Page 21 of River Dragon’s Song

He obviously didn’t mind that she had been looking. He didn’t mind at all.

“Spillway,” he said thoughtfully. “Very interesting.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

She laughed despite herself and pressed her hands against her burning cheeks. Then she turned away to look at the water running free through the channel he had cleared. It was easier than looking at him. It was also, she had to admit, not as interesting.

CHAPTER TEN

Korrak had decided to take Frankie to the gardens before they left the spillway. He had been thinking about it ever since the climb where she had clung to the rock halfway up with her eyes squeezed shut and her breath rasping through the mask. But it was the way she had looked at him in the side channel that finally made up his mind. He had come up out of the water and found her watching him, her light pointed at his hips and her cheeks flushed a deep, lovely pink. A slow, hungry heat had curled low in his belly.

She had looked at him as if she liked what she saw. As if she wanted to keep looking. He wanted to give her something in return. And he knew exactly what she needed, even if she didn’t.

Her light was dying. It had grown weaker all day, the clean white glow fading to a tired yellow. She had started switching it off whenever the moss was bright enough to see by. Her food was almost gone too. That morning she had taken out one of the crinkly packets and looked at it for a long time before she broke off a piece. When she thought he wasn’t watching, she had folded the wrapper around what was left with hands that weren’t quite steady.

And she still couldn’t breathe properly. Every time the path climbed, he heard it in the harsh rasp through her mask. Every time she stopped to rest, his chest ached along with hers.

So when she packed her bag and turned to follow the main channel downstream, he stepped deliberately in front of her. He pointed to the narrow passage that curved away to the left.

“This way,” he said.

She looked at the passage, and then at him. “Why? The water goes that way.” She waved at the main channel.

“This way,” he repeated firmly. “Good place. For Frrankie.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What kind of good place?”

He thought about it seriously. He didn’t have the words for any of it yet, the green air or the fruit or the warm pools. But he had one word he was sure of, one she had used herself.

“Interesting,” he said solemnly.

She stared at him for a moment, and then she burst out laughing. “Oh, you think you’re so funny.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and she was still laughing when she followed him into the passage.

He knew the moment the air began to change, long before she did. It happened slowly. The passage wound upwards and to the left, and the walls grew damp and then wet. The moss thickened until it covered every surface in a soft, glowing carpet. Pale roots appeared in the cracks of the ceiling. Then vines, trailing down in long curtains, their broad leaves beaded with water. The air grew warmer and heavier, and it smelled of growing things, green and sweet and rich.

Behind him, her breathing gradually softened. He heard it ease, one breath at a time. The harsh rasp faded until he could barely hear it over the gentle drip of water from the leaves. Her footsteps quickened eagerly. And then, just before the passage opened out, she stopped.

“Korrak,” she said in a strange voice. “Wait.”

He turned around. She was standing in the middle of the passage, staring at the small panel on her wrist, the one she had looked at so often in the first days.

“That’s not right,” she muttered. She tapped it and shook her wrist and stared at it again. “That can’t be right.”

She took a few steps forward, still watching her wrist, and then a few more. He stepped aside to let her pass, and she walked right by him without seeing him, out of the passage and into the gardens.

He followed her, and for a moment he saw it all again through her eyes.

The cavern was vast, and its ceiling rose so high that the glow of the moss faded into shadow long before it reached the top. The river ran through the center of it in a series of wide, shallow pools that stepped gently down from one to the next. Every inch of stone around them was covered in vegetation.

Vines climbed the walls and hung from the roof in great tangled curtains. Broad, pale leaves grew in thick clumps along the water’s edge. Between them were the low, dense bushes with the purple leaves he liked to eat, and the tall stalks heavy with clusters of small, dark fruit. The light was soft and blue and green, and it shimmered on the water, and everywhere there was the sound of dripping and trickling and flowing. The air smelled richly of life.

She stood at the edge of the first pool with her mouth open. She looked at the vines and the pools and the fruit, and then she looked down at her wrist.

“Nineteen percent,” she whispered.