“Get them off me!” Silver hopped on her blanket to keep more worms from attaching to her feet, but several were already sucking. Every time she pulled one loose, another took its place. Trickles of blood began running down her skin. The scent and sight sent the worms into a frenzy.
“Hiyyan, help!”
But Hiyyan was already trying, biting with his rows of teeth. He beat his wings at the worms that kept dropping from the ceiling and stomped the ones on the ground with his big, flat feet. His thick scales were impenetrable, but he roared, sharing in her pain.
In his frenzy to reach Silver, Hiyyan knocked Brajon to the ground, where more worms rose up to attach themselves to him.
“Help,” Brajon screamed again.
In the chaos, Silver slipped and fell to the ground, banging her cheek against the rock. She bit her tongue, and the salty taste of blood exploded in her mouth. A worm seemed to sense the blood on her tongue and lunged for her face.
“Noooo!”
This is the end, Silver thought, clamping her mouth shut and protecting her face with her hands. Some destiny. I’m going to be eaten alive by worms before I ever get to race Hiyyan.
But then a pair of those silvery eyes flashed in the corner of her vision. A small furry creature leaped past her face, taking a worm in its mouth and ripping it to shreds. The torn pieces thrashed before becoming still.
And then, more silver eyes and more furry creatures were flying through the air, landing with their sharp little teeth poised to tear the worms apart. There were dozens … maybe hundreds of them, all attacking the slithering worms. Silver was in pain as the slimy jaws were yanked from her body. She frantically felt for any remaining worms, then tore one from her shoulder. She threw it into the water, where a fish gobbled it up.
Slowly, the haziness in Silver’s vision faded. All the colorful spots that had appeared and burst went away. She lay on the cave floor until her heart calmed. Her body still tingled, but the bleeding soon stopped. Hiyyan stopped writhing and curled up next to her. A few feet away, she heard Brajon working to catch his breath.
Just inside the glow of their lantern, several pairs of little animal eyes watched them, waiting, as though they wouldn’t leave until they were sure Silver and Brajon were all right.
“Desert foxes,” Silver whispered.
She reached a tentative hand toward them, but the skittish creatures ran, disappearing into the cave’s shadows when she moved.
“Thank you, foxes,” Silver whispered. She thought back to how she rescued the fox on the dunes on Brajon’s birthday. Could it be that they remembered and were helping her? The dune races felt so long ago. They were different kids in a different world.
“Brajon, are you all right?” she asked, embracing her cousin. His face looked peaked. Silver hoped it was because of fear, and not because he’d lost too much blood.
“Those worms…” Brajon shuddered.
Silver shook her head. She refused to think about those creatures. Instead, she pictured the desert foxes, streaming into battle with their fluffy tails rising high behind them.
“I know we’re hurt,” she said, “but we have to move on.”
A vision flitted in her mind. A girl and a boy, proudly astride a magnificent water dragon.
Hiyyan bumped Silver with his nose, and they locked eyes.
“Did you send me that?”
The image came back again. Brighter than before. Hiyyan wrapped a wing around Silver.
Silver gazed at the Aquinder in wonder. There was so much more for her to learn about their bond, but the message seemed clear.
“Brajon, I think Hiyyan wants us to ride him for a while. We need to get out of here in case there are more worms, and this gives us a chance to rest.”
Brajon hesitated, but finally, he gave a single, decisive nod.
“Okay.”
Hiyyan bent his knee at a ninety-degree angle, and Silver climbed up. Next, Brajon clutched the Aquinder’s mane in his fists and put his foot on the dragon’s leg. With a grunt, Brajon hauled himself behind Silver and splatted himself face-flat on Hiyyan’s back. Backward.
“Ow.” Silver rubbed her shoulder. Brajon had kicked her when he’d flung his leg over the wrong way. “How did you even do that?”
“I mron nwo.” Brajon refused to raise his head. With his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he turned his face slightly so Silver could hear him. “Just go. Let me stay like this for a while. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Fine,” Silver said, but she couldn’t keep down a giggle. Hiyyan also let out a little amused snort. Brajon grumbled his disapproval, but Silver gave Hiyyan a pat, and the Aquinder raised himself up. Brajon squealed once, then clamped his lips together.
“Oh, hush, Brajon,” Silver said. “You sound like a herd animal!”
THEY STOPPED TO EAT. Hiyyan went off to fish while Brajon started a fire and Silver looked through their quickly dwindling food supplies. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully.
“Brajon,” Silver said. She emptied some dried meat and vegetables into her cup and added some river water, then set the whole thing on the fire to boil. “What do we do after we rescue Kirja? Where do we go?”
“Can’t we bring her back to Jaspaton and Nebekker?” Brajon asked as he peered eagerly at the cooking stew. His stomach let out a growl.
“No, that’s where Sagittaria would go first to find her again,” Silver said. “And we can’t tell anyone where Hiyyan is, either, because wherever he goes, they’ll follow, hoping to find Kirja. It’s not right for him to hide away his whole life, and it’s not right to separate him from his mother.”
“But we have to go home at some point,” Brajon said.
“I’m starting to feel like after all of this I won’t have a home anymore,” Silver said quietly.
At this, her cousin fell silent.
Silver slowly stirred the stew with a spoon, watching the curls of steam rising off the surface. The water lost the clarity it had gained from being filtered by rocks and pebbles for hundreds of miles. It turned murky as the meat and vegetables released their colors. The dried food plumped up, and the stew thickened. Soon enough, little bubbles began to pop along the surface.
She thought about cooking with Aunt Yidla. About working fibers next to her mother. About designing jewelry with the weight of her father’s gaze on her. It was true that she didn’t want to do any of those things her whole life, but it was also true that those people—her family—weren’t just their livelihoods. They were also smiles and support, listening ears, love, and comfort.
She would have Hiyyan and she was determined to have her racing career, but would that be enough? In all the stories she’d been told, Silver couldn’t remember ever hearing about Sagittaria Wonder’s loved ones.
Silver pulled her cup off the fire and set it aside to cool as she looked for Hiyyan. She suddenly felt impossibly lonely and needed to bury her face in his furry mane.
He was easy to find. He’d taken a small offshoot in the cave system, where a school of fish congregated, but he wasn’t very far down that stream.
“Hello,” Silver called out to him from the main path, nearby. Her Aquinder looked up, a squirming fish dangling from his mouth. He slurped it all the way in and loped over to her. The fish were too bony for her or Brajon, but Hiyyan swallowed them whole, so all those little bones didn’t bother him.
Silver sat with her back against the cave wall, and Hiyyan joined her. She stroked his silky fur. He was a comfort to her. “Do you miss your mother?” she said to him.
Hiyyan was so young. She didn’t even know how long baby dragons stayed with their mothers. She wished she’d had more time to ask Nebekker questions. Hiyyan was going to need help learning to fly, but she had no idea what else he needed to know. She’d always assumed she would learn everything in Calidia, as she trained beside the greatest dragon racer ever. Water dragon life cycles, how to care for them, their preferred diets. She didn’t even know if Hiyyan particularly liked the fish in the underground river. Maybe what he really craved was some nice grass or juicy berries. How she wished she could communicate with him more clearly.