She climbed onto Hiyyan’s back, and together, dragon and rider paddled up the coast.
FORTY
They slept in the cove until the midmorning sun began burning the back of Silver’s neck. She gently nudged Hiyyan awake and felt a current of shared excitement flow between them. Today was race day.
Silver showed Hiyyan the camouin disguise and helped him into it.
“Not a bad fit,” she said. “How does it feel?”
Hiyyan tugged here and there so the draping metal settled where it felt best, and growled with appreciation. Silver smiled. There was a new feeling between the two of them. A quiet, steady determination to work together to meet their goals.
They rode back into Calidia to check the posted race schedule at the seawall. Desert Fox was listed in the third semifinal heat. Just beneath Ferdi’s name. Silver shaded her eyes with her hand and peered up. The sun was just about dead center in the sky. Out on the racecourse, a handful of riders began moving their water dragons toward the starting line. The air at the seawall buzzed with a sudden energy.
“How much longer until the first semifinal race?” Silver asked a woman beside her through her scarf.
“Ten minutes until the first and best. Look!”
There was Sagittaria Wonder, astride a Dwakka, in the center lane. Silver’s heart fluttered with hope. Kirja wasn’t being claimed today. The Aquinder was still a secret.
She peered at the sea past the racecourse. In the distance, Ferdi seemed to float atop the water, his Glithern warming up for their race. Sweat beaded on Silver’s temples as the minutes counted down.
Sagittaria’s race began with a wail of the horn.
The crowd roared with delight, waving banners and Desert Nations flags. A man sitting on a tall stool shouted race progress over the noise as people exchanged coins with a fevered frenzy.
“Where are your colors, girl?” the woman asked. “Who do you support?”
Silver thought about her desert fox mask, safely hidden in her bag. “My favorite racers are later,” she said.
Despite everything, the way Sagittaria Wonder raced took Silver’s breath away. She kept tight control of her Dwakka around bends, over obstacles, and as they dipped into the sea and out of sight before rising to the surface again. She seemed relaxed, even as her opponents screamed at their water dragons. She radiated the confidence that she would win, no matter what. She was that good.
The flame that burned in Silver grew to a roaring fire. Would she ever become that kind of racer, too?
With a flick of the reins from Sagittaria Wonder, the Dwakka deftly avoided the grasping eel-like tentacles of the dull-gray Decodro one lane over. The crowd roared with laughter and cheered at her maneuver, but Sagittaria’s calm expression didn’t change. She was as cool as seawater.
As the race grew tighter, the challengers became desperate, using any means possible to take their opponents out. A field of eight narrowed to six, then five and four, as two water dragons were injured and two more fell so far behind they had no hope of catching up. One failed challenger was bucked off his water dragon but still attached by a line, so that he was dragged through the churning waters. But Sagittaria held a comfortable lead, making it all look easy.
When she and her Dwakka crossed the finish line in first place, the crowd went wild. Silver cheered just as loudly. It felt like she was experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime event.
The woman beside her chuckled. “As to be expected! Our queen’s racer is the best in the world.”
Sagittaria Wonder took one winner’s lap, waving to her adoring fans and pausing to bow her head to Queen Imea, who watched from a palace balcony, before moving into the warm-up area.
Ferdi crossed paths with Sagittaria as he and his Glithern left the warm-up area. She said something that made him laugh, and Silver went cold. Were Sagittaria and Ferdi friends?
Silver quickly left the seawall and collected Hiyyan at the docks, adjusting their disguises to cover as much as possible. They paddled slowly to the warm-up area as the second race was off. Then, it was their turn to line up.
The seas churned with water dragons moving to the starting line for their heat. She looked warily all around—no Sagittaria, no guards, no Abruqs. Did they know who Desert Fox was under the mask? With a deep breath, she steered Hiyyan to the flag of Calidia marking the beginning of the course. Her hands tingled under fistfuls of mane. Her eyes trailed down to the camouin that she’d carefully wrapped around Hiyyan’s wings. He pressed against the metal instinctively, but he didn’t complain.
