The blanket slid more. Faintly, I wondered if all the cloth wrapped around us would soften the blow when we hit the ground. Probably not.
Thunder and wind, my screams and Sam’s, the shrieking buzz of dragons’ communication: the sounds deafened me, and my ears popped and popped as we rose higher. My head felt ready to explode as the pressure changed, and I couldn’t breathe right. Thin, icy air rushed across my face, even when I ducked my head to let my hood take the brunt.
We hurtled into the sky, falling upward as fast as Acid Breath’s wings would carry us.
We slipped. Ropes gouged my waist and legs. Sam pressed harder against me. Any moment now, the ropes would snap and we’d fall.
Our ascent eased, and Acid Breath was horizontal again.
I didn’t know when I’d stopped screaming. Maybe whenever the air had stopped being heavy enough for proper breathing. Gasping, I waited for my heart to slow into a regular rhythm, and for my ears to stop aching. Sam shook against me; I trembled, too.
Acid Breath’s wings thundered, and sharp air rushed against our faces, but we were still on his back, and that was what I cared about.
Sam’s voice strained under the din of wings and air. “Are you okay?”
I tried to nod, but he wouldn’t see it. Instead, I released my useless death grip on the blanket and touched his hand still on my ribs. My head still throbbed from the pressure—or not enough pressure—and my whole body felt like I’d lost a round with Rangedge Lake, but I was okay. As long as we never did that again.
Sam’s grip relaxed as I sat up a little, letting my hood and our blanket cocoon hide the sight of wings, and the passage of blackness beneath and around us. I didn’t want to see after all.
Movement behind me. Tugging on my coat and shirts. Hot skin slid against my waist and ribs, and the weight of Sam’s head settled on my back. My heartbeat steadied with his palm on my skin. I couldn’t stop the panic whenever Acid Breath dipped or changed directions, but this tactile reminder of Sam’s presence helped.
We flew through snow clouds for hours, mostly gliding on a plane of air. The wind never ceased. For a while we listened to the dragons speak to one another, but the ringing in my ears was overwhelming, and the dragons seemed disinclined to converse much while we were on top of them. And with us around, in general. They seemed to fear we’d learn all their dragonish secrets.
I hoped Whit and Stef were faring better, but my thoughts shifted toward our inevitable descent, and what would happen when we finally reached Range.
The clouds moved northeast, away from us. Hours later, the sky turned indigo, and a brilliant line of gold light shot across the eastern horizon. The sun peeked from behind a ridge of mountains, illuminating the long curve of the earth. Mountains pierced the sky, all snow and ice and frozen beauty. And in the west, a bright glow drew my gaze: the temple in the city of Heart.
As light flooded the white land, pouring between mountains and into valleys like rivers and lakes of pure gold, I found the cavities in the ground left behind from hydrothermal eruptions. It was difficult to see them from our distance, but the fact that I could see them at all—that they existed—was enough to be terrifying.
Sam shouted from behind me, “Do you see Templedark Memorial?”
I peered north of the city, but if Templedark Memorial existed anymore, it was too far for me to see. I shook my head and ducked as Acid Breath banked eastward.
It was midmorning by the time buzzing flared in my thoughts.
<This is the place.>
Going down was just as terrible as going up. The descent made us dip forward, and the impact of landing jarred every bone in my body, but then everything grew deliciously still and I imagined going to sleep in a real bed. Showering with hot water. Not living in a tent.
“Oh no.” Sam swore quietly, making me look up.
Menehem’s lab lay in ruins.
23
ALLIANCE
MOST OF THE building remained standing, though there were holes in the roof and a tree had fallen on it, leaving one end open to the elements. The cisterns were on the ground, a sheet of ice spreading around them. The solar panels had been damaged beyond repair, and unidentifiable bits of machinery spilled from the door.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no.” I fumbled for the straps of the harness, struggling to free myself from the ropes gouging into my midsection.
“Wait.” Sam grabbed my hands and held me still. “Just wait. I’ll get it.”
When he released my hands and began unbuckling the harness, I just stared at the ruins of my father’s lab and watched as sylph emerged from the forest. They gave a long, melancholy wail as they drifted through the ruins.