Slither

TWO-1

TWO

The gong jolts me awake. Bounding out of a bed of dry, crackly leaves, I scramble for last minute artifacts to fill a partially packed, moth-eaten bag. I pick up a lopsided candle, a small bit of frayed rope, and an ivory comb I stole from Adom several years back. I also pack the leather water skin Muuth made for my name day.

With the satchel ready, I dart through the caves. Interminable blackness hardly inhibits my flight. I round several corners and hop a couple of dangerous pitfalls, and yet my calloused feet know the path so well I run it by memory. My heels thud against the ground.

Adom waits for me in his private quarters, wearing only a black robe tied securely with a velvet waistband. “Leave the satchel,” he orders, tapping his foot in increased agitation. He glances over his shoulder as if he expects to find someone there at any moment.

I rock back and dig my heels into the ground. “I need it.”

He pulls the leather bag from my hands. “What’s in it?”

“Why do you want to know?” My cheeks warm when he pulls out Fifi.

“What is this?” He holds Fifi out with his thumb and index finger, eyes glittering. He stares, this time with an open expression of disapproval, like he questions my state of mind.

“My doll,” I whisper. My body braces for a fight. I cradled Fifi in trembling arms the day my parents died. The day he took them. She’s not a very pretty doll, missing half her hair, one eye permanently closed, and with a crack between her brows where I dropped her once.

A perplexed crease deepens on his forehead. He scowls at the porcelain moppet with such fierce confusion I worry he’ll drop it. My stomach sinks. He doesn’t remember.

“Why do you have a doll?”

“It’s all I have left.” Even though I will myself not to reveal emotion, my voice cracks as I speak. I hate showing weakness, especially to Adom.

The answer seems to shock him to silence. He swallows and stares at the doll’s cracked face, dirty clothes, and bald head. He can crush her in one swift motion with his fingers, and she’d be nothing more than fine, white powder gathering at his boot-clad feet. Sick with the fear of losing my most prized possession, my heart thuds heavily with dread.

He roughly pushes Fifi back into the satchel and thrusts the worn bag at me. “Take it with you, then. But don’t let anyone see it. It could threaten our mission.”

How could a chipped bit of porcelain in a worn rag dress endanger a dragon? I’m numb at his inexplicable mercy, but not too euphoric that I fail to take in what he just revealed. A mission?

“Come with me,” Adom instructs, his voice gruff. He reaches for the piece of parchment with the writing he penned last night. He folds it, melts wax, and seals the back of the paper. He blows on it until it dries, and then he tucks it into his waistband and marches out of the cave.

I follow in strained silence. There is a part of me that does not believe he’ll really do this, take me with him to Trana. He said he thought it would be good for me. If that’s really the reason, why hasn’t he taken me before? He says Ona wants to kill me. But this isn’t the first time I’ve fallen out of his favor. What’s changed? Why does Adom want me to go with him now?

He mentioned a mission. Maybe he thinks I’ll be useful. I’m not blind—I watched him write a letter even though I haven’t had a chance to read it. What kind of purpose can a girl like me serve on a mission Adom wants to undertake? Whatever it is, it can’t be a good.

I stub a toe on a rock that shouldn’t be there. Clunk. Pain lances through my leg and settles in the spot between my eyes. Lightning makes circles across my vision.

Adom swirls in the blink of an eye and catches me before I fall.

For two seconds I am in his arms and every nerve in my body zings with shock and awareness and the unsettling feeling that I am not just any woman to him, not just a slave, and not just a Rat. I can’t breathe beyond our close proximity, and he seems equally as startled.

“Get off me, Snake.”

He pulls away and resumes his trek without a word. My ankle throbs, but if I expect him to ask if I am injured, I’ll be waiting for the rest of my life. Adom clears his throat. The sound tosses me back into the real world where he is a creature of the earth, and I am El. Why did he bother to sully his hands catching a clumsy slave?

As soon as the question comes, the breathlessness disintegrates. He’s a monster, I’m his prisoner, he killed my parents, and someday I’ll kill him. The world is simple, and I need only worry about placing one foot in front of the other. I breathe and push through the pain.

We approach the central cave. A few lazy beasts curl around each other, sleeping soundly. Snores rock the cavern. It vibrates my bones. The cave floor glistens with molted scales, hard as diamonds and every bit as precious. Dragons don’t shed skin, like snakes and other reptiles. When they scratch, the scales pop off like dandelion heads. Muuth told me once that the scales are considered rare gems in Trana. People think they come from the ground, and yet they call these “rock formations” dragon scales. They whittle them, and purify them, and string them up in fancy necklaces or set them in rings.

“Stand back,” Adom commands.

He doesn’t raise his voice. Dragons scatter at his order. I pivot slightly so I only see him out of the corner of my eye. He disrobes and hands me the garment. I stuff it carelessly into my satchel. Then he crouches. His body swells, turning green and blue and gray. His neck stretches to grotesque proportions while his lower back flares up to accommodate the crushing weight of a hideous monster the size of a redwood tree. Harsh ridges burst from his spine in dramatic accents of blacks and grays. His skin becomes thick like limestone and scaly. Spidery wings sprout from his cracking back. His face distorts, elongates, and forms a narrow snout. A flowing mane of inky black hair pours over his shoulders, wild and full, like a river spilling over his neck.