They were in lane two. On their left, closest to the seawall, was a Dwakka. This one was somewhat smaller than Sagittaria Wonder’s, but its two heads seemed just as observant, always swerving side to side. On their right, a familiar face snarled. It was the green-and-white Hop-Slawn from earlier, and it looked like it had never stopped being angry. Even now, the rider held tight to chains that attached in six different places on the water dragon’s faceplate, headpiece, and collar.
Hiyyan could be a touch reluctant about racing, but this dragon obviously hated it. Despite fearing the Hop-Slawn a bit, Silver felt horribly sorry for it.
Ferdi was silent, two dragons away, but his body was hunched over and his knuckles, wrapped around Hoonazoor’s reins, were white. Did Silver have any hope of beating him and his Glithern?
“Desert Fox!” A cry reached Silver from the seawall. She leaned forward to peer between the dragons around her.
What she saw made her body tingle as though festival fireworks had been set off in her belly. A group of people pressed against the wall, each of them wearing a rough facsimile of Silver’s fox mask. The tallest of them, standing in the back, waved a dark-brown flag with a desert-fox face in the center. They all cheered. It was a small group and their flag was unpolished, made up of scraps of fabric cut roughly, but that didn’t matter to Silver.
They were cheering for her. They wanted Hiyyan to win. They were there to support them.
She and Hiyyan had fans.
Silver swallowed an unexpected lump. She realized she was grinning so big her cheeks were beginning to hurt.
Look, Hiyyan. They’re here for us.
Silver forced her face muscles to relax, and lifted her hand in a wave. The group went wild, jumping up and down, whooping and hollering. The Dwakka rider, to her left, moved into her line of vision, blocking the desert-fox fans.
“You must be young if that group of dune beetles excites you,” the Hop-Slawn rider whispered to Silver. “You should quit racing while you’re ahead. My master will pay you your weight in gold to lose.”
Silver shot him a glare. “You couldn’t afford my price.”
“Name your price, then. My master’s made his fortune in silks. He can meet it. That Dwakka rider took my offer.”
Silver glanced at the Dwakka rider again. Her hair was gray, and her face, lined with years. Perhaps she was through with racing and wanted some rest. Silver hadn’t truly begun yet.
She faced the Hop-Slawn rider again. “That cape is very fine silk. But it’ll slow you down. Does your master force you to wear it? If so, he thinks more about his silks than about you.”
“I’m sure it’s the same for your master. Who owns your dragon?”
“No one owns him, and no one owns me.”
“No one, perhaps, but this race will. Forget my offer. I’ll wager your qualifying-race winnings that you don’t make it past the first obstacle.” The Hop-Slawn rider threw back his head and laughed. Even his water dragon snorted a few times.
Hiyyan sent ripples of warmth through his body to reassure Silver, but even he couldn’t dismiss her troubled thoughts. She’d talked so often about the feats Sagittaria Wonder had accomplished. The speed and the whirlpools … but Silver hadn’t let herself think about how she, too, would have to take on those same challenges.
Until now.
Silver pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. The starting bang sounded, and they were off.<
br />
FORTY-ONE
Hiyyan lowered his head to a point aimed at the finish line in the far distance. Silver rounded her back, keeping close to him. As the Aquinder bolted forward, Silver was stunned to see that the landscape of the racecourse was shifting before her eyes. Challenges rose from the water, course markers moved, and pieces of the sea seemed to disappear completely into blackness.
It’s changing, Silver thought to Hiyyan. She knew that the racemasters kept the details of the course shrouded in mystery to discourage cheating. Now, it seemed that they had come up with a constantly shifting course to make sure the riders couldn’t anticipate challenges.
Had Silver been less terrified, she would have been impressed. But her fear was making her hands tremble more than when she tried to set tiny jewels into gold.
Hiyyan sent her pulses of warmth, and she clenched her fists until they stilled.
“You’re right. Nowhere to go but forward,” she said.
