Page 56 of I Summon the Sea

Jai climbs inside the opening, vanishing completely, and in my turn, I sit on the lip of the chasm and peer down.

I see his pale face turned up toward me. He lifts his hands.

Do I trust him to catch me?

But my body seems to think so, because I just slip into the crevasse and let myself drop. His hands break my fall, catching me around the waist, then coming up against my armpits. I’m suspended in the air.

Against his body.

He lowers me to the ground.

What is this place? The bindings around my bleeding feet are all but gone, and as I step on the warm, soft floor, I swallow hard.

This isn’t a tower. I glance around at the other humans’ white faces, their wide eyes. This isn’t anything a human or fae has built.

“It’s an earth dragon,” he says. “A she-dragon. A wyrm.”

We areinsidea dragon? A godsdamned dragon?

“What are you saying?” a man mutters from behind Jai. “Insidea dragon? That’s impossible.”

“We’re inside her mouth,” Jai says as if that’s the most logical thing in the world, as if it happens every day.

Inside her mouth.

Holy shit.

The people around us start to mutter curses. A young man lets out a cry and struggles to climb back up, but the walls of the wyrm’s mouth are slippery. I think I catch a glimpse of the dark-skinned woman I helped save from the tritons in the sea, but I can’t be sure.

I have more urgent matters on my mind.

How did this happen? The king controls the air and earth elements, and this dragon is of the earth, so the king has some control over it, although he is no dragon speaker.

Unless it’s the telchin who is controlling it.

It doesn’t matter. Who cares whose idea it was? We are mere feet away from the dragon’s gullet and mere moments away from becoming dinner.

How do we get out?

“We aren’t dead yet,” Jai says way too calmly. “That probably means this is part of the game. Sit still.”

“Sit still?” a woman cries. “And wait for the dragon to swallow us down?”

“I’ve seen paintings of this,” Jai whispers. “In the king’s rooms. Paintings of older games. The dragon delivering the winners to the terrace at the front of the palace.”

Before I have time to unravel this little tidbit, though, the entire tower—the entire dragon—shakes. We’re thrown against each other, stumbling and swaying.

One of the men screams, the sound long and thin with terror.

What’s happening?

“The wyrm is moving,” Jai says, and of course that makes sense in a terrifying way. “Careful not to fall down her throat.”

Right.Careful not to fall into the beast’s belly and become the dinner I was talking about.

How, I think, grabbing for something to hold onto and finding nothing.Careful, how?

“Hold onto one another!” Jai calls out. “Together we’re too big a bite to swallow.”

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