some new inch of tension to squeeze with.
The frozen moment broke with a spasm of thwarted logic. The sky swung over them as if a cloth being drawn back, and the scintillating sea enveloped them. Balance rebelled at the heave beneath her feet, but she clung to Chag and he held firm, stubborn as stone.
Her mind slowly relinquished the idea that they'd tipped backwards into the sea and should be soaking wet. Still holding tightly to Chag, Pevan looked around. They huddled amid rolling white hills that put her in mind of nothing so much as a giant, plain quilt, heaped on an unmade bed. Above, the sky glittered, and she fancied she could make out the steps of their path across it for a moment. Then the crystals shifted out of alignment and she lost it.
Chag glanced at her, then made a gesture she didn't recognise. She shook her head and shrugged. One disadvantage of him having studied with the Separatists was that he'd been reminded of all the obscure bits of the Gifted sign-language that no-one normally needed. She threw the sign for Speak at him, trying not to feel too outdone.
Turning his face to one side, he said, "We need a plan." From the way he kept his voice low, his eyes flickering once over her shoulder, he thought someone might be listening in already. His words crawled down from his mouth along an invisible branch, and disappeared into the pale, woven ground.
Pevan took a deep breath to calm herself, trying to shrug off the tingle between her shoulder-blades that Chag's nervousness had left her with. Long training helped her find at least a semblance of proper focus. Despite her best efforts, her nerves spilled over into her voice. "You think we're being watched?"
"I was warned that there are normally sub-sentient Wildren in this patch." He swallowed. "It might give us some cover if the Separatists are looking for us, but we'll need to be careful."
"Too risky." She spoke immediately, as firmly as she dared. You didn't hang around even the most docile Wildren in their own Realm. The words curled into tight pellets that left black scorch-marks in the ground. "Can we not go on ahead?"
He shook his head. "We'll be on the lawn in front of the cave if we go any further. They'll definitely see us then."
"We should have had this conversation sooner." She bit off the words before they could give vent to her anger. If there were Wildren around, the emotion would draw them. As it was, her clipped, irritated whisper blackened more of the ground just in front of her face. "No good now. Any ideas?"
"The fly form." Chag managed to look at her out of the corner of his eye even while keeping his face pointing straight and safely at the ground. She was getting used to speaking to him in profile. "When I snuck into the Court... for the Separatists, I mean... Well, the whole point of that form is to escape notice, basically."
She shrugged, trying to loosen tense muscles across her back. "We'll be vulnerable. The fly is fragile as-" The analogy, with all the expressive richness it offered, would be a bad idea. She left it incomplete. "Weak, too. What if Rel's chained up? I don't fancy trying to believe I can break heavy chain with the strength of a flea."
"And if we choose something stronger and they see us coming?" The set of Chag's face was sceptical. His tone, acerbic, dripped into the ground, which seemed to dissolve beneath it. As if reminded of the looming danger, his cheeks and eyes hardened. "You really think we stand a chance in a straight fight?"
Did they? Neither a Witness nor a Gatemaker would be much use. If they could free Rel and Atla quickly, perhaps. How many Separatists were there at the white cave? They knew four by name, and had seen perhaps another half-dozen. Pevan let the puzzle dominate, holding her emotions neutral. "I don't know. Some of them must be wherever they're holding Taslin. Will Delaventrin leave the Shtorq?"
"I don't think he can anymore. You can't seriously think-?" He cut off as his words began to heat up again.
She ran her hand over his shoulder, trying to be comforting, calming. Without being able to meet his eye, it was hard to tell whether she had the desired effect. "We're doomed unless we can get Rel and Atla free quickly. If we don't get them on the first strike, it's all over anyway."
"So we need to sneak in. The fly's the way to go." How he managed not to sound obstinate was beyond her.
"I don't know." Pevan shrugged again, trying to keep her growing frustration under wraps. "They know about the fly form. There's a good chance Delaventrin will See us through it."
