Folding his wings, Ash strode to the fire. Lyre pulled a water canister from the pack behind him and held it out. Ash accepted it and tipped his head back to drink, putting his back to the fire—probably to warm up from the chill air of the higher altitudes. Raum stopped behind the women on the other side of the fire. Yana detached from her mother and silently approached him, holding her arms out with the dragonet toy hanging from one hand. He reached down and scooped her up, holding her with one arm while Ivria passed him his own water canister.
Piper tore her eyes away before she got caught staring. It still blew her mind to see Raum casually holding his daughter like any other father. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her that he would have children, but his refusal to escape Asphodel before this made all the more sense to her now. He would have been abandoning his own child to suffer the punishment of his betrayal.
Ash dropped down on the blanket beside her, breathing deep. Her eyes moved anxiously from the dark circles under his eyes to the hollowness of his cheeks. He was pushing himself too hard. He should have been taking it easy while he finished recovering from the injuries he’d sustained in the Overworld. Whenever she and the others were resting, Ash and Raum were scouting the path ahead or backtracking to check for pursuers, sleeping only in short bursts.
As Ash closed his eyes, the water canister hanging from one hand, Piper exchanged a worried look with Lyre. But there was no way to talk Ash into taking it easy. Raum couldn’t do all the scouting himself, Kiev wasn’t experienced enough, and Seiya’s wing was still healing.
“How did it go?” Raisa asked eagerly. “Anything interesting?”
“Still no signs of habitation ahead,” Raum replied. Yana leaned her head on his shoulder, hugging her toy. “We’re almost out of this barren terrain. We’ll reach more hospitable valleys soon.”
“How much farther do we have to go?” Jezel asked, her voice flat as she waved her piece of dried meat in irritation. “How long do we have to keep this up?”
Coby snapped her glare to the teenage girl, one hand pressed to her round belly. “However long it takes to be safe, girl. Do you want to go back to Asphodel instead and see how Samael rewards you for your absence?”
Jezel tossed her short hair out of her eyes and tore off another bite of her jerky.
“Let’s pack up,” Raum said. “I want to put out that fire as soon as possible.”
Kiev and Sivan rose and started to dismantle the nearest tent. Lyre stretched with a muffled groan and began picking up the scattered items nearby. With everyone occupied, Piper slid closer to Ash and touched his hand.
“How are you holding up?” she murmured.
He glanced at her, his gray eyes weary. “Fine.”
“Ash, please. You look ready to keel over.”
A trace of a smile touched his lips. “We’re almost there. Another half-cycle, and we can set up a more permanent camp and rest as long as we need to.”
“Half-cycle,” she repeated in a mumble, her eyes lifting to the black sky where the unseen planet lurked. The stars had come alive, glittering in the sky.
Underworld daemons didn’t track time through days and nights; those terms were meaningless in this world. Instead, they counted cycles. A cycle began with a day of light that ended in the unnatural night caused by the regular eclipse where Periskios blotted out the suns, casting a deep darkness over the world. Another day followed the eclipse before eventually giving way to the longest night Piper had ever experienced. When the darkness finally yielded to the suns again, the cycle began anew. The full progression took the rough equivalent of seventy-two Earth-hours.
With each cycle lasting about three Earth days, “weeks” were pretty meaningless. According to Ash and Lyre, ten cycles was about a month, which was how she was translating her current stay in the Underworld into three weeks, but daemons rarely marked time with any kind of precision; they really only counted cycles and seasons. She would never have guessed from her interactions with them on Earth that daemons had little interest in tracking the passage of time beyond the basics.
Pulling her eyes away from the black sky, she stood. “I’ll help pack things up. You stay put and rest.”
He nodded and closed his eyes. She suppressed her worry about his health and crossed the camp to help Raisa, who was struggling to bring down a tent by herself. She glanced back at Ash, sitting alone, and it struck her again how different he looked without glamour compared to the other draconians.
