He kissed the back of my head.
“Sam.” I wanted to turn around and press my body against his. I wanted to feel his skin beneath his clothes and push my fingers through his hair. I wanted things I could only imagine. But not unless we were alone. “I’m sorry about these last weeks. About the secrets I kept. About my wild ideas. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know.” He squeezed my hands, and our knuckles dug against my chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, either. I got so lost in my own guilt and misery that I forgot what’s most important.”
“What’s that?”
“Living. Loving. Making the most of our time together, no matter how short or long it will be.”
I tugged my hands from his and pressed his palm flat against my heartbeat. After he’d saved me from Rangedge Lake, I’d awakened to find him like this, holding me close, warming me, though he didn’t know who I was. What I was.
Now I traced the back of his splayed-out hand, feeling bones and knuckles and muscle, and when I released his hand, he didn’t ask if I was sure. We both knew I was, or I wouldn’t have invited him. He lingered over my heart a moment longer, breathing hard into my hair, and then slid his hand over the curves of my body, awakening in me a deep and wonderful ache.
Heavy layers of cloth muffled our breathing, his whispered love. We were cautious and quiet, but fires ignited within me and I’d never wished so hard that we were alone. I wanted to turn over and map out the lines of muscle on his body, too, but if I did, I never think about sleep again. And Sam seemed content—more than content—drawing patterns on my stomach, smoothing his palm over the slope of my hip, and turning my body into liquid. I’d never wanted anything so much as I wanted him to keep touching me.
When his movements shifted from sensual to sweet, and his breath turned soft and even behind me, warm on the back of my neck, I finally began to drift. Though I wasn’t nearly ready to stop, sleep dragged at me, and this wasn’t our only night. There were still a few more nights to fall asleep with his hands on my bare skin.
Halfway into a dream of sitting at the piano with Sam, thunder snapped me awake.
And a shrill ringing surged through my head.
22 FLIGHT
“DRAGONS!”
I struggled around Sam’s arms and legs, shouting. He jerked awake, and on the other side of the tent, Stef and Whit were already out of their sleeping bags and lighting lanterns and finding pistols. Sylph poured from the tent, shrieking.
“Where are they?” Stef turned on her pistol, and the blue targeting beam shone across the tent. Lantern light caught her face, darkening the shadows around her eyes.
“I don’t know.” I tried to straighten my clothes as I stood. “I hear the sound. The ringing.”
Wing thunder clapped again, and we all followed the sylph outside. Snowy rocks stung my bare feet, and the surrounding woods were black with shadows, both real and sylph. The sound of their moaning rose higher.
Above, dark shapes flew across the midnight sky. They circled us, as though looking for a place to land.
How had they found us?
“I have an idea.” I dashed into the tent again and pulled my flute from its case. Sam grabbed me when I emerged again.
“What are you doing?”
“You are doing it.” I pushed my flute into his hands. “They’re afraid of you.”
“Are you sure it’s wise to threaten them like this?” he asked.
“They’re armed. Now we are, too.”
Trees snapped like twigs as dragons batted them aside. Rushing and cracking and chaos sounded. Birds squawked and flew away, calling out warnings. Animals in the forest skittered as trees fell and immense wings shadowed the earth.
I found one of the lanterns and turned the light as high as it would go.
<The one with the song is here.>
<They need us. They will not use the song against us.>
Sam, Stef, and Whit all screamed and clutched their heads against the ringing, but while it made my head throb, I kept on my feet. Maybe I was growing used to it.
Three dragons landed in front of us, wings tucked alongside them, blue eyes luminous. Immense talons dug gouges in the frozen earth. Snow dusted their scales. Their huge fangs shone in the lantern light.
I stepped forward, no coat and no boots, but sylph fanned around me like wings. “What do you want?”
<We have decided.>
They’d actually been considering helping? Huh. “And?” It took all my will, but I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder and check on my friends. Hearing the dragons speak for the first time was a painful experience.
<We have looked at your city. The tower shines even in daylight now. The evil inside grows stronger. Your people are enslaved to their own kind.>
I didn’t move. Hardly breathed.
<The earth cracks itself apart. The steam vents have blown open wide enough for a dragon to nest inside. Your lake is gone. Only death lingers there now.>
Acid Breath’s voice was huge, booming inside my head. Nodding made the world spin, but I managed to hold myself upright. “Yes.” My voice seemed thin and weak, though aside from the sylph’s soft moans, my friends’ groaning, and the crack and patter of fallen trees settling, my voice was the only sound. “Yes, those things are happening because of what lives inside the temple.”
<Many things live inside the temple, but the only one you want to destroy is the one you call Janan.>
“Yes.” What else lived inside the temple? There was nothing. Just endless mazes and horrors—and the skeleton chamber. But the skeletons didn’t count as living, did they? “Why do dragons attack the temple?”
<To destroy the one with the song.>
I spun to find Sam clutching my flute to his chest, his eyes round and shadowed in the lantern light. He’d heard. The others—they were both looking up—had heard, too.
“All those attacks,” Whit said, “to stop Sam?”
To stop Sam, who’d only just learned he had some kind of weapon, which he didn’t even know how to wield.
Fleetingly, I considered telling the dragons he never intended to use the song against them, but they were unlikely to believe me, and if I wanted to keep them a little afraid of us, I needed something besides the sylph.
I focused on the dragons. “If you help us destroy the tower, the cycle of reincarnation will end. You won’t have to fear the song anymore. Once Sam grows old and dies, it will be gone forever.”
<We do not fear the song.>
I lifted an eyebrow, but one didn’t just accuse a dragon of lying.
<If you know your cycle of reincarnation will end, and that the song will end with it, then we will help you destroy the tower.> Acid Breath glared at Sam, who was silent. Not moving. <If you will allow yourself to end, we will help you destroy the tower.>
And we wouldn’t have to rely on a weapon we didn’t know how to use. We’d just have to rely on dragons.
I glanced at Sam. This was his choice.
His voice came low and rough. “Destroy the tower.”
<Good.> Acid Breath drew back and up, casting a disinterested glance over our campsite. <Gather your belongings.>
“Why?” I put my fists on my hips and glared up at the dragon, like I wasn’t imagining how easily he could swallow me whole. As if the sylph knew my fears, they moved closer.
<Humans walk too slowly. We will take you where you need to go. Then we will return north and rally our army. Your tower will be nothing but rubble.>
Ride the dragons to Menehem’s lab? Ride the dragons?
I glanced over my shoulder. Sam just stared blankly, while Stef and Whit seemed at a loss for words. Riding the dragons would get us there much more quickly, but then we’d have to trust them not to kill us.