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Chapter10
Ari
“Just fucking mount me, already,” Istil said, glaring at me.
We were outside of the main house, getting ready to depart for the south side of the island to collect Istil’s belongings from Kai’s Guardian House.
Istil shifted his weight and dropped down to offer access to the smooth saddle scales along his back.
“You’ve done it before. What’s the problem?”
“Yes, but the last time was in urgency,” I muttered as I hauled myself onto him. “I wasn’t made for this. The baby is a sea dragon, it’s going to want to be in the water. You’re going to have to learn how to swim eventually. Why don’t we go by sea?”
“Halfsea dragon,” he said. “What are you going to do when they decide they like being in the sky? You’re going to be stuck on the ground.”
“There’s absolutely no way that will happen. My child is going to be a proud mariner. You’ll see—AAAH!”
A hurricane whipped around us, clattering the roof tiles and shaking mangos off the nearby trees. Istil’s wings swelled with the rising wind, ripping him into the air with such force I slipped down his back and slammed my balls against his spinal ridge plate.
“Hang on tight,” he said.
“Ah,fuck, it hurts! Next time, warn mebeforeyou decide to take off.”
I clung to his back like a remora on a whale as we lifted higher and higher into the sky, and when I gathered my wits, I took a peek at the ground and immediately regretted it.
And we were still rising, much higher it seemed than we’d flown before, on the day Enry had given birth.
“We’re getting rather high!” I shouted as I watched the crater ridgeline fade into a haze of clouds. “We’re above the mountains!”
“Of course we are,” Istil bellowed over the sound of the wind. “Unless you know of a way to fly through a mountain, we’re going to have to go over them.”
Finally, the wind calmed to a whisper, and we sailed steadily over a sea of clouds. It was a sight I knew I would never be able to adjust to. Through a break in the clouds, I saw the sea sparkling below as if it were a puddle in a bowl of white sand. And when they dissipated, the hazy shadow of T’Wanu Mai, our closest neighbor, was just visible on the horizon like the form of a massive sea beast rising out of the water.
“Have you been out there?” Istil asked. “To the other islands?”
“Yes, of course. It was part of my charge to represent the Blue Fin clan and exchange with the other great clans.”
“Was?”
“Well, I suppose it still is. According to tradition, it should be Kai’s responsibility. But I think you know how Kai feels about traditions. So, it’s still something I handle.”
“Do you resent your cousin?”
“Kai lives his life on his own terms, and I do respect that, no matter how troublesome it can be for me. No, it’s not him I resent. He didn’t choose to be put into his position.”
“And neither did you.”
“No.”
Istil turned his head to look at me, and his green scales flashed brightly in the open sunlight. “You’ve never told me much about your father,” he said.
It was very difficult to keep the emotions that bubbled to the surface from showing on my face. I wasn’t expecting Istil to acknowledge what was admittedly a thinly veiled reference on my part.
“No, I haven’t,” I said. “And I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Ari, how can I expect to fight this battle alongside you when we know so little about each other?”
“My father is unimportant to what we have set ahead of us,” I told him.
