Part 15 (1/2)
”That's it?” Stef shook her head. ”There were more parts than just a floor, ceiling, and bars. That can't be all he's building.”
”More importantly,” Whit said, ”what is he building it for?”
”I don't know.” Sarit sounded young and alone and frightened. Armande had been like a father to all of us. He was Sam's father in this life.
When Stef and Whit were finished talking, Sarit said good-bye to them, and I sneaked outside once more with my SED. I didn't make it back to the tree, though. Just stopped halfway there, unable to control the tears coursing down my cheeks.
Armande was gone. I'd never again see him, hug him. He'd never again open his pastry stall in the market field and feed me m.u.f.fin after m.u.f.fin, as though terrified I wouldn't eat enough without his constant vigilance.
”What are you going to do?” My voice shook with grief and winter.
”I don't know.” Our connection crackled, reminding me of the distance between us, reminding me we wouldn't be able to talk after tonight. ”I don't know. A few people have tried standing up to Deborl, but most of them get put in prison. Maybe I can get them out. Or maybe . . . I don't know. I'll keep hiding. Keep up with what they're building. Maybe I can figure out what the rest of the parts are for. I just have no clue.”
Everything in me ached for her. She was alone, hiding in Heart without anyone to console her or help her through this grief. ”Just be safe,” I whispered. ”Do whatever it takes to be safe.”
”I wish I were with you.” Her voice trembled. ”I wish I'd gone with you.”
”Me too.”
I'll call you every night.” Her voice caught on the words. She was trying to sound strong. ”I'll call every night until you come back.”
”And then you'll stop calling?”
She let out a strangled laugh. ”Yeah, then I'll stop calling.”
A few minutes later, we clicked off.
I stood outside, weeping in the snow until I heard everyone in the tent climb into their sleeping bags. Only when I was certain they were asleep did I sneak back in and s.h.i.+ver myself warm.
The next week was a thousand times lonelier than those before it.
Thunder cracked, startling everyone awake.
We hurried out of our sleeping bags and scrambled for the door to the tent, but the sky was clear and deep blue with coming dawn. Sylph hovered around our campsite, warming the air.
The thunder didn't return. Whit and Stef pushed back inside the tent to start breakfast, but Sam remained by the door, glaring at the sky as if his life depended on it. The thunder hadn't been real thunder.
I wanted to rea.s.sure him somehow, but I had no words. Only the same awkwardness we'd carried since my birthday.
”Go inside with the others. I'll fill up the water bottles.” Apparently, I couldn't manage rea.s.surance. Just instructions and letting someone know where I'd be. After I'd wandered out on my birthday and Cris had come after me, Whit had pulled me aside and lectured me about telling people where I was going. If I insisted on going after dragons, then I'd best not get myself killed out of stupidity.
Sam looked at me. Sort of through me. He nodded. ”If you see anything, come right back.” There was a note of concern in his voice, but mostly he sounded hollow. He'd been worse since Armande died.
I put on my coat and boots and headed into the woods with an armful of empty water bottles. A few sylph trailed after me and hung close as I broke ice and filled the bottles in a fast-moving creek. While I worked, sylph dipped tendrils of shadow into the full bottles and boiled the water clean.
We were almost finished when thunder cracked again.
I glanced at Cris, my eyebrow raised, but he didn't move. The other sylph, too, remained motionless as the snap of leather wings came again.
Above, I saw only pine boughs, stark against the infinite blue.
And then, just to the east, a sinuous body flitted above the trees, darkening the fragmented sky.
I placed the last water bottle on the snowy ground. ”Will one of you take me to see it?”
Cris dithered, and the other sylph hung back awkwardly.
”If you won't take me, I'll just go see it myself and possibly get lost again.” I started walking, but after only a few steps, I turned and pointed at Cris. ”Don't tell the others. I don't want them to scold me when I'm not even getting into trouble.”
Sullenly, the sylph trailed after me as I followed the occasional crack of wings.
Cris sidled up next to me. -Consider yourself scolded.- I smirked and swatted at him, but a knot in my chest loosened a little. Whether or not he agreed with my plan, Cris still liked me. He and the other sylph stuck closer to me than my real shadow.
At last, we came to a break in the woods, and a cliff overlooking a white valley. Trees huddled under the weight of snow, majestic and silent. Above the valley, three dragons flew.
Their serpentine bodies slithered through the air, gliding without sound until they flapped their wings, which stretched as wide as their bodies were long. A deceptively delicate network of bones and scales shone translucent when a dragon veered and twisted toward the rising sun.
I gasped and took a step back into the woods. The dragons were so huge. After a year, I'd forgotten how big they were. But seeing them fill the sky as they flew through the air, my heart stumbled on itself. Templedark was not far behind us. I'd seen too many dragons then, seen the way they spit acid on the fields of the agricultural quarter or tried to land atop the city wall. One had been leaning over Sam and Stef to kill them when I arrived.
I'd almost seen a dragon kill Sam.
My heart ached as I stared at the sky and lowered myself to my knees. I couldn't stand anymore. I couldn't think anymore. I could only watch as a dragon switched course and dove into the valley, its wings folded along its sides. The immense golden beast disappeared into the forest for a heartbeat, then erupted a short ways beyond with a deer in its jaws. Ice and snow and branches sprayed behind it, having been caught up in the dragon's path.
”Oh, Cris.” My words were hardly a breath. Just mist on the frigid air. ”How am I supposed to even get close enough to one to speak to it?”
Cris curled around me, warm but silent. He offered no advice.
I couldn't bring myself to move from this spot. Snow soaked through my layers of clothes, but Cris and the other sylph stuck close, keeping me from s.h.i.+vering.
Soon I'd have to go back to camp. To Sam, Stef, and Whit. And I would have to tell them that I'd seen dragons and I had no idea what to do now. The dragons were hunting in the forest below. They must have had keen eyes to see that deer. And unlike the roc, they had no trouble diving into the forest.
They could s.n.a.t.c.h us up, too.
”We're going to need extra cover,” I whispered. ”We definitely don't want to be caught in the open. Even in the forest, we'll need to avoid looking like food.”
Cris nodded, trilling softly by my ear. -We will protect you.- ”Thank you.” I lowered my eyes and didn't try to stop the tears, but what should have been a torrent came as only a trickle. I'd trekked through the cold woods before, gone hungry, been beaten, but I'd never felt like this. I'd never felt broken, like my spirit had split in two.
What hope was there? Stef had been right about the dragons. There was no chance of talking to them. They weren't people. They weren't sylph, who needed something from me, or centaurs, who'd been satisfied to have their children returned unharmed, and cowed by the presence of the sylph.
No, now we were in a huge winter forest, far, far from home and anything familiar. We'd taken weeks to get here, and for what purpose? There was no way I'd be able to convince the dragons to help us. What was I going to do? Shout from the cliff and ask for their a.s.sistance? Ask if I could borrow this mysterious weapon they had? They'd swoop in and eat me whole before I finished introducing myself.
And worse, I'd pushed away Sam with my secrets. It drove me crazy when he hid things from me and didn't tell me what was going on, so I should have known. Instead, I'd become a hypocrite. I'd hurt his feelings and dragged him into the land of his nightmares because I had a plan.
”I can't help you, Cris.” My whisper came out rough, broken. ”There's no way I'll be able to speak to the dragons. They won't destroy the temple for us. They won't use their weapon for us. They'll probably eat us. Janan will ascend and Range will erupt. Sylph will be cursed forever.”
Only the crack of dragon wings answered.