I suspect that Beaufort has been dying for an opportunity to ride this dragon ever since I mentioned his existence. It seems he spent an awful lot of his childhood reading about dragons, learning about dragons, imagining dragons. I’ve literally brought his dream to life and now I’m offering him the opportunity to ride the dragon with me. I’m kind of surprised he’s never insisted I’ve done it before.
He leaps at the opportunity.
“Okay,” he says. “Dray, Thorne, you stay here. Watch for any signs of danger. We’ll head down on Blaze.”
However, Thorne for once does not seem happy to accept Beaufort’s commands. He steps forward, crossing his arms over his chest. “No,” he says simply.
“We need someone to watch the skies,” Beaufort tells him. “We all accept that this is probably a trap, don’t we? If we all go down into the gorge, then we’ll all be trapped.”
“Yes,” Thorne replies, “but we don’t know what’s down there. We don’t know what’s under the mirage. It could be that the trap is waiting for us at the bottom of this gorge.”
“Can’t you see what’s down there with your magic?” I ask him.
“It’s too deep,” he responds.
Thorne and Beaufort stand glaring at each other, neither prepared to back down, and I realize I’m the one who’s going to have to make the decision.
I appeal to Dray. “What do you think?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Could be a trap down there. Could be a trap up here. Either way, I don’t like it,” he says. “Either way, do we have a choice?”
“No,” I respond. “I have this feeling that down there is where Fox is. I can feel the tingling of his magic in my chest, as if he’s close, as if his proximity is not that far away. If I can feel him, then surely he must be here?”
The mist swirls below us. Above us, the sky is dark and limitless. And behind us that formidable tornado spins and spins and spins relentlessly. Nowhere’s safe out here. The trap could be below us or it could be up here. Whatever we do, we’re risking our lives. But I’m prepared to do that to save Fox.
“Beaufort and I will go down on the dragon,” I tell Dray and Thorne.
“Nini,” Thorne says, “I don’t like the idea–”
“I don’t see what choice we have,” I tell him. “This is the best way. Trust me, please.”
Thorne holds my gaze with his truly dark one. Out here, though, where everything is soulless, where there’s hardly any light, I see his eyes aren’t so dark after all. There’s a light that shimmers in them. There’s a light that shimmers in Thorne. All along he’s believed that only darkness resides inside himself, but I see there’s just as much light as there is in me.
And so I step towards him, rise up on my toes and kiss his mouth. It’s so good to do that, that simple act, something I’ve wanted to do for so long.
“It’s okay, Thorne,” I tell him. “We’ll be okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Briony
Beaufort clings to my waist as we spiral down into the abyss towards the shimmering silver mist. As we come ever closer to it, he leans forward, his body pressed against mine, and even through our thick clothing, I can feel the beat of his heart against my back. It’s reassuring. Truth be told, I wouldn’t want to do this alone. I don’t know what we are entering into. What will we find?
Blaze snorts and then roars out fire when the silver mist is only a foot away from us. But the flames do nothing, merely simmer across the mist and evaporate.
I lean forward and rub my hand along his scaly neck. “It can’t hurt us.” And I hope that Thorne is correct and it won’t. I already feel guilty for bringing my friend into this desolate place. I don’t want him to be hurt too.
As we come even closer, as Blaze’s long taloned feet sink through the mist, Beaufort rests his chin on my shoulder and whispers into my ear, “Brace yourself, Briony. Be ready. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we sink through this mist.”
I do as he says, my spine automatically stiffening. Blaze sinks through, lowering us into the mist. A deep cold, even more frigid than the wind that blows mercilessly through this realm, hits us instantly. It whips away our breath. It’s so cold. It sets my teeth aching and has a pain piercing through my skull. My fingers and my toes in my boots stiffen too. And my eyes stream even more than they did up there in the dust.
I peer upwards, taking one last look at the faces of Dray and Thorne, becoming ever smaller at the rim of this gorge, and then we’re submerged completely in the mist. It swirls around us as if it’s possessed, as if it has a soul of its own. And then Blaze is sinking right through and we’re emerging on the other side.
It’s not as dark as I had imagined.
I swing my gaze around, desperately searching the shadows, and then I spy a body, a crumpled wreck in the corner, hands bound behind its back, ankles tied together.
“Fox!” I cry out, because I’m sure it’s him, it has to be. “Fox.” My voice sticks in my throat.
