“I couldn’t wait any longer,” she says. “Lani died because I was always scared to go with her. I refuse to lose Kera because of a weak heart.” She bows her head, fighting back tears.
Girls and tears. Having an emotional basket case as a mom helped me realize crying is as natural for them as eating. Reece wraps his arms around Signe, and she hugs him tightly. Running his hands up and down her back, he says, “You’re not weak, Signe. You’re cautious.”
“Cautious?” Her spine snaps arrow-straight, and she shoves away from Reece.
Oh crap. I take a step back. He should’ve stayed with the back rubbing.
“Hadrain was cautious and let Navar take over his lands and people. My mother was cautious, and died before she could reveal her feelings to the man she loved, afraid he wouldn’t love her back because she was human. My sister was everything that was good, sweet, and pure and she was anything but cautious and lived life to the fullest. I want my full measure. I hate being cautious…hate it!”
She wipes away her gathering tears, and Reece holds up his hands in surrender, lost as to what he did wrong.
Muttering under her breath, Signe holds out her ring hand. The stone glows blue and she tosses dirt several times in the air until a three-dimensional map appears. She follows the short line to a detailed picture of the inside of an animal burrow. “There she is, in this back chamber.” Signe glances up at Reece, “Waiting for me to stop being cautious and rescue her.” She drops her hand and the map disintegrates.
“Great!” Reece snaps. “Why don’t you race on out there and get your impulsive self killed trying to rescue your friend, and I’ll stay here and create a plan that will actually work.”
“Oh, you are…you are…,” she stammers, her cheeks turning redder and redder.
“I’m what?” he challenges.
“Not worth talking to anymore.” She spins around and stomps over to Blaze.
A confused frown shadows Reece’s face, and I shake my head. “Let’s calm down. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“What are you talking about?” He thrusts his hand, palm up, in her direction. “I am trying to keep her from getting hurt.”
Blaze hacks once, twice, and then spits a pile of mucous-laced mouse bones in Reece’s outstretched hand. The big guy grimaces and flicks the special gift off.
Signe pats Blaze, hiding her smile, and then walks past me. “Kera is this way.”
Reece follows, wiping his hand on his pant leg. Before I go, I pull Blaze’s massive head to mine and stare into those beady amber eyes. “Stay here. We’re going to get Kera. Understand? You stay here.”
As Reece and Signe move farther into the trees, I back away, point at him, and repeat, “Stay.”
When I catch up, Reece leans over and asks so Signe can’t hear, “We’re coming back for him, right?”
Am I the only one who sees an advantage in having a dragon along? “Why wouldn’t we?” I whisper back.
“There are other ones here. Even bigger ones.”
“What?” Reece can’t be right. I look through the breaks in the trees and scan the sky. “Dragons are here?”
“Yep. One more thing not welcome in Teag.”
“That wasn’t always true,” Signe says. “Long ago, a few escaped into the human realm, and once there, away from Teag’s magic, they grew and became troublesome in your world. They were quickly rounded up and brought back. I thought they all died. Faldon was the only person I knew to even have one. He said Blaze was the last of his kind.”
If I think about it, it makes sense. Bodog, Lucinda, Blaze—they were all unwanted, and for some reason feared, by the firsts. Somehow Faldon saved them from the Unknown.
How does someone known to champion the helpless end up trying to kill his own grandson?
Signe stops and signals us to come quickly. We flank her, and she points to a fairly well-hidden burrow entrance. “That’s it.”
The entrance is wide enough for Reece and I to fit through, but low enough that we’d have to bend over nearly double.
“A Dreamweaver dug it.” A shiver rattles Signe, and I ask, “You’ve heard of it before?”
“Old stories. No one has ever seen one and lived.” She bends and rips a portion of her underskirt off, then asks for a knife and begins cutting the fabric up. When she’s done, she holds up six squares of fabric.
Reece nods at the squares. “What’re they for?”
“Earplugs, unless you want to hear your death song…”
Reece holds out his hand. “Not today, thanks.” He begins rolling them into manageable balls. “How do we know it’s still in there and not out here?”
“Dreamweavers are mostly nocturnal.” Signe gives me two of the squares. “They rarely, if ever, leave their burrows. They wait for unsuspecting victims to walk by and then lure them in.” What she’s saying pretty much matches what Baun told me. I have no reason to doubt her.
I scour the ground, bend, and show them four stones. “Time to knock on the door and see if he wants to come out and play.”
We set ourselves up within the trees opposite the entrance. Signe stuffs the fabric into her ears and hides far to the left, while Reece and I pocket the fabric and find a few more rocks the size of our fists and get ready to play ball.
I step out and fling the first rock into the entrance, ripping a hole through the fine webbing covering the opening. I duck back into the cover of the trees beside Reece.
He smiles. “Rang the doorbell with that one.”
He steps out and spins a rock into the burrow. We hear it thunk against a far wall. Reece dives back into our hiding place and we wait. When nothing happens, I step out and throw another hardball. The clatter of it bouncing reaches our ears.
Two more rocks, and nothing but the sound of rock hitting rock bounces around the entrance of the burrow. Reece steps up and zings one in. There isn’t any wind, but I can see the webbing we haven’t managed to destroy jiggle slightly. I point it out to Reece. “I think we’ve finally got his attention.”
Stepping out again, I pull my arm back and throw. The rock enters, but there’s no sound.
Reece and I exchange a quick glance. He fishes for the fabric Signe gave him and stuffs it in his ears. I wave him off, and he dashes to where Signe waits. I put the fabric in my ears and all sound disappears. I hear my heartbeat. Hear every time I swallow. I palm another rock.
Before I can throw it, all the rocks we’ve thrown come zipping out. I dodge them all except one that hits my side, either cracking my ribs or giving me the worst cramp ever. Either way, I accidently drop the rock I was about to throw.
I clamp my hand over the spot and rub as I stumble backward, keeping my eyes glued to the burrow entrance. I’m only slightly worried my side will slow me down, but not enough to stop me. Kera is in there and I’ll risk anything to free her.
I stoop, pick up another rock, and toss it in the air, testing its weight. The webbing flutters. He’s close, waiting, gauging my bravery. I’m teasing him like a bullfighter in the ring, daring him to come forward.
I pull back my arm, and just before I throw it, the boy lunges out of the burrow, his six arms flailing, his dirty long hair flying, and his ragged pants hanging off his bone-thin hips. One after the other, he flings six pieces of thin, needle-like bone, pointy end first, toward me. I keep a step ahead, and when the last missile flies past, I heave the rock, smacking him in the chest. Lunging into the woods, I throw myself behind the first tree big enough to hide me.
Peeking around the trunk, I stare at the place his hands should be and see bone growing like shark teeth moving in to fill a bite gap. This guy can regenerate faster than a lizard in a crowded aquarium. Snarling and clicking his teeth, he paces, flexing his arms. With each contraction, the bone lengthens a little more.