Page 111 of I Summon the Sea

The darakin watches me with brilliant blue eyes. It’s the only real color on him, and they look far too intelligent for a flying lizard.

Everyone knows that draks are pretty stupid, but this little creature is watching me as if he’s about to speak.

But he can’t.

That makes two of us.

My hand shakes a little as I reach for the white snout. Small black scales run along the mouth and up to the… ears? I never thought dragons had visible ears, but this one does.

“Don’t pet his nose,” Jai instructs. “Scratch his neck, below the chin. Or where the neck meets the body.”

Oh.Changing trajectory—it seems losing my hand was on the table, and no joking—I gingerly touch the gray scales under the darakin’s chin, my breath caught somewhere in my throat. His snout opens slowly as I pet his neck, and his head turns one way, then the other.

The scales are warm, I realize, once the rising panic has abated a little. And though you could never call them soft, they are so small there that it almost feels like skin. Textured skin, but skin all the same.

A low rattle has my hairs standing up on edge, and I realize it’s coming from the darakin. His forked tongue slips out, a dark blue to match his eyes.

Just like a dog, I think and almost laugh out loud to myself.Yeah, right.My mind is just latching on every similarity it can find to a familiar, likable animal. An animal that won’t take a bite out of me, or drag me over the wall and into the sea.

“He’s a worthy ally,” Jai says. “The daras and the darakins are related. Both are true-hearted, faithful, and fearsome.”

Not sure I see how one can compare darakins with the enormous dragons who live in the sky, rumored to never touch the earth.

The darakin produces that rattle again—he, I remind myself, Remi is ahe—and it sounds almost like a cat’s purr. Is it an indication he enjoys the way I’m scratching his chin?

Remi shifts his claws on Jai’s arm, and I wonder if they will pierce the fabric and draw blood.

That reminds me of how I found my hands covered in dried blood this morning.

“Now,” Jai says, “would you let him perch on you?”

I balk and draw my hand back. He’s joking, right? The creature must weigh at least seventy pounds. It will crush me.

“They are lighter than they seem,” Jai says. “They have to be, in order to fly. Their bones are fluted, hollow.”

That makes sense. Still, it doesn’t make the prospect any less frightening.

“She won’t do it,” someone whispers, and I’m surprised to find that the fae nobles, as well as some humans, have closed in around us, watching this new, unscheduled show. “She’s going to back out.”

The darakin observes me with a beady eye. Clouds reflect in it. I think I see the sea. He makes a croaking sound, shifting again on Jai’s arm.

Jai says nothing. His dark gaze is calm. He doesn’t prod me, or tease me, or repeat his question. His challenge.

And somehow, I know he won’t think I’m weak if I refuse to do it. He’s not a bully. Something tells me he’s never been one.

“You make that grace and strength seem thin and meaningless because you move like water.”

Among gasps and hushed whispers, I lift my chin and extend my arm. It’s just a darakin, I tell myself. Jai spoke with him. His name is Remi, and he wants to meet me. He won’t harm me.

You won’t harm me, will you?

I chant this new mantra inside my head as the darakin spreads his wings—white and gray, leather but also gem-like with threads like metal and stamps of what looks like eyes and stars at their centers—and rises into the air…

… then flutters back down, landing on my arm, one claw digging into my shoulder, the other on my forearm.

Oof.Heavy. I sag under the weight. Jai was right, Remi isn’t as heavy as I’d thought, but he’s no tiny sparrow, either.

“Gods, Rae,” Jai whispers, eyes shining, “you’re beautiful.”

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