Muscles coiled, fluttered against my legs and chest as I leaned over Acid Breath. From the corner of my eye, I could see enormous golden wings stretch out and shimmer in Stef’s flashlight. A network of bones and veins stood out when light shone through the leathery appendage. I couldn’t fathom how something so thin could be strong enough to lift an entire dragon, but during Templedark, I’d slid down a wing to escape a rooftop. The delicate flesh hadn’t split under my weight, as I’d feared.
The wings rose up, swooshed down. Air caught in a bubble, giving us a heartbeat of weightlessness. In our cocoon of blankets, Sam’s fingers jabbed against my clothes, against my ribs. I struggled to breathe evenly.
Thunder snapped as Acid Breath flapped his wings again. His body jerked lower—I bit back a yelp—and muscles bunched. <Hold tight,> he muttered in our heads, though there was nothing to hold on to but the blankets used as padding between us.
Wings beat faster, dragon thunder ripping through the air. He leapt, and my stomach dropped—
We thudded to the ground, trees crashing aside. He turned, galloped a few steps, flapped faster, and jumped again.
The air held us. Acid Breath’s muscles flexed and moved, nothing at all like the smooth gait of a horse. His body twisted and bent, snakelike.
Then I couldn’t think about that discomfort, only the sharp rise and the way he was suddenly vertical. I slid on the blanket, toward Sam. His grip on my ribs tightened, and something—his chin or forehead—dug against my back. I couldn’t hear anything but the wings pounding on air.
We slid. Screaming, I reached forward, but my mittened hands glided along slick scales. No chance of holding on.
I had no clue how high we were, but with frigid air and snow stinging my eyes, stealing my breath, I easily imagined the terror of a free fall.
The blanket slid more. Faintly, I wondered if all the cloth wrapped around us would soften the blow when we hit the ground. Probably not.
Thunder and wind, my screams and Sam’s, the shrieking buzz of dragons’ communication: the sounds deafened me, and my ears popped and popped as we rose higher. My head felt ready to explode as the pressure changed, and I couldn’t breathe right. Thin, icy air rushed across my face, even when I ducked my head to let my hood take the brunt.
We hurtled into the sky, falling upward as fast as Acid Breath’s wings would carry us.
We slipped. Ropes gouged my waist and legs. Sam pressed harder against me. Any moment now, the ropes would snap and we’d fall.
Our ascent eased, and Acid Breath was horizontal again.
I didn’t know when I’d stopped screaming. Maybe whenever the air had stopped being heavy enough for proper breathing. Gasping, I waited for my heart to slow into a regular rhythm, and for my ears to stop aching. Sam shook against me; I trembled, too.
Acid Breath’s wings thundered, and sharp air rushed against our faces, but we were still on his back, and that was what I cared about.
Sam’s voice strained under the din of wings and air. “Are you okay?”
I tried to nod, but he wouldn’t see it. Instead, I released my useless death grip on the blanket and touched his hand still on my ribs. My head still throbbed from the pressure—or not enough pressure—and my whole body felt like I’d lost a round with Rangedge Lake, but I was okay. As long as we never did that again.
Sam’s grip relaxed as I sat up a little, letting my hood and our blanket cocoon hide the sight of wings, and the passage of blackness beneath and around us. I didn’t want to see after all.
Movement behind me. Tugging on my coat and shirts. Hot skin slid against my waist and ribs, and the weight of Sam’s head settled on my back. My heartbeat steadied with his palm on my skin. I couldn’t stop the panic whenever Acid Breath dipped or changed directions, but this tactile reminder of Sam’s presence helped.
We flew through snow clouds for hours, mostly gliding on a plane of air. The wind never ceased. For a while we listened to the dragons speak to one another, but the ringing in my ears was overwhelming, and the dragons seemed disinclined to converse much while we were on top of them. And with us around, in general. They seemed to fear we’d learn all their dragonish secrets.
I hoped Whit and Stef were faring better, but my thoughts shifted toward our inevitable descent, and what would happen when we finally reached Range.
The clouds moved northeast, away from us. Hours later, the sky turned indigo, and a brilliant line of gold light shot across the eastern horizon. The sun peeked from behind a ridge of mountains, illuminating the long curve of the earth. Mountains pierced the sky, all snow and ice and frozen beauty. And in the west, a bright glow drew my gaze: the temple in the city of Heart.
As light flooded the white land, pouring between mountains and into valleys like rivers and lakes of pure gold, I found the cavities in the ground left behind from hydrothermal eruptions. It was difficult to see them from our distance, but the fact that I could see them at all—that they existed—was enough to be terrifying.
Sam shouted from behind me, “Do you see Templedark Memorial?”
I peered north of the city, but if Templedark Memorial existed anymore, it was too far for me to see. I shook my head and ducked as Acid Breath banked eastward.
It was midmorning by the time buzzing flared in my thoughts.
<This is the place.>
Going down was just as terrible as going up. The descent made us dip forward, and the impact of landing jarred every bone in my body, but then everything grew deliciously still and I imagined going to sleep in a real bed. Showering with hot water. Not living in a tent.
“Oh no.” Sam swore quietly, making me look up.
Menehem’s lab lay in ruins.
23 ALLIANCE
MOST OF THE building remained standing, though there were holes in the roof and a tree had fallen on it, leaving one end open to the elements. The cisterns were on the ground, a sheet of ice spreading around them. The solar panels had been damaged beyond repair, and unidentifiable bits of machinery spilled from the door.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no.” I fumbled for the straps of the harness, struggling to free myself from the ropes gouging into my midsection.
“Wait.” Sam grabbed my hands and held me still. “Just wait. I’ll get it.”
When he released my hands and began unbuckling the harness, I just stared at the ruins of my father’s lab and watched as sylph emerged from the forest. They gave a long, melancholy wail as they drifted through the ruins.
“Now.” The harness loosened around me and I shoved the ropes off my shoulders and stomach, shoved aside the blankets, too. Hardly realizing what I was doing, I hopped onto Acid Breath’s foreleg and slid down, then ran toward the wreckage.
Inside the building was even worse. There was the kitchen area where Sam and I had burned so many meals because we’d been kissing and lost track of time; now the contents of the cupboards lay scattered on the floor, crushed and spilling open.
There was the screen where I’d watched videos of my father experimenting on sylph; now it was cracked and hollowed out.
There was the sleeping area where Sam had sat next to me one afternoon and, for the first time, told me that he loved me; now the mattress was shredded, its foam and wool like snow on the floor.
In the back, the upper story had collapsed into the lab, crushing machines and crates filled with Menehem’s clothes and old gear. The cracked screen of a data console shimmered in morning light, which shone through holes in the roof and the open mouth of the rear door.
“Ana?” Sam’s voice made me turn to find him standing in the doorway, framed by light. “Are you okay?” He had our bags and my flute case, and behind him I could see Acid Breath peering suspiciously.