Asta’s anger rose in place of her fear. ‘Hey!’ she yelled, but Felix did not turn. ‘Asshole!’
She knew he had done it to send her a message. Cutting from below was illegal in competition– while overlapped, the groundward team must yield right of way to the skyward team. It was the exact move that she had been accused of pulling on him the day of his accident. He was going for payback. His speech had made it clear that he hadn’t forgotten what she did. Clearly, he hadn’t forgiven it either.
Asta felt an icy shiver run through Carmine’s body and smelled smoke in the wind. The near-fall had made him fractious. He would never, she knew, flame his sister. But he was not above thinking about it. His anger emboldened her. This wasn’t the time to sort out whose guilt was whose. Guilt was for the ground.
They chased Felix and Essie through the figure eight, trying to cut in, but Felix blocked every opportunity. All that was left was the canyon and the finish line. Asta knew what she had to do. An electric pulse sang through her nerves, and all her senses heightened.
Ahead of them, Essie and Felix entered the canyon. The walls of the canyon formed a V, wide at the entrance, with a narrow opening on the far side, no more than nine feet across– too narrow for a dragon to pass through it in flight, thus forcing a controlled descent. Ahead of them, Essie arched her wings and extended her legs for the landing.
This was their chance.
If Carmine turned sideways, like a bird of prey banking on the wind, he could shoot through the opening at the end of the canyon vertically without slowing down for a landing. Asta had learned the trick in the streets of Port Veracruz, admittedly with wider passages than this. Here, there was no room for error. If Carmine misjudged the angle of his flight, Asta could find herself face to immovable face with the canyon wall. Her helmet would shatter, her bones would be pulverized, and there would be nothing left of her but a gory smear.
But Carmine would not misjudge. He never did. Besides, it was too late to change her mind now. They were already passing into the canyon at full speed, rushing into the shadow of the tower walls.
‘Eagle!’ she called to Carmine over the rush of wind.
Asta grabbed the handles on the harness and locked her feet in the stirrups. She pressed herself against Carmine’s back and held on for dear life, but she kept her face tilted just far enough forward to see what was happening.
If this was going to be the end of her, she wanted a good view.
Carmine banked, and the bright strip at the far side of the canyon rotated accordingly in front of Asta. The dark V of the canyon walls seemed to slam closed as they raced through the passage sideways.
Carmine shot out of the canyon and righted. Asta screamed with exhilaration, and Carmine roared back, letting loose the burst of fire that he had prepared earlier. They soared over the finish line and landed a few paces from the gate. Carmine jogged to a stop, turning back just in time to see Essie and Felix pass the finish.
Carmine, apparently quite pleased with himself, pranced over to greet his sister, carrying Asta along.
Felix had his helmet off almost before his feet were on the ground. ‘What the fuck was that?’ He was furious, but Asta was surprised to see fear in his face, too. She didn’t know that she could still scare him with her daredevil ways. ‘You could have died! What were you thinking?’
Asta lifted her visor. ‘I won, didn’t I?’
‘That was unbelievably stupid, Asta!’
Asta scoffed. ‘Yeah? Well, so is cutting off a skyward team. We nearly spun out.’ She scrutinized him, standing there on the ground, glaring up at her. His mouth was clamped tight, and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. There was a vividness about him that filled the air, like he was radiating energy. She almost expected magic illusions to come spilling out of him– a dragon with its teeth bared for a bite, an inferno of sparks and flame. But he just stood there, trembling with fear and fury.
‘I meant what I said, Felix. I’m here to win.’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed,’ Felix replied, the fire of his anger ebbing away and leaving, in its wake, something that looked a great deal more like sadness. ‘Or someone else. You’re not as good as you think you are, Asta.’
‘Maybe not,’ she steered Carmine to the gate, ‘but I’ve always been better than you think I am.’
12
As soon as she was out of sight of the exercise grounds, Asta’s whole body began to shake. The day had warmed, and she was heated from the race, in spite of her damp clothes. But her body would not stop shaking. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Her mind was a cacophony of disparate images: Pikki pointing at her jumpsuit and laughing; Felix and Essie spinning down the track; the raceway erupting with fire and light and noise; the race through the city; Nat going under those dark waters; the canyon, the tunnel, the rush of the ground; the fear in Felix’s face, the sadness. They mounted, one on top of the other, until it felt like they were going to crush her. She could not catch her breath, and her heart physically hurt.
Carmine stopped in the road and swiveled his head back to look at her.
She wanted to reassure him, but her chest was so tight that it was hard to talk. ‘It’s okay, Carmy.’
The dragon looked doubtful. He tugged at her pantleg until she half climbed, half fell off his back. He drew her to his side with a gentle nip and tucked her against his shoulder, holding her there with the side of his face. She could smell the dragoness of him– a dry, musky odor. Slowly, the steady hot jets of his breath penetrated into Asta’s panic, and her own breathing evened out in rhythm with his.
Asta knew that it was her responsibility to take care of Carmine, her job to fret over the temperature in his stall, the freshness of his bedding, the fit of his harness. That was what she owed him as his rider. But she had learned a long time ago that the job went both ways. Carmine was tuned to her, attentive and patient. He never judged her and couldn’t lecture. All he did was love her, and it filled her with a fierce, extravagant, almost feral love in return.
When the quaking of her body had eased into an occasional shivering aftershock, Asta took hold of Carmine’s harness and led him back to the stables to clean him up.
There was a hose at the far side of their housing unit. Asta took off Carmine’s harness and sprayed him down. She wiped as much of him as she could reach with a towel and then led Carmine back to his stall. There, she rubbed balm over his scales with a heavy flannel cloth until his sides shone. As she worked, her jumbled thoughts quieted.
Carmine lay down in his stall and let her do her work without complaint. His eyes looked heavy, and his breathing was thinning in that sleepy way it did when he was a hatchling trying to stay awake against all odds. That was good. He needed to rest for tomorrow’s preliminaries.
