Page 58 of I Summon the Sea

What had that been? A rock?

“Command the wyrm, dragon speaker,” another woman says. “Stop it! It may be taking us to the bottom of the sea! We’ll drown!”

“She won’t,” Jai mutters. “I told you, I’ve seen a painting?—”

“Fuck the painting, we’re in the water, I can hear it!”

It’s true. Splashing sounds are now around us, but it’s impossible to tell if the wyrm is in the water or on solid ground.

“Dragon speaker,” a man snaps, “do something!”

As if he owes them.

And then I remember that indeed he does, that he was the one who doubled the number of the sacrificial victims this year, that he’s the one who rounds them up every time, the one policing the human towns and villages, the one fighting for the fae king.

I’m so torn in my feelings toward him. It’s breaking my mind.

But even if I wanted to move away from him right now, we’re crammed inside the wyrm’s mouth with no space to breathe. The stench of death and rot is threatening to suffocate us.

Meanwhile, Jai has recaptured my arm at some point and hauled me against him. He has braced his booted feet against the roof of the wyrm’s mouth. “Don’t let go of one another! Stop moving, hold onto whatever you can!”

A man wails. “We’ll die, we’ll die?—”

He’s cut off when we hit something. The impact throws us all against one another again, and Jai’s hold on me is gone. I fall against the others, and they shove at me.

Someone is sobbing.

I’m glad to discover it’s not me.

I’m so damn dizzy. My stomach roils again. I thought I was used to the cold, but now I feel ice in my veins, in my bones. I’m shivering too hard to think.

The cavernous mouth opens again, light spearing through to stab at my eyes.

And the wyrm spits us out onto the palace terrace.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We roll out of the dragon’s mouth, spilling onto the white flagstones. I end up on my back, the breath knocked out of me. The sky stretches over us, a silver dome with hints of gold. It spins slowly, an upside-down bowl that dazes my eyes.

Beautiful.

Being alive is beautiful.

I made it out of the dragon, out of the arena.

I’ve won the first trial.

It was supposed to be that way, that was the plan, and yet it’s unfathomable. Once I realized I had no magic, it had looked as if I’d die there.

The humans around me groan as they try to regain their feet. Beaten up, some of them are bleeding through clothes soaked and torn to shreds. Their eyes are wide in their pale faces.

We are a sorry sight.

The fae aristocrats are standing on balconies and terraces, safe behind ornate iron fences, watching as we crawl and stumble, smearing blood over the pale flagstones.

I resist the urge to give them my little finger in salute.

But when I try to sit up and lift my hand, the noise inside my head intensifies, a buzzing beehive trapped inside my skull.

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