Page 23 of Drakhana's Treasure
Rastus shakes his head, striding back to me to hold my hands. He rubs them in his own, blowing on them. It does no good, I can’t even feel his hands. The doctor steps away to make a few calls.
“I don’t know what to do, Kirralee!” Rastus leans over, stroking my hair.
“Get me warm.” My voice is a harsh, low whisper, barely even words. Rastus looks around as if he wants to set the room on fire.
With numb fingers, I squeeze his hand as hard as I can.
“Outside.” It takes all my strength but I manage to force the words out. “Take me to the desert.”
I want my mountain and the deep lava flow but I know there is no hope of getting there. The desert will have to do. I would rather die outside than in this room.
When Rastus wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his chest, the pain tears at me. Every joint screams and every muscle clamps tight to my bones. Harsh gasps leak from my mouth that would have been screams if I could open my lungs.
He runs for the roof, taking the service elevator. When we get out there Rastus shifts, right there on the roof in the early afternoon! His dragon form wraps around me, shifting without letting me go. His muscle bunch around me as he gathers himself. Then he leaps off the roof, powering towards the desert.
The glare doesn’t hurt my eyes. I can’t feel the heat, but I can see it. The clear lines on the horizon that shimmer like water, the rippling waves of hot air that rise from the baked clay. I can even smell it, an overly dry and harsh smell as if something is about to catch alight.
He doesn’t fly long and by the time he sets us down on a small hill I’m barely conscious. The cold is slowly taking me over. It doesn’t matter though. The sky above me is blue, the ground under me is gold. The power of the sun beats down on me. This is a fine place to die.
“No, Kirralee, no!” Rastus grabs my hands, squeezing them and trying to shake me. “Don’t go Kirralee don’t go!”
I try to speak but I can’t even murmur. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m still frozen, but if I can look at the sun then I can at least remember fire as I die.
“Reach for the fire, Kirra! Don’t you dare give up on me! What does your dragon say?”
My dragon?
I hadn’t really thought about my dragon. I assumed she died as the freezing poison stole through my veins. I try to move but I can’t, it’s as if the cold has frozen me into a statue. I take a deep breath, feeling like it could be my last. Then I close my eyes and look for the firey core that lives within me.
Deep, flickering warmth. No, not warmth. Not enough fire for that. Just a small flame that is about to go out.
I change my awareness to the blistering sand under me. I remember last night and I reach into the land. My dragon spirit sinks through the soul. I know, the blood of the earth is not far away.
When my ethereal shape touches the lava, I can feel it in my chest. It’s like being in two places at once. The fire tugs against me in both my spirit and my body.
The heat rises through the earth and I rise with it. I am one with the desert, the heat that wells from her heart and meets the flame that beats down from the sky. Heat envelopes me and chases back the frost.
My arms and legs start to wriggle, relief blooming in my chest. My dragon comes upon me and I twist on the ground as I embrace her flaming heart.
Fire blooms from my throat and flares through my entire body. It feels like fire is leaking through my pores. The ice melts and becomes steam as it rises from my skin.
As I stand up, my wings stretch high above me. Every part of my body is focused on the heat that blasts through me, setting my entire body on fire and roaring a great jet of flame into the air.
Sixteen
Rastus
Even in the relentless glare of the desert, she feels cold. My chest is tight and my stomach is twisted in hard knots. I don’t know what to do.
Meaningless words come out of me, or at least they make no sense to me. Useless mutterings that we make over someone we love when we are trying to push away the inevitable. I’m seconds away from losing her and every moment that slips by brings me closer to that point when I have to keep living without her.
Unacceptable! My dragon recoils against this and rage floods through me, mixing with despair. I beg her to find the fire. I can’t understand this. How did the touch of the ice dragon make her so sick?
Her hands twitch and I feel like something is happening. She still breathes, just barely. Her skin is so cold that even a human at this temperature would be dead.
The glow comes before the heat. Tiny pin pricks of light that look like flames trapped in ice. I move back just a little, waiting for my future to be decided. Without her, I don’t have one.
Scales flash across her skin and she shifts, the most painful and awkward change I have ever seen. Relief floods through me as she coils up, coming down on all fours. Her wings stretch and her head turns straight up to the sky and pours flame up to the wind.
