“Good. Don’t let go and don’t look down. I’ve got you.”
“That’s good to know.”
I look over to where Magma is. He’s on his feet.
The other dragon, the one the female shifted into, is crouched low nearby, wings half-open and waiting.
Magma looks up at me and then away.
The dragon under us shifts its weight, and I feel the muscles bunching through my thighs.
The Red Dragon female grips Magma in her great taloned claw, and she launches.
I twist to keep my eyes on them.
“He’ll be just fine,” Flint says.
My eyes follow her up until she clears the canopy and tips her wing south and disappears into the gray of the sky.
We’re ascending too, the ground falling away so fast that my stomach doesn’t know which direction to protest in. I have two fistfuls of ridge-scales, and the horizon suddenly feels very large and very present in every direction.
Flint’s arms pull tight around me.
“I’ve got you,” he says again, his mouth close to my ear.
Below us, the jungle shrinks to a vast green blanket, the individual trees disappearing into a continuous spread. The air is cold at this height, and I breathe it in, deep and slow.
I scan the sky ahead of us, looking for Magma. I can’t find him anywhere.
This feels wrong. It feels… I close my eyes and bite down on my bottom lip.
I should be happy.
Iamhappy and relieved.
Why do I have this heavy feeling inside me?
Why?
25
Carla
I pull the sheets up higher, sighing, and then look down at the drip in my arm.
I’m sure this is overkill.
At least I’m clean and comfortable. I really shouldn’t complain. I flick through the channels on the television, not bothering with headphones. I don’t think I could concentrate on anything right now.
The light through the blinds has gone the dark blue of early evening. It’s still busy out in the hallway. Someone’s trolley wheels past. There’s the distant beep of a monitor and nurses talking.
My feet are bandaged and elevated on a pillow.
I expected the hospital to be reduced to rubble after the Red Dragons attacked, but apparently only the hangar was affected, and I saw the worst of it just before I was carted off by that feral dragon. I’m so glad.
A number of Draig males were injured but were taken to other hospitals. There were only three deaths on the Draig side and many fatalities of dragons from Mistveil.
I wonder how Magma is doing, and not for the first time since we arrived here. He was taken to another part of the hospital. I haven’t seen him or heard anything. I haven’t enquired, even though I’m dying to know.
