over the arena and rises higher, which is an intelligent move, as below us I catch sight of the sea drak jumping out of the waves, maw open, trying to catch me. I’m basically a worm dangling on a hook as I wiggle in the circle of the drak’s claws.

Without my magic, the sea creatures don’t recognize me as one of their own. Without my power, I can’t control them.

This is intolerable.

The drak swoops back down toward the surface and I see someone splashing in the waves. Never a good sign. The shadow of something huge curls around the human—another sea serpent.

Or the serpent I just abandoned.

Something about the splashing figure feels familiar, though.

“I think that’s Mera!” I shout. “She’s in trouble. We have to save her!”