Tuse sucks out the last of the water. His stomach burns. His heart is full of smoke. His arms and legs contract, and the cord on his left wrist slips and slackens. Pins rush into his fingers.
“She shares a dream of mine,” Jeryon says, retrieving the empty skin. “We’d go to Hanosh, tell the Trust our story, and see the three of you gibbeted. Two years, and that’s all I’ve wanted. That was our deal.”
“I’ll speak for you too,” Tuse says. “I’ll say anything you want.” He rolls onto his left side so his hand can worry the cord unseen.
“They wouldn’t listen,” Jeryon says. “ ‘No justice at all,’ you said.”
“They treated you wrong,” Tuse says. “Maybe—”
“They’d treat me worse if I returned,” Jeryon says. He brushes grit off the dragon and rubs her neck. “The company can’t have me walking around, talking about mutiny. I’d be a risk. Worse, a liability. Other owners would use me against them. And they couldn’t buy my silence with a ship and fancy shoes. They’d have to kill me. And her.”
When I get free, I’ll spare the poth, Tuse thinks. He twists his hand. It uncovers a stub of wood, a root, or a buried stump. The cord catches.
“You’re dead already,” Tuse says, “so you can do anything. You have a dragon. You have the world. Tame the North. Disappear in the Dawn Lands.”
“She wants to go home too.”
Tuse slowly saws the cord against the stub, the rest of his body dead still.
“Then go to Ayden,” Tuse says. “They’re nearly at war with Hanosh. They’d open their purses to you.”
“And see them make the dragon a weapon against my own city?” Jeryon says. “The poth would clip the dragon’s wings before that happened.”
The dragon looks at Jeryon.
“It’s not your city anymore,” Tuse says. “Never was, really, not for people like us. We’re just coins passing through the owners’ purses. See how they’ve spent you? Go. Leave me and go. You owe them nothing.”
“No,” Jeryon says, “they owe me.” He grinds his spear into the scrub. “I gave them decades. I gave them trust. And where’s my return?”
Jeryon stabs the ground. Tuse saws more vigorously.
“When I washed up here, where were they? When the rainy seasons came, where were they? When the fire—” Jeryon chokes. “Two years here. How could they forsake me?”
The cord frays.
“I deserve more than a monthly. Or a bonus. They owe me your head, and if they won’t pay,” he points his spear at Tuse, “I’ll collect the debt myself.”
Tuse jerks away from Jeryon. The cord pops. He rolls on his back to hide his free hand. The spear point circles his chest. Tuse says, “She wouldn’t want this.”
“No.” Jeryon taps Tuse’s chest.
“What would she say if you killed me? If you killed them?”
“Nothing. She’d leave. I’d never see her again.”
“So leave me. Take her and go.” Tuse thinks he couldn’t grab the spear before it gored him. Jeryon’s leg, though, if he could catch him off balance . . .
“I can’t. The dragon’s not big enough for two riders yet. You’re lucky she made it all the way here with you.”
“Then go alone. She’ll never know I was here. Or I can help. To make up for what I did. I owe her.”
Jeryon shakes his head. “I thought of a better course. Last night while watching you from the trees and thinking about all you told me.”
“You didn’t spend the night with her?”
“No, I didn’t let her know we were here. That’s the solution. What she doesn’t know can’t upset her.” Jeryon whistles twice. The dragon sits up. “Naturally, we can’t leave any traces,” he says.
“Mercy,” Tuse says. He wiggles against Jeryon’s toes. “Have mercy.”
“Where’s the profit?” Jeryon says.
Tuse growls and rolls into Jeryon’s skinny ankles. Jeryon yelps, falls forward, and jabs the spear into the ground to catch himself. Tuse hammers the back of Jeryon’s calf with his free fist, unlocking his knee, then he grabs the top of the calf and collapses Jeryon’s lower leg against his own chest. Tuse rolls back. Jeryon twists, trying to skip away before his leg is folded between Tuse and the ground, but the spear loses its grip in the scrub, Jeryon loses his grip on the spear, and he falls on his face.
Tuse pivots and claws his way up Jeryon’s back with his free hand. He clenches Jeryon’s neck. He straddles him with his free leg spread to one side and the knee of his bound leg dug into the sand on the other. Tuse makes himself heavy.
“Any sign of your poth?” Tuse whispers. “I didn’t think so.”
Jeryon bucks. Tuse barely moves. Jeryon puckers his lips. The dragon cocks its head. Tuse grinds his mouth into the scrub.
“There was a boy on the Hopper,” Tuse says, and presses his frying-pan thumb into Jeryon’s carotid artery and jugular vein. “He wasn’t a part of this. He didn’t deserve what he got. He was a good kid. Now you owe me.”