Page 18 of I Dream of Dragons
“I don’t have anything.” She sighs. “Listen… have you ever considered that it might be a trick?”
“A trick?”
“Making us climb these towers. What if there is nothing up there? Meanwhile, the fae are watching us through their fancytelescopes and laughing their asses off and the draks pick us one by one.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I admit, “but from past experience, the towers have their purpose, and the red flag on top is there for a reason.”
“Yeah, to attract the draks so they can eat us!”
She may have a point there. Yet my gut tells me I need to get back up there, get that flag and whatever comes with it.
More draks fly by and I gasp when I see them carrying someone in their claws. The man is struggling and yelling. My blood freezes.
Draks hadn’t been an issue in the first trial. They were kept out of the arena, probably with the use of magic. Whoever designed the trial of the air, though, apparently felt that draks fit right in.
Jai can talk to the draks, command them when needed. Why isn’t he commanding this drak to bring that man back down? I’ve lost Jai from sight again but the tug in my chest pulses occasionally, like a second heart.
“Hold still,” I whisper, hauling Amaryll against me as more draks fly overhead. “And think happy thoughts.”
“Happy thoughts? I’m only praying they haven’t seen us.”
“Let go of your fear. Dragons can smell it.”
“Oh, great.” She huddles against me, soft and vulnerable and I think, she has a daughter, a family to go back to. The tower sways with the waves and I don’t want to think what’s causing them, because any moment now a tentacle or a long neck ending in a maw full of teeth will slither up the narrow base of this tower and try to get us.
Overhead, the drak holding the man in its claws roars a plume of fire and flaps again those leathery wings, vanishing beyond the walls of the arena.
How many of us are left now? I wonder if Mera and Axwick are still alive. If she wasn’t the woman the sharks ate, and he the man caught by the serpents or the drak.
“I’m going back up,” I decide, pushing Amaryll slightly to the side. “Lift me.”
She nods, lacing her hands together to give me a leg up, when a pale streak dives down from the top of the tower. Amaryll shrieks, stumbling backward, and I barely catch her before she topples back into the waves.
I look up. “Remi!”
“Remi?” She reels in my arms, and I push her against the tower as the darakin flaps his wings and hovers over us. “What’s going on?”
“Catch!”he says inside my head, and the moment I open my hands, he drops something in them.
A red piece of fabric.
A red flag.
My mouth hangs open.You didn’t…
“I went and got it for you!”he purrs inside my mind.“See? Useful.”
You are indeed!I think back, fisting my hands in the fabric, a tremulous smile on my lips. My eyes sting. Gods, he sounded so much like my brother just now.Thank you.
A pleased feeling fills my mind, and I realize I’m feeling his joy as he flies off.
“Look at that darakin, helping you!” Amaryll is staring at me. “Wait, is it the one who rode on your shoulder during the ball?”
“Yes. That’s Remi.”
“Remi. A darakin with a name. Is that normal?”
“I wish I knew.”