Her water dragon gave one great roar, and the crowd matched his volume. Blood rushed into Silver’s cheeks.
Hiyyan’s legs worked furiously below the surface while Silver hung on tightly and searched for a glimpse of the first obstacle.
Their heat was well matched. No water dragon shot out in front, and none were left behind. That both comforted and worried Silver. It would be a close race, which meant the racers would fight for any slight advantage. She watched her opponents out of the corners of her eyes, on high alert for any dodgy activity.
Two lanes away, Ferdi skimmed the water, his face determined. Then his eyes went wide, and Silver whipped forward.
From the depths of the sea, oval creatures trailing long, thin tails shot into the sky. They were the size of Jaspatonian flatbreads, and their glossy black fins moved back and forth a few times as they reached their peak height, then they curled toward the riders and zoomed straight for them.
“Watch out,” Silver yelled.
Hiyyan deftly dodged the first attack just before a second creature shot at Silver. She leaned to her right, but the creature skimmed her arm with the sharp edge of its fin, opening a bloody line in her skin. She hissed and clapped her hand over the wound to suppress the bleeding as Hiyyan weaved side to side through the field of flying rays. When they reached the last wave of razor-finned sea creatures, the Aquinder pushed forward with all his might—thrusting them straight into the next obstacle.
Silver and Hiyyan dropped off the face of the earth.
At least, that’s how it felt when they tipped into the swirling hole that had opened across the racecourse. Here, then, was one of the famed whirlpools Sagittaria could ride through with hardly any effort.
Silver, on the other hand, panicked.
“Hiyyan!” she managed to scream before the seawater smacked her in the face and drowned out her words. Her head spun one direction and her body another, until she was too dizzy to see clearly.
Water sloshed up Hiyyan’s sides, the whirlpool emitting a high-pitched whistling sound. Something gripped her cut arm, and Silver screamed again.
“Stop fighting it!” Ferdi was next to her, somehow. “Look at me!”
But the water kept flinging, and Hiyyan kept spinning, and Silver couldn’t breathe. Her hands slipped from Hiyyan’s mane, and her hips slid across his back.
“Focus,” Ferdi shouted.
“I can’t,” Silver sputtered as salt water burned her eyes and filled her nose.
The impossibility of the situation—a debut water dragon racer trying to win a big race—threatened to pull her under the water.
“You’re Desert Fox. You can do this!” They were the last words Ferdi yelled to her as the whirlpool whisked him and his Glithern away.
She wiped her hand across her face, trying to ignore the sting. Her wounded arm had gone numb.
Ferdi slowly moved up the side of the whirlpool, closer and closer to the sea’s surface with each lurch.
Silver’s teeth chattered. “I won’t … let a whirlpool … get in the way … of winning. Climb, Hiyyan. Like them. A little at a time.”
Hiyyan pointed his snout to the sky and pushed with his hind legs. Silver pressed low against his back, turning her face away from the splashing water as best she could, and they moved upward bit by bit, as though leaping to different levels. Below, other racers were struggling with the whirlpool, too. But still more were out of Silver’s sight, and she worried that they were far ahead of them in the race.
Beneath her, Hiyyan breathed heavily.
Keep it up, she told him. You’re doing great.
When they finally broke free from the swirls and reached the surface again, dragon and rider both sucked in air.
Silver scanned the horizon. They had fallen behind four other dragons, including Ferdi’s Glithern.
“We … can’t … rest…” Silver said, her chest heaving with exertion. “Just keep moving.”
For a while, the course led them in a straight line. There was one section with rivulets, where the water ran perpendicular to the sea’s current, and here the Shorsa in the farthest lane tripped, falling back enough for Silver and Hiyyan to catch up. Still, as they began to find a speed and rhythm, Silver’s worries grew. She knew that some new obstacle must be coming up, and soon.
Hard snorts pierced the air. There was little distance between most racers, with only two left far behind, including the racer who had accepted the bribe to lose. Ferdi glanced over and nodded once to Silver. She gritted her teeth and blinked salt water from her eyes.
