Page 39 of I Dream of Dragons
“We all make plans without knowing what is in store for us,” I whisper.
“Yeah. So let’s go.”
I shake my head. “I’m going to save those other humans. Call a drak for me, will you? Be a dear. I’m going.”
“Don’t, Rae. Don’t do it.”
I show him my teeth in a vicious grin. “Watch me.”
“So stubborn,” he says, and there’s awe in his voice.
“You mean pigheaded and annoying. I own it.”
“I mean you’re strong,” he says. “The strongest person I’ve ever met.” He sighs. “I’d save them, you know I would. But not if it means losing you. I won’t live with that.”
Warmth spills inside my chest. “I’ll be fine.”
“Fine? There are draks hunting us down.” He gestures at the sky. “We need to get moving, we need to get airborne and leave the arena as quickly as possible. I thought you knew that not everyone can win.”
“I won’t let more people die if I can help them. It won’t happen. Not on my watch.”
His rueful smile returns. “I should have known. Fine. I go where you go, Rae. This time, I won’t be left behind. Command me.”
I stop. Those last words… they strike a chord within me. I don’t understand it yet, don’t know what he means by being left behind, but I know he’d go with me, that he’d save the others if he thought he could.
I believe him. Gods, I believe him. How does that fit in with the picture the king has painted of him, compounded by my resentment at being dismissed as second choice? With the king being my long-lost love? Why does my heart pull me to Jai, not to the king?
“I’ll call a drak for you and we’ll look for survivors,” he says quietly. “But you’ll ride alongside me as we search for your friends. And if after our first sweep we don’t find them, we’re going to the palace. This trial is over. Agreed?”
I nod. “Agreed.”
“Thankfuck,” he says with feeling, and it’s my turn to smile.
So he can call draks down without Phaethon’s help, and Phaethon can call shadows, but neither can access the full potential of that power while they fight one another for control… for better or for worse.
The wind lashes Jai’s tattered shirt and his ink-black hair. He bows his head and lifts a hand, shoving his fingers through his dark locks. Such a Jai-like gesture, I think, such a familiar thing. It means he’s concentrating on the task at hand.
How is it possible that I know his tells and habitual gestures when I’ve only known him for a week?
This is so weird.
And why does it feel so right?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RAE
A pact. A compromise. Temporary and hard-won.
I understand that he might be worried about this delay, about making another sweep over the heaving sea.
Might. Yeah, funny. In this arena crawling with death where he died? Oralmostdied? Who wouldn’t be? And what really happened?
“What do you care about me anyway?”—“I don’t. But Jai does.”
I mean, what does Phaethon know? He brags and orders people about, but I don’t believe he can tell how Jai feels about me, or anyone else.
They share the same mind.