Her first sight of him among the entire group had been a shock. They all had the same wings and tails, the same dark scales running over their shoulders and the tops of their arms down to the retractable claws that tipped each finger. But Ash’s three horns on each side of his head were unique, and the dark, swirling patterns that marked the transition of scale to skin were much clearer on him than any other draconian. The others looked almost washed out in comparison. Natania was probably right; seeing him next to so many of his kin, Piper had trouble believing he wasn’t a Taroth descendent.
Though the other draconians’ Nightmare Effect could still influence her, she continued to possess complete immunity to Ash’s. She’d eventually gotten around to asking him about it, and the way his face had softened at the question made her stomach swoop. Trust, he’d said. Complete, utter, fearless trust. The magic of the Nightmare Effect fed off even the slightest hint of fright, and only a total absence of fear or doubt—conscious or subconscious—could negate it.
“Whatchya staring at?” Raisa asked, peering around Piper’s shoulder to follow the direction of her gaze. She pulled a funny face as she collected the tent poles and folded them into shorter rods. “Ash again? You see him all the time.”
Piper blushed at getting caught staring—again.
“He just doesn’t quite match the rest of you, that’s all,” she said, pulling her eyes away to concentrate on laying out the canvas.
“Oh, yeah, well, he’s always been different.”
“What do you mean?”
Together, Piper and Raisa folded the material up into a small square.
“Well,” Raisa said, “I was pretty young when he tried to escape with Seiya, but before that, my mom always told me to stay away from him.”
Piper paused, bent over the tent as she looked at the girl. “Why?”
Raisa widened her eyes. “He never listened. He was constantly disobeying orders and getting into fights with guards. He was always in trouble, and my mother didn’t want me to get in trouble from being nearby.” The girl grinned. “I always thought he was really cool—but kinda scary too. Then he almost escaped, and after that he was never around much. Samael was always sending him away or locking him in the bastille so he wouldn’t cause problems.”
“Ash did it on purpose.”
Piper jumped in surprise, turning to find Jezel standing behind her, licking the salt from her snack off her fingers.
“He told me once that he would never let it be easy for Samael,” the girl said.
“Let what be easy?”
“Owning draconians.”
Raisa beamed. “I told you he was cool. And then he escaped! The first one to ever escape and not get killed after.”
“Escaped with your help,” Jezel said to Piper, her flat tone a stark contrast to Raisa’s enthusiasm. “How did that happen, exactly? You’re a weird haemon, but still just a haemon.”
“A lot of luck and some outside help,” Piper replied, keeping her tone friendly. She tipped her head toward the last tent. “Can you help us pack up that one?”
Jezel glanced at the tent, looked back at Piper, then walked away—in the opposite direction of the tent. Piper sighed. Teenagers. Had she been that bad a few years ago?
Raisa rolled her eyes as they headed for the last tent. “Don’t mind her. She’s always like that.”
“At least I’ve got you for company,” Piper said. “If I were stuck with just Jezel and Sivan, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Rai
sa giggled and Piper hid a momentary flicker of guilt. She really shouldn’t judge any of the draconians for having morose attitudes, considering the pasts they’d only just escaped. Pushing her bangs out of her face, she pulled open the flap of the tent. Inside, a heap of snoozing dragonets took up most of the space.
“Okay, guys,” she told them. “Time to rise and shine!”
A couple heads popped up from the pile and sleepy golden eyes blinked at her. Zwi climbed out first and nudged a couple of the others. A few firmer nudges, then a sharp nip to someone’s flank. A yelp and they were all up at once, trotting out one by one—Zala, Nili, Teva, and five others. Zwi fluffed her mane importantly and strutted out last.
The dragonets stretched their wings while Piper and Raisa dismantled the tent and packed it up. She carried the packs over to the pile by the campfire, where Ash still sat, dozing with his chin propped on the heel of his hand. Piper stood beside him as Kiev joined them. Teva, his dragonet, appeared at his ankles and transformed in a whoosh of black fire. He quickly loaded the dragon with supplies, strapping the packs firmly to Teva’s back. One dragon could carry four fully loaded packs, weight that would have only slowed down the draconians.
