From somewhere nearby came a faint moan, and for a moment I wondered how Narim could have closed on us so fast. But the sound of choking followed, and I hauled in my oars and grabbed Aidan’s shirt, rolling him onto his side. He vomited up acrid nastiness. Aidan had once told me he’d do almost anything to avoid boats.
“Well, this is fine. You come to life only enough to foul my boat.” I dribbled water over his pale, hot face, making sure none of the poisoned stuff got in his mouth. He still didn’t wake up. “Daughters of fire, you make this difficult.”
It was a long half hour until the bow of the boat scraped against the rocks, and I jumped out to drag it onto the shore—a half hour in which torches were moving quickly around the lake toward my landing spot. “This would be a most excellent time for you to regain your senses,” I said, wrestling Aidan halfway over the thwarts, then wrapping my arms around his chest again and dragging him across the splintered wood onto the land.
The west side of the lake had very little shore, only a few flat, sandy patches between steep rockfalls that stretched from the water’s edge up to the clifftops. A few larger boulders jutted out from the cliffs like the bulging roots of a giant tree. I had planned to scuttle the boat and avoid the sandy patches to hide our footsteps, but there was no time and no point with pursuit so close. Speed was far more important. What I needed to do was to get a mostly dead body across two hundred paces of rough terrain up a steep path and far enough into the maze of passages that no one could find us.
I crouched behind Aidan and wrapped my arms around his chest to haul him up again, when I heard a weak cough and soft slurred words, almost indecipherable. “Am I dead?”
“No,” I said, blinking back unbidden tears, pleased it was dark so he couldn’t see. “You tried, but you weren’t very good at it.”
“Lara ...”
Changing my approach, I folded him forward, and he promptly vomited again. When he was done with it, I moved around beside him, draping one limp arm over my shoulders.
“... we’ve got ...”
“Be quiet. Your dragon isn’t captive yet, but we’ve got to get you away from the lake or he will be. Then your life won’t be worth dirt.”
“Lara, we’ve ... got ... to talk.”
“You’ve scarcely got wit enough to know your feet from your head, Aidan MacAllister, so keep your foolishness to yourself. I’d appreciate a little help here.” There was no time for this. He came near drifting off to sleep between words, and I could already hear the creak of Narim’s oarlocks over the chop of the water. I heaved him upward, and we came near pitching head-forward into the boat. But by some improbable feat of will, Aidan managed to pull his feet under him, and we stood on the shore, swaying like a soggy willow tree.
“Now, step,” I said. “And I don’t care what blasted rhythm you use. Just move your feet in the same direction I do.”
“Rather ... dance ...”
“You’re a fool.”
Slowly, far too slowly, we lurched up and over the rockfalls in the direction of the huge boulder that marked the hidden mouth of my caves. Aidan’s head drooped on his chest, and at every other step he stumbled on the uneven surface. The only way I could keep us upright was to plant my feet wide apart whenever he moved. Maddeningly slow. The torches were getting closer, and Narim’s boat was bumping the rocks. Like a dark, angular moon rising, a massive shape glided up from the clifftops, blocking out half the dome of the sky. No bird this time.
We staggered up a last shallow ridge of fist-sized rocks. In front of us, just across a flat strip of sand, loomed the giant boulder with rounded sides and a flat top. Behind the boulder and the water’s edge was a narrow path that would take us up to the caves. “Just a little farther. Help is on the—”
Golden fire arced across the heavens, its reflection a lighted path leading down into the dark water. Then came the cry—piercing the night like a sword through flesh.
“Roelan,” Aidan whispered, and stumbled. I braced him again, but soon had no choice but to let him go. Sparks snapped everywhere I touched him, his flesh searing my hands beyond bearing. He sagged to his knees on the sand and clamped his hands to his head. “Roelan, hear me ... please ... Teng zha ... wyvyr ...” The dragon circled the lake screaming ... hunting ... closer with every pass. We were still twenty paces from the boulder, maybe forty more around it to the mouth of the cave.
“Warn him away!” I said. I could see flashes of red in the torchlight that had already advanced a quarter of the way around the lake. “Tell him to fly far from the lake.”
“Can’t. Can’t think. Help me.” Aidan’s hands were shaking with his urgency, but his words were slurred, and he swayed like a drunkard.
I knelt in front of him and pulled his hands from his face. His bloodshot eyes were clouded with jenica, his eyelids heavy with drugged sleep. So with one hand I drew my knife and with the other I caught his chin, ignoring the blistering heat on my fingers. I held the knife between our faces. The sparks from his skin made the steel flicker as if the weapon contained his dragon’s fire as well. “Do you see this, Aidan MacAllister? If you don’t warn Roelan away, I’m going to cut your throat with it. It’s the only way to save him. If you’re dead, he can’t find you here, and if I throw your body in the lake and foul the water with your blood, the dragons will stay away forever. Is that what you want? Live or die. Choose.”
I waited. His eyes were drawn to the blade, grasping it, holding it with his gaze, as if he could use its unyielding edge to anchor his confusion. But it was taking far too much time.
“Choose, damn you. Live or die?”
I was going to have to do what I said. His eyes slid past the knife to my face. “Live,” he said softly. Then his eyes sagged shut again, and, in despair, I positioned the dagger. But his skin began to glow pale in the night, and from his lips came soft words I did not know. Soon his face was shining silver like the moon. I let go of him and backed away from the blazing heat that poured from his body.
“No!” The shout came from behind Aidan, and I jumped up to face Narim, who stood at the top of the last rockfall. Even in the dark I could read his plan. In one hand he carried a dagger and in the other the coil of a dragon whip. Around his neck was the leather strap holding a bloodstone, its red glow scarring his ageless face with years and horror. “Stop him!”
I drew my sword and stepped between the Senai and the Elhim. “You’ll not touch him. Not now. Not ever.”
“Lara, it is our survival.” Narim’s voice shook as he stepped gingerly down the rockfall and walked across the strip of sand, every kindness he had done me in eighteen years of love and friendship hanging in the air between us.
“That’s what you thought five hundred years ago. The world has paid the price for your mistake and will continue paying it for years to come. But sin will not heal sin. I won’t let you do it.”
“I thought you understood.”
“You thought whatever you wanted. Never considered that you could be wrong.”
“You swore to me.”
“An oath means nothing without belief. I never believed in your tales or your plans or your sin or your redemption. I did what you told me because I had nothing better to do. That’s where you’ve gone wrong, Narim. You have no faith in anyone but yourself. And so you’ve plotted and schemed and done terrible things, all to end up making the same mistake again. But I’ve learned. Don’t you see? You’ve given me this as you’ve given me everything. Accept your own gift. Leave him be.”