Page 11 of Tamhas

If this were a fight, I’d tell myself to keep going. Just because things weren’t looking so great and I might have bitten off more than I could chew did mean I could give up.

“I’ve already come too far,” I whispered to the birds, who twittered around like they were arguing with me. Let them argue.

I got up, brushed the dirt from my pants and kept going. If I didn’t reach the mountain in another hour, I’d have to turn around and go back to the car. Maybe I wasn’t right about where I’d started off. Something. But I couldn’t keep digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole out of stubbornness. I’d have to try again, was all.

Even if it would piss me off like crazy to admit making a mistake. Nobody needed to know but me.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe more. I noticed the ground started sloping upward. The hike became more of a challenge. Trees started to thin a little, giving me a look at what was ahead. My heart beat faster, and not because of the extra exertion.

There they were, in the distance.

A string of mountains which trailed behind a larger mountain, glimpses of it available now and then as I drew closer. I could barely breathe, I was so excited. Just finding it was almost enough to make the trip worthwhile.

When I stepped outside the tree line, three things hit me all at once: the sun, as it touched my bare shoulders and arms again, the heart-stopping majesty of an emerald green mountain I only realized in the back of my mind was covered in moss or clover or something which gave it that color…

And dragons.

Three of them.

I rubbed trembling hands over my eyes. It had to be a hallucination. I was tired, I hadn’t had enough to drink, the protein bars sat uneaten in my pack. I should’ve eaten them. I should’ve…

No.

They were there when I opened my eyes again. Three of them, circling the peak of the emerald green arrowhead.

I couldn’t breathe. It was like the time one of my training partners landed a kick in the center of my abdomen with just the right amount of force and knocked the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t catch a breath right away—there was a sickening moment when I hung in the middle of knowing I’d breathe again and fearing that I wouldn’t. That I would die right there on the mat, flat on my back.

I didn’t die then, and I wouldn’t die in the shadow of the woods and the mountain and three fucking honest-to-God dragons.

Their scales glistened in the sun. Amber, green, gold. One of each. Their wings were the thinnest membrane and sun shone through them, too.

Did I walk into a Harry Potter movie? I looked around, half-expecting to see movie cameras, but that was stupid because dragons were CGI—as Emelie said. Computer generated images, or something like that. Not real. I was losing my mind.

One of them roared as if it wanted to prove how very real it was. Like it could hear my thoughts as I stood there, wondering what the hell to do next.

I was rooted to the ground as they landed, all three of them, half-hidden behind a group of boulders.

Get the hell out of here, my instincts warned. I could almost hear a voice in my head urging me. You need to leave. Now. Before they see you.

Only I couldn’t. Instead of turning and running like I was on fire, the way I should have, I started walking toward the boulders to get a better look. Maybe I wanted to prove that I had only imagined the dragons—if I ran without proving it was just my imagination, I’d always wonder about what I saw.

I reached the rocks and snuck a look around them, trying to hide myself, and things just got worse from there. Instead of seeing three dragons, which would’ve been bad enough, I saw three dragons whose bodies seemed to shimmer like water, right before my very eyes.

Leaving three humans in their place.

I fell back a few steps. What the hell was I seeing? Two women and one man, all of them buck naked, laughing together as they slid into tees and track pants. Talking like nothing completely out of the ordinary had just happened.

As I took another step backward, completely intent on running like the wind because no way was I about to stick around to meet these dragon people, the heel of my hiking boot caught a stone, and I tumbled backward.

The three of them looked up at the sound of my pack hitting the ground.

“Who are you?” the man barked, running my way with the two women behind him.

There was nothing for me to do but defend myself against them, since they didn’t look like they were rushing over to make sure I was okay.

All of them snarled, nostrils flaring like they smelled danger.

I fell into a fighting stance, turning sideways with my weight on my left foot and the right behind, fists at shoulder height.

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