Page 148 of Feralheart

Lyndie and Reece flew past us toward one of the few remaining openings. Reece looked back.

“Good luck,” he cried.

It sounded like goodbye.

Fen’s hand lifted toward me, but dropped back to his side. But I felt the almost-touch anyway, a phantom pressure on my arm that burned much too hot.

Selira’s wings snapped out, and she leaped into the air.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

ERADIN

Reece and Lyndie disappeared into the corridor, and the door banged closed behind them.

Fenian and I guided our dragons toward one of the remaining arches.

“Stay close behind me,” he said.

“No,” I said with a huff. “You stay close behind me.”

His mouth curved.

Selira burst forward, flying into the opening. Fenian and Aristus weren’t far behind.

The threshold felt like passing through water, thick and resistant. My ears popped. The temperature dropped so fast my next breath frosted in the air. Then we were through, and the door’s slam behind us had the finality of a tomb sealing.

The world dropped away, and the magic of this trial activated.

Cold water came up to meet me like a fist. The silver lake swallowed the arena and the horn and the sky and us in one black gulp. The same lake that had turned Lord Callix and a dozen others to stone on the first day of the Scorching.

Down. Water sucked us down, and we kept going. My hands clawed for reins that weren’t there.

Except…I’d never flown a dragon before Selira, so I didn’t use reins.

And these weren’t my hands.

They were too big. Callused across the fingertips where mine ran smooth. Soft palms where mine were split and burning. Broad fingers that knew the grip of a sword and had never once crushed graymallow into a wound. I turned them in the murk and did not know them.

And the dragon beneath me?

Aristus.

Was I…inside Fenian?

No, it wasn’t possible.

But it could be.

Panic flooded me, and I flailed, my arms and legs flying outward.

Stop. Selira’s voice in my mind that wasn’t my mind but possibly Fenian’s.

Selira? I cried out.

No, it didn’t feel like her.

Aristus?