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“WE SHOULD STOP OFF somewhere quickly along the way and pull on that Kav’ai clothing,” Zyla said after long minutes.
“Why?” I asked. “If there are people of the Dominion here, and Saboraak can’t change anything but her color, then why change what we are wearing?”
“If she stays a pale grey and we cover the front of her head, and if we sneak through a back way into the city so that no one gets a good look, she can pass as an oosquer.”
“I still don’t know what those are.”
“They’re hard to explain. Ask the dragon if she would please set down on a mountainside - if she can.”
There’s nowhere to set down and I need to take the shortest route to the city. I’m worried I can’t fly even that far. Can you put on your disguises while we fly?
“She says we’ll have to get dressed on here,” I said.
Zyla sighed. “Then you’re going to have to climb up behind me. I can’t reach into those saddlebags and hold these two in place at the same time. Bataar’s not doing well. He’s going to need a sickbed when we arrive.”
Scrambling up onto the back of a dragon from the stirrup while she’s flapping like an eagle with a tick burrowing in his neck was no easy matter. To my embarrassment, I needed help from Zyla.
“Grab me around the waist, it’s the only way you’ll be able to get your leg up.”
I tried to reach for a far strap. I really shouldn’t be grabbing her waist or any other part of her. Especially not when that waist looked like the absolute perfect size for my hands. I swallowed.
“Stop being so thick-headed and just do it,” Zyla insisted.
I lifted my leg up behind her, wiggling to try to reach it further, but I really did need to hold on to something if I was going to swing up on to the saddlebags behind her. She sighed, shifting Bataar to one arm and then grabbing my wrist with her other hand. She planted it on her far hip.
“Grip here and use it for leverage!”
I felt my cheeks growing hot – far too hot in this frigid, icy air.
Even I can feel the blood rushing to your head. Cool down, Tor. You’re climbing a flying dragon, not asking a girl to dance.
I didn’t know of any dances that would end with me tucked in so close and with my hand on her hip.
Don’t humans have any fun?
Surprise distracted me for just long enough that my muscles worked on their own. I slid into place and then pulled my hand back like it had been bitten. It still felt warm from her touch. Maybe one day ...
Just find what we’re looking for in those saddle bags! We’ll worry about your mating dance later.
No one said anything about a mating dance! Now my cheeks were throbbing from blushing so hard.
What kind of dance were you thinking about, then?
A social dance! People danced in the city square on Sata Day and High Spring.
Dragons only have one kind of dance.
Earth swallow me! I wasn’t safe from women anywhere!
I fumbled in the saddlebag and pulled out the over-stuffed satchel.
“I’m surprised you all remembered to gather this in the excitement,” I said, reaching into it to pull out a loose hooded tunic, heavily embroidered and woven of a coarse fabric.
“We didn’t leave anything behind,” Zyla said, turning to look at the tunic. When she looked down her dark eyelashes looked longer than usual and when she looked back up, they shaded her cat-like eyes in a way that made me swallow all over again.
“Is this for you or me?” I asked.
“It would be best on Zin. If I dress her as a Zyvaar, no one will ask any questions if she doesn’t speak. Here. Pass it to me.”
“What’s a Zyvaar?”
“One of the silent practitioners of the Kav’ai ceremonies,” Zyla answered. “Here, Zin, wear this.”
Her sister obeyed silently, looking off into the distance as if she hadn’t heard at all, even though she was complying.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. I needed to know and there was no delicate way to ask. If we were going to sneak into this city, then we had to plan around ... whatever.
“Nothing,” Zyla snapped.
“Can ‘nothing’ be healed?” I pressed.
“No.”
“Can it be reasoned with?”
She made an exasperated sound in her throat. “Listen, boy. I don’t have answers to all your questions. I was in that house where Hubric left me when I was surprised by those ruffians who call themselves Magikas. They hauled me off to the camp you found me in. I was there for one day before you showed up and your dragon saved us.”
Someone knows who to credit.
“That’s where I found Zin. I thought she was dead with my parents. So, I don’t have answers to all your questions – or any of them, really. Zin will talk when she’s ready.”
“She’s not even talking to you?”
