Page 8 of I Summon the Sea

These sea draks sometimes hunt near the shores, but usually it’s where the coast is rocky and the water dark and deep. They prey on sharks and other big fish, sometimes on dolphins and small whales, too.

Not on barges slowly drifting by.

A deathly quiet has fallen on the deck. The guards take a few steps back. To their credit, that’s as far as they go, their weapons still raised, spears and swords and daggers. A couple unsling bows and grab arrows.

But the only person left at the front, facing the leering sea drak, is this Athdara person, with his writhing shadows and black swords.

Watch out!I want to shout as the dragon’s massive head dips down, but no sound leaves my lips. The enormous mouth opens, displaying rows of yellowed teeth and those long fangs full of venom.

Athdara isn’t caught by surprise, though. He yells something and bows out of the way, trailing shadows, swinging his swords in an upward arc. The blades strike sparks off the dragon’s gemlike scales, and then… the dragon goes still.

The huge head turns, a yellow eye the size of my head regarding us.

That malevolent gaze slides off me and focuses on the shadow warrior.

What in all the hells is happening? I’ve never seen a sea drak stay still, observing.

Any dragon.

And this dragon is so still I can see the pattern of the interlocking blue-and-green scales around that yellow eye, the iridescent skin forming the branching crest on its head, the wicked saber-like teeth gleaming in its open mouth.

Then, a giant claw smashes into the side of the barge, and the guards take another step back.

Athdara remains planted in front of the monster, swords pointing down. The shadows have stopped moving, but they still hang around him like a dark mantle, pulsating.

“Leave,” Athdara says at last. Just that one word.

The dragon’s head turns and rises, a hiss like a million insects filling the air, the giant fangs dripping clear venom—and Athdara lifts and crosses his swords over his head.

I watch, my breath caught somewhere in my throat, as the dragon hovers there, his claw gouging a deeper wound into the barge.

Then it pushes off us and slowly sinks back into the water, without another sound. The ripples of its dive send the barge pitching and tossing like a dory.

The silence stretches on for a few more heartbeats—myheartbeats, my heart banging inside my chest like a darakin trying to escape a cage.

A cheer goes out over the barges, a reverse wave, rocking me forward, toward the amassed guards. I barely stop myself from plowing into their leather-covered backs.

“Dragon speaker!” they call out.

“Dragon summoner!”

“Dragon marked! He will open the gates for us!”

The gates? Are we talking about the gates between worlds? Why would the King’s Sword be able to open them?

Then again, he is apparently a dragon speaker. I’ve never heard of one before now. The drak squadron riders of the fae king’s army don’t count, as they don’t talk to their steeds, not as far as I know, either raising them from dragonlings and teaching them to obey certain commands, or capturing and compelling them with spells, by force, to serve.

Interesting… As if he needed more mystery about him.

They part, and I see him, still standing where the sea drak had faced him mere moments ago. His tall form looms, narrow hips and broad shoulders wrapped in that black armor that seems to swallow the light, his black hair tangled and curling at the back of his pale neck.

He looks so… human, but that doesn’t mean anything. Fae may have that eldritch about them, that otherness, almost human but not quite, yet they hide it most of the time. Hooves for feet, tails, scales, fur, slit-pupil eyes, even bark for skin sometimes… You name it. You can see an echo of that in the lesser fairies that roam the wilderness.

The world they came from has to be the weirdest place.

I wonder what sets him apart, aside from the rare ability to command dragons—and apparently, to open gates. Then I remember the shadows…

The awe of the amassed guards is infectious. They are still cheering and shouting, clapping each other on the back as if they were the ones who sent the dragon away.

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