Page 30 of I Dream of Dragons

I hate to push him when he still looks half-dead, but we need to get out of the water.

Now.

After a moment, he shakes his head like a wet dog, black hair flying, droplets hitting me in the face. He wipes a hand over his eyes, coughs some more, and nods.

At first, nothing happens. We’re bobbing on the waves and monsters slither underneath us, making me flinch every time I see them.

Then tendrils of shadow rise from Jai like dark vapors, reaching for the side of the platform. They attach themselves to the smooth surface and trail down to him, forming ropes.

Thanks be to the Sleeping Gods. We have a tether.

I pull at his arm. “Come on. We have to climb.”

He swims along, his movements sluggish, his gaze unfocused. I groan as I drag him after me and push him againstthe platform. Still, searching for handholds, he starts to climb and I follow suit.

His shadows reach for me, and a bittersweet feeling curls inside me at the thought that even so dazed, he thought to secure me.

Why am I still having feelings for him?

He’s clumsy, which is so unlike him. Nevertheless, he’s a better climber than I, and not only because my legs are still weak, still unused to functioning as two separate units or because heights frighten me. The higher we climb, the more I try not to look down and lose my nerve.

When he misses a foothold, the shadows save us both, yanking us up until we find new handholds and footholds.

The climb seems never-ending. Another handhold. Another foothold. Sweat drips into my eyes, stinging. My muscles burn. My shoulder, the one I almost dislocated in the first trial, screams with pain.

I reach higher, find a new foothold, push up?—

The shadow tendrils break and we plunge down.

I cry out, hands hitting the filigree surface. My fingers dig into a hollow—then slip, and I’m falling?—

A hand closes around my wrist, and I hiss when fiery pain radiates up from the delicate bones.

Jai.He caught me. He’s frowning down at me where I’m swinging from his hand, and it’s the most alert I’ve seen him since I dragged him out of the depths of the arena.

“How… How did I get here?” His eyes narrow on me, then widen. “You got me out of the water?”

“Yes!” I swear as I dangle like a worm on a hook. “Now pull me up.”

“You dived after me. Saved me.”

“I sure did. Pull me up, Jai! We need to get up there, on the platform, get a drak and find the others, then cross to the palace!”

He’s still staring down at me as if he can’t figure out something. As if I’m a riddle.

“Jai! Snap out of it. We have to get up there!”

He turns his head, looks up.

Then the hold he has on the surface of the platform crumbles completely, and I only have time to thinkdammit, here we go again, before we plunge down.

I hate the sensation of falling.

… falling off a cliff, my blood lifting in crimson droplets around my face as I plunge down to my death in the frothy sea…

I brace for the impact against the waves. The water can be pretty hard when you fall from up high, as memory tells me. Crushing bones. Taking your life.

But the impact never comes.