It’s charred black, bearing a hairline fracture down the side that’swidening.
I edge forward onto the rune-lit tiles, breathing humid air tainted with the smell of smoke. Two steps closer when a cracking sound fills the room. Like bones breaking.
A large shard of the egg comes loose but doesn’t fall away, still tacked to the sticky membrane beneath.
Ahvi smiles, murmuring soft words as he eases the bit of shell free—gentle as I’ve ever seen anyone move. Something that reminds me too much of my Other’s memory.
Of seeing another boy help a silver, wonky-winged Moonplume edge free of its sticky shell.
I spin. Look elsewhere.
Pretend I’m giving Ahvi the space and privacy to bond with his hatchling and not choking on a past I’m not yet ready to look in the eye. Pushing it away.
Gone.
More cracking sounds fill the room as I scratch the tips of my fingers, scanning the carnage I left in the antechamber …
Time nips at me.
I passed numerous slumber quarters on my way down here, and although there’s a lot of bodies in that room, evidence suggests there are a lotmoresoldiers inhabiting this place.
All it takes is one scout to come across the slain soldier in the corridor for a contingency wave to come crashing down on us. Fighting for myself was easy. Worrying about a kid and his freshly hatched dragon will belessso.
Time is of the essence.
“Isn’t heperfect?”
At Ahvi’s words, I turn.
Still cross-legged in the guts of the charred nest, he heaves the fleshy pink hatchling into the air, gripped beneath his disproportionately large wings. The tiny beast is bare of plumage bar a spray of pin feathers poking from between his closed eyes, his crest, and the tip of his otherwise naked tail hanging so limp I’d almost believe him perished … if it wasn’t for the garbledsquarkhe makes as he tries, and fails, to lift his dangling head.
“Majestic.” I charge forward, the nest’s remains crumbling beneath myboots. “Time to go.” Crouching beside them both, I wait for Ahvi to release his shimmery shield, then slice into the hem of his oversized cloak, ripping a swath free.
Then another.
Seeming to follow my thoughts, he lowers the hatchling into the makeshift sling, plucking shards of shell from his …skinwhile I ease suddenly flappy wings against the tiny beast’s plump body.
“You said you can’t run fast?”
“I can runreallyfast,” he corrects, puffing his chest, “just not fastenough.”
“My mistake.”
“I have really bad lungs. They flare up sometimes …”
Good to know.
I fold the material over the hatchling and tuck it in until he’s swaddled tight, like he’s back in his egg. Something that seems to calm him a little. “May I?”
Ahvi nods.
I press the squirmy bundle against my chest, then with Ahvi’s help, use the second swathe to bind the hatchling against me. Once firmly secured, I spin, one knee on the ground, hands fist-deep in the ash and coal. “Hop on my back.”
No movement.
I look over my shoulder to see Ahvi’s lips twitched up in a shy smile. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry.” His cheeks flush. “You’ve never done this before.”