“She’ll talk when she’s ready!” Zyla’s voice had a snap to it that made me think of a whip cracking. “Now, reach into that satchel and see what else there is.”
I reached in.
“A leather harness.”
“With a wide piece of leather at the center?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll use that to disguise Saboraak. What else?”
“An embroidered scarf. It’s kind of filmy.” I said. I felt weird doing this with her. “How do we sneak into the city?”
“The scarf is for me.” She took it and wound it around her head and face, so I could see nothing but those mesmerizing eyes. “And it should be easy to sneak in. The Festival of Lights started yesterday, and it will go all week. Everyone will be distracted by the feasting and parades. We won’t interest anyone. We’ll fly in from the craggier side of Eski and try one of the smaller entrances.”
“We’re flying a dragon. We don’t need to go in through a gate,” I objected, pulling from the satchel a wide embroidered belt with a sparkling silver buckle and a long leather strap with feathers sewn along it.
“We do if we don’t want the city guard searching for us. All visitors pass through a city gate or don’t pass at all. We’ll find an inn there and lie low until I can meet my contact. And that belt is for you. The leather band is looped around your forehead four times and then tied.”
“Like Bataar’s?”
“He’s dressed like Kav’ai, isn’t he?” She sounded impatient.
“How should I know?”
She turned to gape at me. “You didn’t know?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why did you agree to help him? How did you know he would be on our side?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Why would a Kav’ai be on our side.”
The look of fury on her face was only overshadowed by shock. “You mush-headed, sewer-dwelling, think-with-the-hair-on-your-chest ...”
Had she run out of insults?
“What?” I asked, letting my eyes go wide so I would look innocent. She was alive and out of the hands of Magikas and so was her sister. What more did she want?
She took a long breath. “You need to learn to think before you act.”
“If I did that, we’d still be fleeing from a forest fire and a bunch of guys on flying rugs. Instead, we’re on our way to a Festival.” I gave a bright – albeit false – smile. Maybe she could be distracted.
Zyla rolled her eyes. “The Kav’ai hate Magikas. They found Bataar trying to sneak into the Dominion and snatched him up. They were hoping to get information about the rumors of Kav’ai magic. Everyone is saying they have an alternate source of power – one the Magikas are desperate for. I thought you knew that.”
The city was growing closer and I focused on it instead of on her accusing eyes. Anyone could have made the same decision I did. After all, I needed an ally at the time, and Saboraak had insisted on Bataar.
Don’t drag me into this.
“So,” I said eventually, “what you’re saying is that Bataar doesn’t need any more disguise than what he has.”
Zyla sighed so loudly that I was sure it was meant for me to hear. “Just listen to me from now on, okay?”
Like I was going to promise that! I did what I thought was best, not what other people told me was best. Let their decisions kill or beggar them. That was their business. I looked out for me and I made decisions that kept me alive, and that was that.
I huddled against the cold, doing my best not to touch Zyla despite the tight squeeze on Saborrak’s back. My heel throbbed uncomfortably. She was busy trying to get the headpiece to fit my dragon while Saboraak flew, and both of them were too occupied with that – a nearly impossible task – to berate me. For now.
I crossed my arms. I never signed up to work with a bunch of girls who always thought I was the one to blame for everything. Shouldn’t they be glad to have me around? I’d saved both of their bacon more than once now. That doorway trick was ingenious.
Ahead of me, the city grew closer and closer. It didn’t sprawl so much as climb. Who thought it was a good idea to build a city on an almost vertical mountainside?
The buildings clung to the sides of the rock like nesting cliff swallows. Spiraling stairs and steep ladders led from building to building and formed soaring bridges from cleft to cleft.
The buildings almost looked like tiny sculptures of the mountains. Their roofs were peaked and so steep that they were far higher than they were wide with round windows and many struts keeping the buildings in place along the steep mountainsides.
Scores of people filled the ladder-and-stairs streets and narrow boardwalks between buildings, many of them carrying something that smoked in their hands. My feet were already itching to explore a new city. Would it be like Vanika with hidden spots only a few knew about? Could there be secret trade, and back alleys, and underground business in a place like this?
I couldn’t wait to find out.
“Here’s the gate,” Zyla said briskly. “Remember, let me do the talking.”