It went like this: where the old stories were spoken aloud, there were dragons; and where there were dragons, there was destruction and betrayal and burning. Especially burning. Asha knew this better than anyone. The proof was right there on her face.
Sighing, Safire gave up.
“Go treat that burn,” she said, leaving her halberd upright in the sand as she started toward the hulking form. While the slaves advanced on the dragon, Safire walked a complete circle around the body, scanning it. The dragon’s dusty gray scales were perfect for blending into the mountain, and its horns and spines were flawless ivory, none of them broken or cracked.
In Safire’s absence, Asha tried to flex her burned fingers. The sharp pain made her bite down hard. It made the lowlands around her blur into a smudged landscape of red sand, paleyellow grass, and a gray speckle of rock. They were on the seam here. Not quite in the flat desert to the immediate west, nor in the dark and craggy mountains to the immediate east.
“It’s a beauty!” Safire called back.
Asha strained to focus on her cousin, who was starting to blur along with everything else. She tried to shake her vision clear. When that didn’t work, she reached for Safire’s halberd to steady herself.
“Your father will be so pleased.” Her cousin’s voice sounded thick and muffled.
If my father only knew the truth,thought Asha, bitterly.
She willed the landscape to stop spinning around her. She clutched the halberd harder, concentrating on her cousin.
Safire navigated through the slaves, their knives glinting. Asha heard her grab the handle of the embedded axe. She heard Safire use the heel of her boot to brace herself against the dragon’s scaly hide. Asha even heard her pull the weapon out while blood glugged onto the sand, thick and sticky.
But she couldn’t see her. Not any longer.
The whole world had gone fuzzy and white.
“Asha... ? Are you all right?”
Asha pressed her forehead to the flat steel of the halberd. The fingers of her unburned hand curled like claws around the iron shaft as she fought the dizziness.
I should have more time than this.
Hurried footsteps kissed the sand.
“Asha, what’s wrong?”
The ground dipped. Asha felt herself tilt. Without thinking,she reached for her skral-blooded cousin. The one who, under the law, wasn’t allowed to touch her.
Safire sucked in a breath and stepped back, out of reach, widening the gap between them. Asha struggled to regain her balance. When she couldn’t, she sank onto the sand.
Even when Safire’s gaze slid to the hunting slaves—even when Asha knew it was their judgment Safire feared and nother—it stung. It always stung.
But slaves talked. Her cousin knew this better than anyone. Gossiping slaves had betrayed Safire’s parents. And right now, they were surrounded by slaves. Slaves who knew Safire wasn’t allowed to touch Asha, wasn’t even allowed to look Asha in the eye. Not with skral blood running through her veins.
“Asha...”
All at once, the world settled back into place. Asha blinked. There was the sand beneath her knees. There was the horizon in the distance, a red-gold smear against a turquoise sky. And there was the slain dragon before her: clear and gray and dead.
Safire crouched down before her. Too close.
“Don’t,” Asha said more sharply than she meant to. “I’m fine.”
Rising, she bit down on the scorching pain in her hand. It didn’t make sense for the toxins to set in so fast. She was dehydrated—that’s all. She just needed water.
“You shouldn’t even be out here,” Safire called from behind her, voice laced with worry. “Your binding is seven days away. You should be preparing yourself for it, not running from it.”
Asha’s footsteps faltered. Despite her scorching hand and thesteadily rising sun, a chill swept through her.
“I’m not running from anything,” she shot back, staring straight ahead at the mantle of green in the distance. The Rift. It was Asha’s one freedom.
Silence fell over them, interrupted only by the sounds of slaves sharpening their skinning knives. Slowly, Safire came to stand behind her.
