“I know you wouldn’t.” Marin patted his neck. “Just being extra cautious.” She had a tiny bolt of inspiration: “I want Dax to feel safe.”
“I trust—” Dax began.
Marin elbowed him. “Don’t we want Dax to feel safe?”
Perrididwant his favorite musician to feel safe. He settled down, and Ree climbed onto Marin’s lap. She arranged the rope so that it would keep him tight against her, then she leaned forward—arms on either side of Ree—and held on to the serpent’s muscular shoulders. Behind her, Dax wrapped his arms around her waist, and Marin was suddenly very aware of how close he was and how right it felt.Donotget used to this, she scolded herself, but she still noticed the way her body curved against his, the way his breath warmed her neck, and the way her heart beat faster knowing his beat alongside hers.
It was one kiss, and that was all it could ever be.
“Let’s go,” Marin said.
And Perri swam.
He started slow and gentle, gliding away from shore, as smooth as a breath. She felt the breeze on her face, and she thought maybe this would feel like sailing.
Away from the island, Perri increased speed. She felt his muscles clench and release beneath her, and he shot forward as the waves swelled around them.
She’d watched him swim before, but she’d never thought of what it would feel like to be skimming with him on the surface of the water, slicing through it, just above the dark depths. It was intoxicating, like sailing but intensified and without the control.
Dax’s arms tightened around her waist, and she felt the warmth of his body all along her back, the full length of her spine, comforting and wonderful. Ree huddled within her arms.
Perri swam faster.
It felt like riding a scream. The wind shrieked in her ears, but the waves were silent as they sliced through them, giving them no time to crash around Perri’s sinewy body. The scales beneath Marin’s hands shifted with each movement—he was swimming like a snake, a serpentine sidewinding motion to propel his body forward while staying on the surface.
There were no islands visible. In every direction, the horizon was an unbroken line. It was an unusual and unsettling sight. Closer to the heart of the Crescent Islands, you could always see an island in the distance, usually several. Even in most of the outer islands, there were still purple cloud-like smears on the horizon that were distant islands. On clear days, you could see their silhouettes. But not here.
They were farther out to sea than she’d ever sailed.
She gripped Perri’s scales harder.
As the day wore on, Perri didn’t slow, and the horizon didn’t change. Around them, the sea rose and fell with its rhythms. She saw a herd of merhorses once, in the distance. Another time, a whale breached, its white belly exposed to the sun before it crashed back to be subsumed by the water. She even once thought she saw the tentacle of a distant kraken, but it didn’t bother them and she could have imagined it.
Later, a seabird flew overhead, matching their pace for a while before peeling away, and it was only by watching the bird that Marin spotted the blur of land.
She watched the island grow as they swam closer and closer.
By late afternoon, it was visible: three mountains of gray stone, bare rock exposed to the wind and shaped like knives. Closer, she saw pine trees clumped around its base. Closer still, a ring of more gray rocks as its shore.
And then she spotted it, silver against the gray stone.
Her beloved sailboat.
Halfway up a mountain.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The boat on the mountainside was a problem.
So was the dragon beside it.
Glittering in the sun, the dragon was gold, its metallic scales bright against the cold gray rock, and its tail was wrapped around the hull of her boat. Marin couldn’t see its head, but its ruby-colored wings were flattened on its back. From a distance, it looked as tiny as a toy, but it was twice the size ofSilver.
She felt her heart rise up into her throat.My boat!
“Oh!” Dax said happily. “I know where we are!” She felt him sit up straight behind her, and she turned her head to see him pointing up at the sky, where a sapphire-colored dragon with onyx wings was circling. “This is Ilreka, island of the dragons.”
“They’re huuuuuge!” Ree said, clearly as thrilled as Dax.
