Page 427 of Kingdoms of Night

So he made every motion with single minded intent. No noise. No fast movements, so the creature wouldn’t smell him.

Like a cockroach, he spidered his limbs over the edge of his narrow boat and then laid down on the sands behind it. Here he could breathe. He was out of the creature’s sight, for now. He had time to get his bearings.

Rowan craned his neck to look at the island behind him. There were trees in the distance. Trees with trunks so thick he didn’t think he could wrap his arms around them. Maybe even two of him couldn’t do that. He’d never seen forests that old in his life, and the part of his soul that harbored green magic loved to see how deep those roots grew. There were no trees like that left in the Umbral Kingdom.

He had to focus.

Rowan peered over the top of his boat to check on the dragon. The beast was still staring out at the ocean. As he watched, it tilted its head to the side and sighed again.

What was it doing?

A low rumble started in its chest, and he knew he had made a mistake. Looking over at it must have made his scent fly up into the wind.

Instead, that rumble turned into a word. “Beautiful,” the dragon said.

They could talk?

That was enough. Rowan didn’t need to see any more than this. He didn’t care about the dragons or what revelations he might discover here. He was going to find his sister, sneak her back to the boat, and then they would both return to the Umbral Kingdom where he would scold her for being so careless that she let a dragon capture her.

On his hands and knees, he scuttled across the beach toward the safety of the trees. The trunks were close enough together that the dragon behind him wouldn’t be able to race after him. The beast wouldn’t fit inside the forest.

All he had to do was make it to that tree line and he’d be safe for a little while longer. His hands slipped on the sand as sweat slicked down from his arms and shoulders. But still, he moved. And once he was far enough away from the dragon, he heaved himself upright and then bolted for the trees.

He waited for the roar of rage and anger that he’d tricked a dragon. But nothing came. All was silent as he threw himself in between two massive trunks and continued in a sprint until he couldn’t breathe any longer.

A week out to sea had made him tired. His muscles twitched in places he didn’t know could hurt, and finally, he fell onto the soft moss of the forest floor.

Breathing heavily, Rowan rolled over onto his back and put his hand over his heart. It would stop beating so fast if he gave it time, he was certain. Then he could get his bearings and start searching for his sister. He had to control the ragged sound of his breath, though, or the monsters would find him long before he found Aster.

He was here, though. He’d made it. Now to find his sister and... A laugh bubbled out of him before he could catch it. He’d really done it. Even after all those elves had told him he couldn’t do this, he’d managed.

The soft sound of wind rustled through the leaves over his head, and he thought for a moment that the ancestors were with him. Surely they were the ones who had sent him the breeze to cool the sweat from his body and ease the air into his lungs.

It wasn’t.

Glittering green scales slithered through the forest canopy above him. This dragon didn’t look like any he’d seen before. All the dragons he knew were bright red, like blood had splattered upon them and stained their scales. The emerald creature that slithered above his head wasn’t short or made for battle. It was long, with shorter wings but ones that spread out wide over the branches and rained leaves down onto the floor. It seemed to climb through the forest, or perhaps glide on a wind it had summoned. This was a dragon made for forests.

He was not safe here, Rowan realized with horror. The dragons lived in the trees.

Scrambling to his feet, he ran. He ran as though the dragon above his head was following him, but he had no way of knowing if it was. This creature could capture him with a long claw or its neck that stretched out so far he was certain it could stay at the top of the trees and still scoop up its prey with its wide jaws.

He had to run. He had to keep moving.

Rowan didn’t know how long he ran, only that he felt ready to fall over when he burst out of the forest. He skidded to a halt, sliding diagonally across slick ground covered in algae. There was a pool here. Outside of the forest, there were lakes and ponds. Dotted as far as his eyes could see.

All around them were sapphire dragons. Each one of them was coiled in a ball near the water that was likely its home. Some of them were covered in bright green leaves. Lily pads, he thought. Others were so encrusted with algae that they even had long tendrils of water greens dripping off their heads.

One of the dragons snorted in its sleep and then shifted as though his movement had woken it. The scattering sound of stones underneath his feet had made enough noise for them to realize there was someone in their den.

Stay asleep, he thought.Please just stay asleep like I was never here.

The beast snorted again. There was no time for him to run back into the forest because he’d end up sprinting into the mouth of the green dragon. And if he tried to go forward, he would wake one of those blue dragons the moment he stepped into a pool of water.

He peered through the darkness, trying to find anywhere at all where he might hide.

And there, to his right where the small dots of lakes and ponds ended, he saw the smallest crevice in the earth. It was far too small for a dragon to fit through, and that meant he could hole up there until morning. Perhaps in the light he could spy on the dragons and see where they were keeping the elves. If they hadn’t already eaten them, that was.

Rowan moved slowly again, picking his way past the sapphire dragons as they slept. The moon had almost hit the horizon when he finally made it to the crevice and slipped his body into it. Stones pressed on his front and his back, threatening to steal the breath from his lungs. Still, he wiggled deeper into the earth until he had to slide down onto his belly and crawl forward. Ever forward.

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