Reptilian haunches explode from human arm and leg muscles. Teeth gleam in the smoky light. It all reminds me of the first time we met, when I thought he was one of us: a naked, lone human wandering the scorched fields in search of survivors. Like me. What a fool.

In the seconds it takes him to change, my hands move almost without permission, and I grab hold of three nearby dragon scales piled on a stalagmite. They are the size of seashells, but polished and heavy, like marble, and perfectly symmetrical. I shove them into the satchel.

When I look up again, I peer into glittering green and violet gemstones—Adom’s eyes—watching me keenly. His long neck bends until hot breath tickles my face as he says in dragon tongue, “Get on.”

My feet move quickly, toes catching a groove in his scaly neck and using the horns and ridges to propel myself forward. My bare feet are adept at grappling with the slick scales, and I take advantage of friction and balance to clamber up his back. Once I reach the broadest spot between his neck and shoulders, I split my legs, collapse against his twitching body, and cling tight to his mane and neck. It’s been a long time since I last left the mountain. On occasion, one of the other dragons takes me out for fresh sky because I’m becoming wilder and smellier than Muuth. But not Adom. Not since the first time.

“My parents are gone. Who will watch over me?”

“I will.”

“You will?”

“But you’ll come to hate me for it.”

Adom was right. I do hate him. He tricked me in the worst way, took advantage of my innocence and trust. He did not try to make it right, after. He never apologized. I have no memories of kindness, of humanity, from him. He’s a blank, cold slab of emotionless granite.

This is the closest we have been to one another, physically, since that time. If I’d grabbed a knife from his room, I could take it out of the satchel and plunge it into his neck. But he checked the satchel. Now I have the scales, which, if Muuth’s words count for anything, could prove useful as long as I survive the trip to Trana.

Adom takes one great leap and settles on the yawning summit. His tail totters over the edge of the gaping hole. Below, the central cave looks like a black pit. I lean closer, squeezing legs around his neck, wrapping fingers and wrists around the loose folds of his mane. If I fall now, I’ll tumble into the farthest recesses of the mountain.

His wings expand. Whoosh. Sound batters my eardrums. The ascent sends my head spinning out of control, and I lose all sense of direction. The next leap causes us to spiral out to the base of the mountain. My weight pitches forward, only stopped from rolling off and slamming into the tree growth ahead of us by the vertical angle of his neck. My stomach shoots to my throat, and I have the strongest urge to vomit. The ascent is always the worst part for me.

Sunlight burns the top of my head while cool wind beats against my body.

I lived in that hole for twelve years.

Adom’s wings open, broad webs of silver as fine as any art a spider could craft, and we soar through the sky. The forest blossoms in the showy beauty of spring.

Acres of green and brown cover the island, a land fertile with life. Now the beach stretches out below us, a long white line snaking the forest and the mountain. Adom roars the sound thunder makes, and I hear the echoing response of the herd where they lie, indistinguishable from the rocks, along the shoreline. We sail over the deep blue expanse. I cling to Adom, unease replacing my fascination.

Vibrant blue-green color invades my vision. From this distance, I see the spray of foamy sea waves and massive creatures moving along the shadowy depths. Maybe it is Neller and Greego traveling deep below the waves.

A huge creature emerges, flat tail shooting sprays in our direction. It spurts a stream of water, and Adom dips lower, so that we are flying perpendicular to it. I have a moment of terror as he tilts sideways and I feel myself slipping, certain I will fall into the deep only feet away from the creature’s massive mouth. “Adom…” I start, then bite my lower lip. I’m off balance, my body sliding forward. I cling to Adom’s neck and my legs lock together at the ankles. For one exhilarating second, the hungry eye of the creature follows me before it dives, swimming away.

Adom’s body rights itself. We sail upward and alongside a flock of birds. Adom roars a gentle rumble, sending the flock off in every direction. He slides into a cloud, and my eyes perceive nothing but fog. Adom’s scales dampen, slick as a fish, and my skin slips against them.

Then he is gone from under me, and my body is weightless for one breath. My heart shoots to my throat. I drop, scream, and he is beneath me again, his wings sweeping over me like a protective casing. “Damn you, Adom,” I curse, smacking the back of his neck with my palm in one quick rap before I clutch him tight again. Beneath me, his body rumbles—he’s laughing. He thinks me funny. I fume.

By the time the ocean ends and land begins, I have barely regained my ability to breathe. Adom flies lower, until we skim the tops of trees. Leaves scatter and rise around us, a blanket of colorful foliage. Home. He lets out a soft growl and with a rough thump he digs his claws into the ground, locking us into a secure position. My body jerks back with the force of the landing. Muscles in my shoulders and neck take the brunt of the motion and keep me from tumbling back.

“Get off,” he commands in raspy dragon tongue.

I slide from his back as quickly as I’m able. The world rocks beneath me. I tumble to the ground and clutch my gut to stop the spinning sensation.

Adom shrinks into his human form, once again naked. “Land sickness.”