The Summer Dragon
Page 50
How would I ever know? How did anyone know?
I heard my two mothers in my head—the one who cursed me before she died, and the one who spoke to dragons.
What did Fren say? Curse or blessing, we contend with it. Neither arrives without the other close behind. It’s all part of the Evertide.
In the end I’d only kissed Tulo’s forehead, and left him standing red-cheeked.
Jhem called again and pointed. The Juza outriders drew nearer. They didn’t concern me. But that’s not where she was pointing.
Two kites lifted from the aeries—the kites Borgomos had given Father so long ago. Only Tauman could have launched them. Within a few minutes, others rose above Riat to bob gently in the dawn.
I raised my goggles long enough to wipe the tears from my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered, though to who I wasn’t sure. Asha, perhaps.
We mounted higher, while the Juza riders took an angle to intercept us. We slid northward along the wave front, high above the Crag. The crest of the Morningtide curled over the tip of Mt. Zurvaan, hiding the new cavity where a glacier once nestled.
The only way past the Crag was over the peak of the mountain. The Juza never had a chance of following us, only a slim hope of escaping the torrent I’d led them into. The currents around the Crag sucked them in and pulled them down. Perhaps some of them would survive.
Jhem and Audax, Keirr and I rode the wave all the way to the top. Higher than Zurvaan, higher even than Darian and Aru when they leapt from its point. The horizon stretched as we climbed, drawn into finer and finer slivers of distance until it vanished altogether.
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