The sky shifted.
No, it wasn’t the sky, but the blue sea—rising into a mountain with a dangerously steep slope. The Shorsa reached the foot of the mountain first and began a slow and steady climb. The Hop-Slawn rider grunted.
“Everyone goes over,” he snarled. Then he dug his heels into his water dragon, and they both vanished into the side of the water mountain.
Like the Shorsa, Ferdi climbed, and Silver would, too. This mountain was no greater challenge than the dunes back home.
“I know we’re almost there, Hiyyan.”
The Aquinder pushed up the rushing mountain waters, straining his muscles to gain each tiny bit of height. His wings struggled against the camouin cage, and she couldn’t help thinking how he could have so easily flown. She felt his effort in her own limbs, and she struggled not to slip off his back.
A mixture of seawater and sweat flowed from her temples. Her hot, clammy hands kept sliding over Hiyyan’s fur. But she could see the top of the mountain, and when she chanced a peek behind her, she realized they’d already climbed more than halfway. Ferdi was falling behind, and even the Shorsa was only a head’s length in front of them.
As she and Hiyyan crested the mountain, their heavy, thick pulse pounded as one. Then a burst of cold air met them.
Just ahead, the finish line flags glittered in the sun.
“Go, Hiyyan!”
Silver wished her water dragon could spread his wings and fly to the finish. Instead, they inelegantly tumbled down the back side of the mountain and met the mirror surface of the sea once more.
Hiyyan threw everything he had left into his effort, but the Shorsa was dashing ahead.
Silver peeked at the Hop-Slawn that had gone through the wall instead of over as it gained on Hiyyan, too. It strained and snorted angrily. The rider screamed and slapped its flanks with a whip. Silver cringed.
His expression looked too much like how she’d felt in the first race.
And she would never do that to Hiyyan again.
Silver loosened her grip on Hiyyan’s mane. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, slowly, sinking into the rise and fall of her Aquinder’s movements. Warmth slowly built in her legs, then her belly. She reached for and saw the things Hiyyan was seeing: the end of the race closing in, the life beyond with Kirja and the sea and … her.
Her thoughts went to Jaspaton, the great pale city carved into the desert cliffs. A steady thrum began in her chest; a slow but deep heartbeat
to match the drum music that was played at festivals.
Thump … thump.
She envisioned meteors dancing across a dune-tipped sky. Her mother and father stood, looking out over the sands, hoping for a sign of Silver.
I am here, and I am safe. She imagined her words flowing toward her parents, as soft as a breeze, gently stirring their black hair.
And still, the Jaspaton drums beat.
Thump … thump.
They were waiting for her—her parents and Brajon and Kirja and all of Jaspaton and all of the deep desert. Waiting for Silver to prove herself, to touch her destiny.
Nebekker was waiting for her, and the legend of Gulad Nakim was waiting for her. A scrappy group of Desert Fox fans held their breath, and Silver felt strangely close to them. She would pave the way for Aquinder to be safely revealed to the world again.
Thump … thump.
The drum sound soared across the sands and over the sea. Silver opened her eyes and came back to Hiyyan. She realized their heartbeats matched. Their skin was the same temperature. They breathed at the same pace. They were one. The air fought against them, but the sea urged them forward until they were a nose ahead of the pack, and then a neck, and then half a body’s length.
Silver smiled. Let go, Hiyyan. Relax. We’ll do this together.
Hiyyan gave a contented sigh. His legs pushed the water. His body settled into his natural racing form.
He relaxed and, with a triumphant cry, shot them across the finish line.
FORTY-TWO
“You can’t go anywhere looking like that,” Mele said.
It had been an hour since Silver’s winning race, and her body still buzzed. Hiyyan was hidden back in the cove, and Silver and Brajon hid in Mele’s room. They listened to the cheers as the final races concluded, and then they heard music and singing start as the festivities continued. The pendant at Silver’s throat pulsed gently. A constant reminder of why she’d come to Calidia and how close she was to rescuing Kirja.
Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races Page 21