"What the hell do we do, then?" Chag's shout kicked up gouts of fire from the plush ground. Pevan threw herself clear, praying that any nearby Wildren would be too stupid to notice. The softness of the surface spared her the usual battering that came with diving out of the way of things, but made it harder to keep momentum, and she flopped to a halt only a few feet away. It might not be enough to make a difference, but getting too far from the Route would be just as dangerous.
After a long moment waiting for the dreaded, icy touch of an unfettered Wilder, she pushed herself up at least enough to get a look around. Chag, white-faced, had managed to throw himself flat, with his hands and arms uselessly covering his head. She almost fancied she could catch a faint whiff of burnt hair coming from him, though it was unlikely in the Second Realm. Above, the sky twinkled on undisturbed. If there were patterns up there that were a threat to them, she couldn't pick them out.
Chag pushed himself up onto his elbows, found her eyes on him, and pressed his fingers to his forehead. The gesture meant an apology, but even without it she could read the contrition and the shocked dread of losing her in his face. She waved the apology away, as generously as she could.
In unspoken agreement, they spent a few moments watching the landscape and the sky before crawling back to one another. Where Chag's outburst had ignited the terrain, the softness of the great quilt they seemed to be lying on was replaced by stony hardness, and no ash came away on Pevan's fingers when she reached out to touch it.
She lay on her back and directed Chag to do the same. It would mean even less of a clear view of his face, but at least any further outbursts wouldn't trouble the ground. Risky, since any nearby Wildren were probably above them somewhere, but you dealt with the known danger first. There was no way to measure the instability of the terrain, but more emotions poured into the mix could only make Second Realmspace more volatile.
It still took a little while to recover the composure to speak. Irritatingly, Chag got there first. "You want us to just throw ourselves at them? They'll see that coming."
"I wasn't suggesting we go in completely undisguised. We just need to use a cover that they won't understand. One that leaves us with some strength for the first strike." She hesitated, an idea burrowing up out of memory. They'd never tested the plan in real combat, and Dora had scorned it, but... "Rel believed that the creations of our imagination would be particularly opaque to Wildren. Myths and such."
"So, what, we just imagine ourselves as lions and charge in?" The sting in his voice drilled skyward, leaving a spiralling pink trail behind it.
Pevan bit back irritation again, and let confusion come to the fore. "Lions aren't imaginary. They existed, in the past."
"You've never seen one, though, have you?" Chag followed her example, his tone turning mild and scholarly. "And neither will any of the Separatists. You've still got to imagine what a lion would be like. It should have the same effect. And it should be easier to imagine than anything weirder."
"But can a lion use magic?" She tried to make the question neutral, but it came out more than a little teasing. "The advantage of going for a dragon is all the myths around them. The power."
"A dragon, huh?" His drawl left her mentally kicking herself. Had she sounded too enthusiastic? He pressed the point, "You can really do that?"
She pushed to her feet, holding in a brash quip. Could she still pull it off? "It's been a while since I practiced, but..." Her words fluttered away, and she closed her eyes, reaching through her own self-image, finding every weak point, every muscle that couldn't do quite what she wanted. Heat flared in her gut, flowing out into her sho
ulders, her spine, her hips. Her skin prickled and hardened, and ridges swept back from her cheeks and brow.
Her fatigue pulsed as she opened her eyes, more painfully than she'd expected. Last time she'd tried this she'd been well-rested, and far closer to the First Realm. Maybe she was pushing a bit hard, but the look on Chag's face was worth it. He'd rolled over to push himself up, but had frozen in a half-crouch, wide-eyed awe on his face. She flexed her wings, the membranes stretching until the light shining through them made them glow emerald.
The form wasn't really like a dragon's from a story-book illustration. She stood upright on thick, stumpy legs, and the arms she folded across her chest were brawny and long. Her tail hung behind her for balance, but barely touched the floor even when she stretched it. The wings were properly draconic, though, built out from great hunks of muscle at her shoulders.
It did give her a little more freedom of movement in her neck than she had as a human. As Chag climbed awkwardly, reverentially to his feet, jaw hanging open, she craned her head back to scan the sky for threatening patterns. The power she could feel coursing through her came from the whirlwind distortion of Second-Realm logic the form created; anything she could feel would be humming through the Realmspace around them.
It wasn't a question