Page 8 of Gate of Chaos


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“Who were you consulting?”

“Petrarchyan,” I said, guilty. “It needed a name.”

But Mahon nodded, onlymildlydisapproving I’d pestered the mate of a Wyrm with my dumbness.

Keon was waiting for us in the field.

I caught myself before I flung myself at him.

Then he smiled. A little shy smile.

Fling mode: engaged.

Mahon sighed, turned around, and walked about ten feet away.

Keon was so...quiet. So still. So steady. My big stone drake. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed into his chest. After a moment, he carefully wrapped his arms around me.

He always conjured the mental image of a big stone drake, covered in moss and vines, in an ancient jungle. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping you train.”

I pulled back. “Really? Aren’t you supposed to be translating the Atlantean data?”

“I need to be here with you. The data can wait.”

“Why do you need to be here? Not that I don’t enjoy you being here.” Keon was the smartest dragon most of us knew, so when Keon had a theory, it was worth listening to him.

Now he seemed uncertain.

I tugged. “Keon.”

“Because you need me to be steady, I think,” Keon said uncertainly. “I think each of a Chaos dragon’s consorts serve a specific purpose. Mine is to ground you. The tethers transcend all realities and dimensions.”

I took a moment to enjoy his body against mine. The light layers that made up Lemurian fashion didn’t leave anything to my imagination. “Thank you.”

He reached behind his neck and unwrapped my hands. “You don’t need to thank me. But we should get to work.”

I shifted on my toes to reach up to give him a kiss, but then caught myself, since Roost-Dad was over there. “Sure. Put me in, I’m ready.”

Keon took off his shendyt, tossed it onto the fallow field, and shifted into dragon form. He shook his neck, sending his mossy finlets rustling. “Come on. I’ll catch you.”

I took off my dress and closed my eyes, gathering the ribbons to me like drawing in breath, pulling them around my wrists and feeding them onto the spindle. I cracked one eye and Keon was still there, with the tendrils rooted into his mossy scales.

I closed my eyes again and flipped myself inside out.

The cosmic box snappedshutwith a clack. I jerked against the ribbons still spinning around my arms (except I no longer had arms), but didn’t tumble.

I opened my eyes. Still in Lemuria. Keon stood in front of me. Mahon stood off to the side. Except I was taller than both of them. Keon raised his snout to mine so he could look me in the eye.

“Breathe,” Mahon said.

Anyone who said flying was as easy as breathing had never been a Chaos dragon, because the flying came naturally, but the breathing didn’t. I concentrated on my abs and lifted my ribcage. A rush of air came in, filling my elongated body. The cool rush over my scales returned, and beyond it, the conch-shell chasm-sound that my brain percieved as something I heard, when I wasn’t hearing it at all.

“Focus on breathing,” Mahon said. His aura was all soft fireflies and dark forest shadows. Not as calm and enduring as Keon, but serene.

“Water pups born in human form swim naturally,” Keon told me. “It’s more comfortable for them to keep moving when they’re first shifting. It forces more water over their gills, so they do it instinctively. If it’s instinct to fly, let it happen. Focus on breathing. You need to train your brainstem.”

Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Cosmic crunches.

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