Incarnate: Infinite Part 21

FLIGHT.

"DRAGONS!"

I struggled around Sam's arms and legs, shouting. He jerked awake, and on the other side of the tent, Stef and Whit were already out of their sleeping bags and lighting lanterns and finding pistols. Sylph poured from the tent, shrieking.

"Where are they?" Stef turned on her pistol, and the blue targeting beam shone across the tent. Lantern light caught her face, darkening the shadows around her eyes.

"I don't know." I tried to straighten my clothes as I stood. "I hear the sound. The ringing."

Wing thunder clapped again, and we all followed the sylph outside. Snowy rocks stung my bare feet, and the surrounding woods were black with shadows, both real and sylph. The sound of their moaning rose higher.

Above, dark shapes flew across the midnight sky. They circled us, as though looking for a place to land.

How had they found us?

"I have an idea." I dashed into the tent again and pulled my flute from its case. Sam grabbed me when I emerged again.

"What are you doing?"

"You are doing it." I pushed my flute into his hands. "They're afraid of you."

"Are you sure it's wise to threaten them like this?" he asked.

"They're armed. Now we are, too."

Trees snapped like twigs as dragons batted them aside. Rus.h.i.+ng and cracking and chaos sounded. Birds squawked and flew away, calling out warnings. Animals in the forest skittered as trees fell and immense wings shadowed the earth.

I found one of the lanterns and turned the light as high as it would go.

Sam, Stef, and Whit all screamed and clutched their heads against the ringing, but while it made my head throb, I kept on my feet. Maybe I was growing used to it.

Three dragons landed in front of us, wings tucked alongside them, blue eyes luminous. Immense talons dug gouges in the frozen earth. Snow dusted their scales. Their huge fangs shone in the lantern light.

I stepped forward, no coat and no boots, but sylph fanned around me like wings. "What do you want?"

They'd actually been considering helping? Huh. "And?" It took all my will, but I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder and check on my friends. Hearing the dragons speak for the first time was a painful experience.

I didn't move. Hardly breathed.

Acid Breath's voice was huge, booming inside my head. Nodding made the world spin, but I managed to hold myself upright. "Yes." My voice seemed thin and weak, though aside from the sylph's soft moans, my friends' groaning, and the crack and patter of fallen trees settling, my voice was the only sound. "Yes, those things are happening because of what lives inside the temple."

"Yes." What else lived inside the temple? There was nothing. Just endless mazes and horrorsa"and the skeleton chamber. But the skeletons didn't count as living, did they? "Why do dragons attack the temple?"

I spun to find Sam clutching my flute to his chest, his eyes round and shadowed in the lantern light. He'd heard. The othersa"they were both looking upa"had heard, too.

"All those attacks," Whit said, "to stop Sam?"

To stop Sam, who'd only just learned he had some kind of weapon, which he didn't even know how to wield.

Fleetingly, I considered telling the dragons he never intended to use the song against them, but they were unlikely to believe me, and if I wanted to keep them a little afraid of us, I needed something besides the sylph.

I focused on the dragons. "If you help us destroy the tower, the cycle of reincarnation will end. You won't have to fear the song anymore. Once Sam grows old and dies, it will be gone forever."

I lifted an eyebrow, but one didn't just accuse a dragon of lying.

Acid Breath glared at Sam, who was silent. Not moving. And we wouldn't have to rely on a weapon we didn't know how to use. We'd just have to rely on dragons.

I glanced at Sam. This was his choice.

His voice came low and rough. "Destroy the tower."

Acid Breath drew back and up, casting a disinterested glance over our campsite. "Why?" I put my fists on my hips and glared up at the dragon, like I wasn't imagining how easily he could swallow me whole. As if the sylph knew my fears, they moved closer.

Ride the dragons to Menehem's lab? Ride the dragons?

I glanced over my shoulder. Sam just stared blankly, while Stef and Whit seemed at a loss for words. Riding the dragons would get us there much more quickly, but then we'd have to trust them not to kill us.

Still, if they wanted to destroy the templea"and therefore the song they feared so mucha"they needed the poison only we could provide.

But Sam wouldn't be able to do this. There was no way he'd ride a dragon, even if it had good incentive not to drop him onto a mountain. We'd have to run all the way to Range.

"No," I said. "We'll walk."

"No. We'll never make it on our own." Sam strode forward and stopped beside me. His knuckles were white around my flute, but his voice was suddenly strong. "We accept your offer."

Acid Breath took us in for a long moment before nodding. It was a slow, heavy movement that looked foreign on his serpentine body. I raised my voice. "Very well: you will not hurt any of my friends. Not now, and not after we destroy the tower. When the tower is destroyed, the cycle of reincarnation will end, and so will the threat of the phoenix song."

And we could go back to trying to kill one another like normal. Great.

Acid Breath wasn't finished, though. The dragon tipped his nose at Sam.

I turned toward Sam. "Are you sure about this?"

His expression was hard, his mouth set into a line. Stiffly, he handed my flute to me and said, "We agree to the conditions."

I pressed my flute to my chest, feeling the keys, the polish, the engravings on the silver, still sharp and new.

"Are we going now?" Whit asked, coming up behind us.