A woman joined Kiev, her grayish blue eyes scanning the remaining packs. Mahala was one of the older women—probably in her early twenties, which was pretty old for Samael’s draconians. Only her sisters, Shona and Denna, were older. Mahala clucked her tongue softly and another dragonet hopped over and transformed. Kiev and Mahala loaded the dragon quickly.
Piper watched Mahala surreptitiously, curious about the woman. She was quiet, rarely offering her opinion on anything, but she didn’t have the soft, motherly air of her two sisters. She reminded Piper of an older version of Seiya, lithe and graceful with a high ponytail of long, raven-black hair and eyes that seemed to see everything.
Ash rose to his feet beside her as Raum returned to survey their work. With rushes of fire, three more dragonets transformed—Zwi, Zala, and Nili. Already familiar with the drill, Piper climbed onto Zwi’s back and got comfortable, stroking the dragon’s mane. Raisa hopped on behind her, tucking her wings out of the way. Lyre mounted Nili, and Seiya lifted the second youngest girl—Netia, a tiny waif of a thing—onto Zala’s back before climbing on as well. Yana, the youngest, would be carried in her mother’s arms.
Raisa sighed glumly as the other draconians stretched their wings to warm up their muscles to fly.
“I wish I could fly,” the girl grumbled.
Piper glanced back to see Raisa watching Jezel enviously. She’d learned since joining the group that draconians weren’t capable of flight until well into puberty. It would be a couple years still before Raisa’s wings were strong enough for anything more than short glides.
“Same formation,” Raum announced. “Is everyone ready?”
Piper glanced around as everyone nodded, their faces lit with harsh orange light from the fire: Denna, Shona, and Mahala, the three older sisters. Ivria, holding little Yana in her arms. Coby, one hand resting on the bulge of her stomach. Kiev and Sivan, with Jezel standing between them. Seiya and Netia on Zala’s back. Raisa behind Piper. Lyre astride his dragon mount. And then Ash and Raum, decked out in weapons, ready to fight to protect them all.
Raum spread his wings and sprang upward. Sivan and Jezel went next, then the women, then the dragons. Piper clutched Zwi’s mane as the dragon took three running steps and jumped toward the sky, laboring the get them airborne. Kiev brought up the rear, following in Teva’s wake.
She looked back. Below, Ash was a dark shadow on the ground as he extinguished the fire. He would circle the camp, carefully obliterating the signs of their presence before catching up to them. She bit her lip, facing forward again, and squinted against the wind. The others were barely discernible silhouettes, but ahead, a tiny flickering white dot marked Raum’s location and provided a point of reference as they followed him blindly through the night.
She marveled at the bizarre chain of events that had brought her here. Months ago, she could never have imagined she would be hiding in the Underworld with a group of refugee draconians, flying through the desolate, majestic peaks of the Taroths’ former territory in search of a place to make their new home.
Longing twisted in her gut and squeezed her throat. A new home. Her old home was gone—blown up, the remains nothing but charred rubble. She needed to put down new roots, needed somewhere to call her own, but she wasn’t sure this was the place she wanted to call home.
Chapter Two
There was no way to mark the passage of time in the impenetrable darkness. The night dragged on, broken only by their brief, infrequent rest stops. Ash, Raum, and the boys could fly for long stretches without breaks but the women couldn’t. Coby was already struggling, her pregnancy far enough along that she probably shouldn’t be exerting herself so much. Ivria had to carry Yana, who was too frightened to ride a dragon with someone else. Jezel didn’t have a lot of stamina either. The only one who looked capable of keeping up with the guys was the mysterious Mahala.
Piper’s whole body ached with tired stiffness by the time a line of light lit the right side of Periskios, a razor-thin crescent in the black sky.
Raum began to descend. Zwi glided through dark oblivion, following Raum’s tiny light. Jagged peaks appeared all around them as more sunlight slipped around the dark shape of Periskios, revealing the string of flying draconians and dragons, their wings beating tiredly. She twisted to look back at the distant shape of Ash guarding their backs.
