Cast in Peril by Michelle Sagara

Author:Michelle Sagara [Sagara, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-10-05T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Kaylin had, once or twice, watched glassblowers at work. Although the water didn’t have the color or obviously molten texture of semisolid glass, that came closest to what she now watched. The water rose in an orb that caught sunlight. But it also caught moonlight, night sky, and gray dusk, none of which were actually present.

She watched as layers grew up around this floating orb, taking a different shape, a less circular one. “Those are—those are wings,” she whispered. They were: they were like a watery sculpture of a moving, gliding Dragon. The jaws and the tail were last to form, because the wings seemed to stretch out forever. When it was done, the riverbed was bone-dry beneath the very strange shadow this sculpture cast.

Its eyes opened.

“Severn—”

“Yes,” he said softly. “It’s meant to be a Dragon.” Something about his tone of voice made her tear her gaze away from what the water had formed. His eyes were wide with something akin to wonder, his lips half-parted, his head lifted. Strands of his hair had fallen into those eyes, but he didn’t notice. What he noticed was the Dragon.

Kaylin thought she wouldn’t be surprised if it spoke.

But she jumped two feet back when it roared. She’d heard a lot of spoken Dragon in the past few weeks—most of it the discussions between Bellusdeo and Diarmat—and this? It was a Dragon’s voice. It shook the stone beneath their collective feet.

“This always happens?” she whispered to Teela when the Dragon paused for breath.

“Yes.” Teela’s expression was grim.

The small dragon rose higher, and higher again, until he was at the level of the water Dragon. He was also almost invisible; the light of the day passed through him, and he didn’t have the warped and wavering colors of the rest of daylight’s spectrum to lend him visibility. But even at this distance, she heard what passed for a tiny dragon’s roar: a squawk. It was the sound chicks daydreaming of being Dragons would make.

But comical or no, it caught the Dragon’s attention.

Teela’s breath was sharp enough to cut. “This,” she said in a grim tone that matched her expression, “on the other hand, is different. Call him back.”

Kaylin stared. The Barrani Hawk pivoted to face her. “Kaylin, this is not a joke. Call him back now.”

She didn’t even have a name for the small, inconvenient creature. “It’s not like I tell him what to do,” she said between clenched teeth. “Hey! Come back here!”

Teela’s eyes, which were blue, almost fell out of her head.

The water Dragon roared, its voice deeper, louder. It was the sound of a tidal wave crashing into ships and buildings. Kaylin’s mouth went dry. But the small dragon squawked and squawked in reply—if it was a reply; she had the impression that he hadn’t shut up once, deafening Dragon notwithstanding. He seemed remarkably unimpressed, and given the way the entire Barrani Court—Consort and Nightshade

included—now turned to stare at her, she wanted a little of his self-confidence.

Or a lot.

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