Page 65 of Dragon Gods

She slammed into the cavern wall or perhaps it was the ceiling—hard rock biting into her back for only a second before she was tossed forward again. She was flying through the night sky, glowing spots all around her, the starworms caught up in the water with them. A shadow floated a few feet away and she reached, hands just brushing against Fox before he was pulled away again.

Her throat burned, lungs aching with every passing second. She was going to die. They were both going to die, drowned in this tunnel and no one would know. If they were lucky, her body might wash up in the cenote base so they might know how she ended. She felt her muscles loosen, the lack of air choking out the remaining strength of her body.

Please gods. No.

She could just make out Fox spinning a few feet away, a shadow among the starworms and she reached out with the last of her strength. Her fingers brushed against his arm and then his hand was snagging on hers. They came together in the water and she saw the same fear and resignation she was feeling reflected in his face.

Something hot brushed against her side and she jerked in the water, trying to see through the churning darkness. As flash of something in her mind, a voice not her own. Fox’s face went pale—a translucent shade of white she didn’t think possible. Before she could get her bearings and understand what had passed by her, there was dry air on her face and she choked in a breath, expecting icy water to flood in. She blinked, breathing in another gasp of stale air as she tried to understand what she was seeing. They were holding each other, heads engulfed in an air bubble as the water continued to churn violently around them.

Across from her, Fox coughed before letting out a long string of expletives.

“How? What? King’s balls!”

His hands were still clasped around her arms, but his eyes were focused beyond her and beyond their protective bubble.

Just ahead of them, as if guiding their way through the dark tunnel, she saw a long lithe body undulating through the water, iridescent scales and feathers gleaming as if the serpentine figure itself was glowing. The water around them hummed and warmed withsomething.She could feel it in her mind.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, her brain too busy chanting the word she couldn’t say.

Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.

Fox didn’t need a response, though. His own eyes, filled with something between terror and awe, told her he knew exactly what they were looking at.

The light around them shifted and Fox’s stricken face came fully into view, the shadows of the tunnel receding. In the same moment, the edge of their water bubble trembled, unsteady.

“Not good,” she said, yelling over the churning water that was echoing around them.

“A genius observation,” Fox said, looking around with wild eyes.

“Not the time for sarcasm, you self-righteous?—”

“Not the time to argue.” With that, he let go of her left arm, linking his right more tightly around her and then jerked backward.

Sofia’s shoulder wrenched painfully as the icy water hit her once more. She sucked in water as she attempted to breathe, the pain radiating through her body, but a moment later, her head was above water. Fox was braced against the wall of the thin canyon, arm wrapped tightly around a root as he pulled Sofia closer. The roots were wide and strong and she wrapped her own arm through one, pressing her body against the wall.

The water still rushed, waves hitting against her chest and face. It was more water than she’d ever seen. And it was that thought that had her suddenly pulling away from the wall.

“What are you doing?” he questioned, as she tried to disentangle herself from the root and his grasp.

“If this is the river that connects to our cenote, then the flash flood could kill everyone! I need to stop it.”

“You can’t just stop a flood! You’re going to get yourself killed!” They were both shouting, yet she could barely hear anything over the crashing rapids.

“I need to try!” She let go of the root she’d grabbed and felt her body begin to pull away. Fox’s hand wrapped around her wrist, tightly. She didn’t fight him, but ducked her head under the water. It was difficult to see anything so close to the surface where the waters churned white.

But it didn’t matter. Sight would do nothing for her right now. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, trying to touch the presence she’d felt earlier. She had no idea what she was doing, but something about it felt right.

Please, stop the flood. You’re going to kill someone. Please.

She didn’t know if she was pleading with it or the water or the universe. But nothing spoke back.

It may have been one minute or a hundred, but suddenly Fox was pulling her back, dragging her from the water and back onto the cliff. Just as she was moving to grab back onto the wall, a tree came crashing down the river directly toward them. Fox pulled her into him, twisting to press her against the wall as the tree’s branches crashed into them, breaking apart on the wall. She felt more than heard his groan of pain vibrate against her back.

“We need to climb! We can’t stay down here,” he said over the churning water.

“But—”

She stuttered out the word, not even sure what her argument was. She couldn’t feel her face or much of her body. Before she could pull her thoughts together, the earth itself seemed to groan and she saw Fox scrambling to keep his hold on the cliffside.

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