Raum descended toward the side of a steep mountain, the terrain clearly unsuitable for a camp. As the sheer rock face blotted out all else, he banked to the left and glided down between the main peak and a smaller offshoot. On the other side, a sheltered dip in the rock created a large, empty bowl, invisible from every angle but directly overhead.
They all swooped down into the bowl, landing with the sound of rushing air and beating wings. The dragons chuffed and groaned in relief, folding their wings the moment their passengers dismounted. Raisa jumped to the ground, her usual bubbly energy diminished but not entirely gone. Piper slid off more carefully, her legs stiff and weak. She was feeling the exhaustion even in her daemon form, which meant it was time to switch back and recharge. Though using up her magic exhausted her, her human body didn’t handle the demands of dragon-back travel in the sometimes harsh Underworld weather very well.
Kiev, Teva, and Ash drifted in last. As soon as they landed, the two draconians pulled the packs off the weary dragon. Teva transformed back to his dragonet form the moment he was free of his burden and jumped onto Kiev’s shoulder, hanging limply.
“Couldn’t have found something a bit more comfortable, Raum?” Coby asked, looking around the bowl of rock with a glum expression as the brightening sunlight revealed just how barren it was. “Rock beds aren’t the most comfortable.”
“We had a good reason for selecting this spot,” he replied. “Come see.”
He strode toward the farthest end of the bowl, where the rock walls rose to the towering summit, and disappeared into a crag. Eyebrows shooting up, Piper exchanged a look with Lyre and they hurried after him, the other draconians following curiously. Her legs ached but she traipsed into the crag and discovered a winding path that steepened as it curved between sheer-sided rocks. Huffing, she climbed up the last of the incline and reached level ground.
Raum stood a few feet away, waiting. Beyond him, a large pool of water emitted white steam that rose in lazy spirals. Water cascaded over a short waterfall into the pool and another dozen plumes of steam marked other hot pools higher up the slope.
“Hot springs!” Seiya gasped. “Raum, how did you find this?”
“We spotted the steam while we were scouting our route.”
“I forgive you, Raum,” Coby said magnanimously, staring greedily at the hot water. “This is far better than a soft bed.”
Talking excitedly, the women started back down the path, assigning tasks to
set up camp as quickly as possible. Piper listened to their voices grow distant as she walked over to the edge of the pool and knelt by the damp rocks. Hot steam washed over her face. The smell of sulfur was faint but enough to warn it was not drinking water. She dipped her fingers in and closed her eyes. Ah, the temperature was perfect.
“You okay?”
Piper jumped in surprise, looking back to see Lyre waiting for her.
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Just wanted a quiet moment.”
He wandered over to stand beside her. “I know what you mean. It’s difficult being surrounded by people constantly.”
She nodded and splashed a little of the water, watching the ripples. “I miss home. I miss the Consulate. I know it doesn’t exist anymore, but some part of me is convinced that if I just went back, I would find everything exactly the same as in my memory.”
He gazed at the water, his eyes distant. “Homelessness is a terrible feeling. I don’t imagine it’s any easier for the draconians. Even a terrible home is still a home, and familiarity is comforting …” He shrugged. “Eventually, you realize that people are a better home than a place.”
She tugged thoughtfully on the end of her ponytail. That was true, wasn’t it? She would rather be on the run with Ash and Lyre than back at the Consulate alone. Loved ones offered far more comfort than four walls and a roof could.
Out of nowhere, grief stabbed her. Her breath caught as anguished sorrow filled her lungs like suffocating water. She squeezed her eyes shut, memories of her mother from her childhood competing with those final moments, the reaper’s blade, the blood. Her eyes burned and sobs fought to escape her throat. She swallowed hard.
Lyre touched her shoulder as he knelt beside her. “It’s okay to cry.”
She angrily wiped away a few stray tears. “I’ve done enough crying, don’t you think? Crying won’t change anything.”