“My queen!”
It’s Fuller, with Yarl and Boyd right behind him.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. “Did you not hear the king?” Surely, they can see humans and dragons alike fleeing all around us.
My guards blink at me. “We stay with you, my queen.”
I swing a finger at the three of them. “If you truly serve me, then you’ll clear this camp of everyone.Now!”
Thank the Creator above, they go. I sit exactly where I am and reach for the roiling presence beneath me as the ground rumbles.
You are coming too fast, I say again.
I come for sun.
It is night now. If you will only slow down—
No, sun.
I grit my teeth.Of all the pigheaded…
Fine. Time for a different tactic. I shoot to my feet, flinging my shoes off.
Then you are going the wrong way. Come to me for sun. I give the water a tug, a pitiful one, but the most noticeable I can manage for a body this size. I imagine it’s a bit like trying to pull an elephant with a string. Still, the water focuses on me.
Sun?
Yes.
It surges my way.
I take off running, feet pelting the warm sand.
Come, I cry.
Sun!
For years, I’ve run on the beach with my sisters, and I employ every technique I can now to speed me along the shifting sand that tries to make me stumble.
“That way,” I shout at a group of servant girls running in the same direction I am. They start at the sight of me but change course.
I pass the outskirts of the camp, my calves and lungs burning. I keep going as sinkholes widen on either side of me.
Come, I tell the water.This way.
I fly across the trembling lakebed, my own legs starting to quake. My side cramps, sending searing pain across my ribs, and when I can no longer breathe around the pain, I let myself drop into a panting heap. I push myself to my knees, and gathering whatever tatters of energy I have left, apply these to my arms, twirling them over my head, asking the water for space here.
With a roar like a hundred dragons, the water breaks through.
It comes from all sides, a thunderous rush set on claiming the surface. I whirl my arms faster.
Please, I beg.Space here.
Sun?
I don’t answer.
For now, the water follows my motions, swirling higher and higher above me as more liquid pours into the lake. Soon, I’m left with a patch of dry sand below and a swiftly shrinking circle of sky above. Stars wink down at me, oblivious to my plight.
