“Magic,” I slur, my lips against his warm skin. I don’t have the strength to lift myself up off him. “Not easy to…” I trail off. Talking is unappealing. I probably shouldn't have done this hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted.
Roiven sighs, and shifts to cradle me in his arms. I hold the dirty hand out to the side so it won’t touch him. His arms are around my back, and he’s moved me off his chest, but from just an inch away I can still feel his heat. His arms are strong. Big. Shirtless. I fight the urge to nuzzle back against him for comfort.
“Can you stand?” he asks, reminding me that Roiven doesn’t want to be touching me. I straighten out of his arms.
Roiven lets go slowly. I crouch down, or maybe it’s more like a controlled fall, to wipe my hand on the rocks.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to get it off.”
“Get…?” he starts. There’s a moment of silence and then heat rolls over me as a bright red light flares. I flinch away, but the flame from Sava’s throat isn’t pointed at me. It’s just a torch. Roiven curses, and then everything goes dark again. I blink away the spots of light from my eyes.
“Rinse your hand in the water.”
“Not touching that,” I tell him.
“Why not?”
“The ocean is disgusting.”
“Have youalwaysbeen afraid of it?” he says. I don't dignify him with a response.
I feel him walk away and I keep scraping my hand against the stone, but I can’t get the feeling of death off. A moment later Roiven re-appears.
“Hold out your hand.”
“Why?” I ask suspiciously.
“Just do it.”
I reach my hand out and seawater splashes over it. I shudder, revulsion pulsing through me at the feel of it on my skin. He brings another handful.
“Enough.”
“If you’re sure. We’ll go to the nearest hideout,” Roiven says. “If you tell anybody…”
I tilt my head to look up at him. Even though I’m crouched low to the ground, the movement is still too much for me. I waver, then fall back on my ass. Everything keeps spinning.
I hear Roiven’s heavy sigh.
“I think you’ll have to,” he says to Sava, even though he doesn’t have to speak out loud any more.
I close my eyes and lie back against the stone. Even sitting up is too much right now. It would be so easy for them to leave me here.
But a moment later Sava’s claws close against me and pry me up from the rock like she’s digging an oyster from its shell.
Not this, again. It was so uncomfortable the first time. I feel myself rise up into the air and wonder if I’m going to be sick. A moment later I squint my eyes open as a blast of bright heat rips through the night.
The puddle of crystal, blood, and seawater. Sava burned it to ash.
She launches up into the air and Iamsick, embarrassingly. Bile splatters onto the Bluff’s rocks. I shudder and let my body go limp in Sava’s paw.
We fly through the night. I don’t struggle, but I can’t sleep either, no matter how sick and exhausted I feel. This has to be the worst way to travel. Even worse than being crammed up against Roiven, but there’s no way I could have climbed up Sava’s side. And probably he’s realized he doesn’t have to touch me if Sava just carries me instead.
A lifetime passes as I rock up and down over the ocean, contorted in the grip of her claws. The sky brightens. Dawn. I don’t think I’ve slept more than a few seconds at a time.
We approach a black stone mountain jutting up from the ocean. Sava’s wings flare out to break her speed, and her back feet slam down against the side of the slope. Pebbles clatter. A boulder shatters down the mountain. A moment later her paw uncurls and I slip from her grasp… into another pair of arms.