"I think so." Best to get there as quickly as possible and send the dragons on their way. I didn't think any of us would be able to sleep the rest of the night knowing there was a trio of dragons just outside our tent. "Stef, we'll need some kind of harness. We don't want to fall off."

She nodded. "I already have an idea."

Cris hovered around us. -We can't protect you in the air.- "It's fine." I offered him my hand, and a tendril of shadow circled my fingers. "You can reach the lab quickly, right?"

-Yes.- "Be there when we arrive. We'll be fine on the dragons. They need us."

-I don't trust them.- "Me neither." I smiled, though the expression was grim. "But I trust they want the temple destroyed."

-They want the phoenix song destroyed. That just happens to be inside the tower.- Sam lowered his eyes. "Let's hurry and get this over with."

While Stef worked on harnesses, I helped Whit take down the tent. Sam packed all our bags, constantly shooting worried looks at the dragons. His expression stayed dark, and shadows haunted his eyes.

Though humans had learned to make things fly generations agoa"like air dronesa"most people held a strong belief that humans were born without wings for a reason. None of us were happy about this, but if we could get back to Heart early, that would make this worth it.

"I already rode a dragon over a valley." I tried to smile as I closed my flute case and double-checked the straps. "It will be fine."

"They dragged you through trees." Whit shook his head. "Orrin will never believe we're doing this."

"No one will." I couldn't even imagine Sarit's expression when we told her.

"I don't believe we're doing this." Stef held up two rope harnesses. "Now pay attention. All of you." She motioned at the dragons, too.

Acid Breath's words buzzed through my head, making the world spin for a moment. After this, I never wanted to speak to a dragon again.

"I've made two harnesses. They're to hold us secure. They'll go over the dragons' head and settle just above the wings. They shouldn't impede flight at all. There'll be two people to a dragon." She glanced at Sam and me. "I a.s.sume you'll want to fly together."

Sam nodded, never looking away from the ropes in Stef's hands.

"All right. There's also a ring here in the front for our backpacks. Since we'll be riding double, I don't want our bags to get in the way. They'll hang like pendants." She looked up at Acid Breath. "I a.s.sume you can handle that."

Stef and Whit began putting the harnesses onto the dragons, their movements stiff and careful. Sylph ducked around them, keeping the air warm, keeping the dragons from moving too suddenly. Several times, Stef tugged on a harness and asked the dragon if it was comfortable or if it hurt, and for a moment it seemed strange that she'd put so much care into the comfort of a dragon, but she was right: if the harnesses were awkward to fly with, we were in danger.

When they were done, I told Acid Breath where we needed to go, trying to describe Menehem's lab as it might look from above. "There's a huge metal building, a clearing, lots of foresta""

"Oh. Great. That makes it easier, doesn't it?" I tried to smile, but the dragon just glared at me.

Acid Breath held still while I climbed onto his back and settled astride him. He hissed a little as Sam climbed on after me, muttering in the back of his mind, but nothing more.

Sam sat behind me, both of us bundled in coats and extra layers, and with blankets tied around us like a coc.o.o.n so we could share body heat. We pulled scarves over our faces like masks, and then he wrapped his arms around me. We wouldn't have sylph to keep us warm during the trip, and the dragon's scales were like chips of ice.

"Don't look down," Sam said, loudly enough for me to hear through my hood and three hats. "It's going to be dark, so you won't see anything, but it will be easier if you don't look."

"I'm not afraid of heights." I tried to snuggle closer to him, but we'd been so thoroughly secured I couldn't move. We were already seated as close as possible, anyway. All the layers just made it seem far.

"I know. But this heighta"it can still be overwhelming. It might make you dizzy or confused about how you're oriented, like when you're in water and you can't tell which way is up."

All this rambling was an attempt to put himself at ease, distract himself from what we were about to do. How did he even know what it would be like? Maybe he was guessing. Or maybe he remembered from dying, being thrashed around in a dragon's grip.

I wanted to double-check all our knots, but I doubted that would help his mood. Instead, I patted his knee. "When I was drowning in the lake, before you saved me"a"he needed to remember his couragea""it was impossible to tell up from down. I wonder if it's easier to fly at night, when you can't see anything, or during the day, when you can see everything."

"Depends, I think." Sam hunched over me as muscles rippled and moved beneath us. "What's more frightening? The known or unknown?"

Most people would say the unknown. I wasn't sure what my answer was.

Indeed, Stef and Whit were strapped onto another dragon, their bags and the collapsed tent hanging from the bottom of the harness. It would sway, but Stef had done a good job securing everything tightly, so it would move very little.

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 s.h.i.+mmer 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 coc.o.o.n 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 lowera"I bit back a yelpa"and muscles bunched. 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 droppeda"

We thudded to the ground, trees cras.h.i.+ng 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 somethinga"his chin or foreheada"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 pressurea"or not enough pressurea"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 coc.o.o.n hide the sight of wings, and the pa.s.sage of blackness beneath and around us. I didn't want to see after all.

Movement behind me. Tugging on my coat and s.h.i.+rts. 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 alla"that they existeda"was enough to be terrifying.

Sam shouted from behind me, "Do you see Templedark Memorial?"