Page 79 of I Dream of Dragons

Phaethon had told me the same. Deep in my heart, I know Jai cares for me, and although I had decided not to let myself fall, it was too late all along.

He had felt familiar all along, he had said things I tried to ignore?—

“I failed you.”

No, can’t think about that now. My ragged breaths echo in my ears as I climb the first flight of stairs I find, then the next. I need to get out, out into the fresh air. I’m suffocating.

I wish the spell still gripping me would unravel so that I could shift and dive into the sea, stay in its cool oblivion forever and forget myself again. Forget why I’m here, why I lingered.

Weak. I know. I need to fight the urge to hide.

After running down more corridors, opening more doors and climbing even more flights of stairs, I finally open a door and burst out into the night.

I bow over, panting, a stitch in my side.

It’s a terrace. The sea crashes on the rocks below, distant, echoing booms. Somewhere in the distance, a mermaid is singing a haunting melody, bringing memories to my mind.

Memories of me sitting with Mars on the river shore, reading from a book I’d brought to show him. Mars laughing quietly, a dimple in his cheek, fair hair falling in his eyes. My little brother running down the escarpment, yelling that I’ll be late for dinner.

Walking unsteadily to the end of the terrace, I grip the balustrade and suck in a few uneven breaths, once more resisting the urge to climb over the balustrade and jump into the water, join the mermaids, and the forgetful, finned folk of the deep.

The pull is strong. It hauled me under once already, so much so that I barely remember my time in the deep. It croons to me about quiet and peace, about a cold balm on the rekindled embers eating at my soul.

But then I hear a voice. A voice I know, full of fire. It’s the reason the flames are back, licking at the old scars in my heart.

Jai!I whirl around, scanning the terrace. Where is he?

Strange how my steps led me to him, leading me true through the still unmapped for me palace.

I don’t immediately see him, and I spin in a little circle. Darakins screech overhead, draks, too, and the mermaid’s song remains in the background, making my thoughts ache.

“Eniote, kariote.”His deep voice is whispering, hissing, rumbling.“Mainomenos, oikos dichorrages, Eos Hemera elthe…Fuck. Fuck!”

Phaethon.

I start running, my shoes thumping on the paving stones of the terrace, my arms full of my long skirts, running past pavilions and along hedges, past stone-hewn benches and tables and urns in which flowers grow.

Jai, Jai…

He’s standing at the parapet, overlooking the narrow expanse of sea between the palace and the shore, the Temple Island barely visible across from us with its tower in the middle. His jacket and shirt are a pile on the floor. A trellis nearby sends the scent of roses sailing through the air.

His dark hair is in his face—always in his face, a curtain hiding him from the world, and I itch to brush it back, to reveal those beautiful eyes of his.

But he’s hunched over as if in pain—and that’s when I finally register the knife he’s pressing to his bare chest.

“Jai… Jai, stop!” I grab his wrist, afraid to do anything more than that, because the tip of the blade is digging into his bare flesh and crimson is flowing down those hard, unreal planes of muscle, from the taut pillow of his pectoral to his cut stomach, the ridges and hollows painted with rust. “What are you doing?”

“Too much noise inside my head,” he hisses, “he keeps talking to me, it makes no sense, he keeps talking and talking and I want to kill myself to make it fucking stop!”

His hand clutching the hilt of the knife is shaking, his words hanging in the air, raw and jagged. He has fine scars all over his arms, I realize, both old and new.

“No.” I tighten my hold on his hand, both our hands wrapped around that hilt. “You can control him. You’ve done it before.”

“Hells…” He grimaces as I pull the blade out of his flesh. “The king… his bite… it helps…”

“Then let’s go to him.”

He grimaces. “No. I… I won’t crawl to him. Won’t depend on him. Enough.”