The jungle is too loud around us. Every snapped twig spins my head around. Every birdcall cuts off mid-note and leaves me staring into the undergrowth, waiting for it to grow claws. Twice I stop us dead because I’m sure I hear something keeping level with us in the green, and twice there’s nothing, and we stagger on.
“You’re doing well,” he murmurs at some point, which is ridiculous, because he’s the injured one.
“Quiet. Save your energy.”
The trees begin to thin. The undergrowth opens up, the canopy pulling back overhead, more sky showing through in ragged patches of white glare. Magma stops, sagging against me, and his chest works overtime.
“Just…a moment,” he grinds out. “Need to catch my breath.”
“Okay.” I scan the tree line, the sky, the tree line again. “But we can’t stay out here in the open; we’re?—”
“I know. Let’s go.”
We keep going. The river can’t be far now. I really hope it isn’t because I don’t think he has much more in him.
Magma’s head comes up, and he sucks in a breath. His whole body goes rigid against mine, his eyes snap to the sky, and then I hear it too. Wings. Many, many wings.
They pour over the treetops.
Red Dragons. Not one, not three, but dozens of them. They come in a boiling mass of wings and color, swirling around each other against the sky, so many of them I can’t hold the count in my head, and even as I watch, more rise from beyond the tree line to join the churn. Screeches tear the air, a sound that scrapes the inside of my skull.
They’re flying toward us.
They’ve seen us.
“No,” I whisper.
Magma’s arm tightens across my shoulders. There is no cover. There is no way out of this.
My heart sinks.
It’s over. For both of us.
24
Carla
They drop out of the sky one by one. The first lands about thirty feet to our left, wings folding as its feet hit the ground, and the impact shudders through the earth. The second comes in fast to the right, and I throw my arm over my face against the downdraft. Then a third. A fourth. Another, and another, and another, each landing sending a tremor into the soles of my bare feet.
I press my back harder against Magma’s arm and try to count them as they drop out of the sky. I lose count. There are more still up there, circling in wide, unhurried arcs, dark wings tilting slowly against the light. They fill almost every gap in the canopy above us, and every time one of them shifts position, the air moves like a wave.
Are all the feral males coming for us?
I have never seen anything like it in my life.
I can’t breathe.
Magma gives a long, slow exhale, and he sags against me, the full weight of him settling for just a second before he pulls it back.
When I look at him, he is smiling.
Why would he smile at a time like this?
I frown hard.
“We’re okay.” His voice is a low rumble close to my ear. “We’re okay, Carla.” He sighs again.
I look back at the dragons.
