“Don’t start.”
Tallis jogged across the hangar, stowed his weapons in the scant space among the burlap ballast behind the passenger seat, and climbed in. Kavya quickly followed as he buckled up. “This will not work.”
“Your nickname should be Faithless. Heretics have to believe in something contrary to the common canon. You don’t believe in anything.” With a flick of the controls, Kavya turned on the Cessna’s safety lights. “Let’s dare the Dragon, right here in the foothills of where our Creator was born and died. See if you’re a heretic or a nihilist. In four minutes, you’ll be full berserker and fending off my brother again, or you’ll be praying like you’ve never prayed before.” She grinned. “Maybe both.”
“When did you become so obviously insane? Forget Masks. This is all you, Kavya.”
“And you’re already addicted.”
Tallis smiled right back. “I knew you were unnatural and downright shady, but this is new. Your brother’s in town so you hope to sink to his level of obvious mental degeneration.”
He kicked the engine to life. Propellers swirled with patterns of air, whereas the blizzard made random swoops and threats. Tallis watched, as if out of body, as he wheeled the tiny plane into alignment with the wide, gaping exit.
Vibrations that had nothing to do with the accelerating propellers shook the small craft. The Dragon was angry at their arrogance—the Heretic and the Sun, both of whom were trying as fervently as Pashkah to change the way things had been for generations. What hubris! What gall! The sort of hubris and gall that deserved punishment.
“You know, maybe it’s a parable.” He felt happily sardonic and that contradiction was reflected in his tone. This was merely another reckless step in an otherwise misguided, risky, worthless life. No, this was a cataclysmic leap. “Maybe we’re meant to crash where the Dragon died. Swords forged in the Chasm, fire, tons and tons of lava.”
“You’re talking, not flying.”
“Is this where you said I need to concentrate really hard?”
“Yes.”
“Without telepathy?”
Kavya shot him a prickly glare. “One set of controls, but two sets of eyes and two sets of everything else. We can make this work if we work together. Don’t sit there making jokes about reading minds. You’re the one always espousing the virtues of living in the physical world and being one with the earth.”
“One with the earth. Not plummeting toward it.”
For all his protests, Tallis didn’t hesitate anymore. The pressure against the top of his spine was becoming more like how Kavya described it: the pounding of a mallet, only that mallet had been studded with nails. He resisted the temptation to touch the back of his neck, where he was sure he’d find dots of blood. At that moment, there were so many ways to risk death and dismemberment.
He went all in with the Sun’s method of choice.
“Aw, fuck it. Let’s do this.”
She slid him a sideways grin. “About time.”
Throttle back, he navigated the plane out of the hangar. Almost instantly a gust of wind caught beneath the wings and tipped the cockpit starboard. Kavya gasped. Her skin had paled, but she bit her molars together so hard that Tallis saw the bulge of muscle and determination along her jaw.
“I got the steering,” he said. “You watch . . . the other stuff.”
The blizzard was a complete and total sonofabitch. Tallis fought the controls with his whole body. Layer upon layer of white made him curse the lack of color. He wanted green and blue and bright sunny yellow—anything but white, or the orange and red flames of a fiery crash. He angled the nose of the little plane toward the runway, which was surprisingly clear. The wind hadn’t allowed snow or ice to accumulate across that long, flat surface. The snow had no building walls to settle against. Instead the runway looked like a winter desert where the sands flew right to left. There was more consistency without the interference of structures from town.
A straight shot.
Him against the wind.
Could be worse. He couldn’t think of an example of how, but he was sure there had to be one.
Judging the direction of the gale and the way the plane pitched, he adjusted the flaps to compensate. They weren’t taxiing straight. More like a sidewinder. Rear wheels skidded and slipped. A sneaky gust lifted the nose off the ground.
“They’re coming,” Kavya said, almost in a trance. “At the hangar. Snowmobiles.”
“Then airborne it is.”
He pulled back the throttle and begged the little two-seater to gather her nerve. More speed. More.
Kavya cried out, clutching her temples. She shook in her seat, as if whipped side to side by unseen hands.
Tallis didn’t dare let go of the yoke, but he needed his copilot. He needed Kavya as his partner.
“You’re a lying bitch, goddess. You hear me? Get your ass back here so I can tell you what I really think of you. I want the chance before we smash into the Beas.” He risked a sideways glance. “I mean it. I’ll slap you in the face right now. And if we do get out of here, you won’t believe what I have planned. You get to strip next time. I want a show like you’ve never given another man. Don’t piss me off or I’ll be the one to rip off your Dragon-damn clothes.”
She shivered again, then nodded. Her voice was an ancient album that had been scratched to hell. The song was still there, but obscured by damage. “Promises, promises, Tallis. Now fly this lonayíp thing.”
—
Kavya fended off Pashkah by distracting him with her own vulnerability. She imagined herself a child of only twelve. You should’ve killed me then, you monster.
The pain kept coming, but better to aim it at her than at Tallis. He was operating at the highest mental function. Total concentration. That meant he’d be vulnerable to Pashkah’s psychic attacks. She couldn’t let that happen, when flying in the storm required as much brawn as skill. She focused on Tallis’s verbal tirade. He kept taunting her, saying things that no longer rang true, but that served as an escape route.
Escape. Again.
She wanted to turn around and face her brother once and for all. That wasn’t possible.
Not yet.
She took refuge in watching Tallis work. The tendons along his neck tightened, as did the set of his jaw. He was a rubber band about to snap. Except for his hands. She fended off the agony that bored into her bones by watching his hands. His knuckles were white with the pressure of gripping the yoke. Every vein stood in relief. The light dusting of hair across the backs of his wrists seemed exotic. She wanted to touch him there. She wanted to touch him all over.
“Kavya, Dragon damn it!”
The plane suddenly slid to the left. “I’m here.”
“Don’t know where the fuck you went, but don’t do it again.”
“I’m trying to keep him out of your stubborn, perverted head.”
“I like my head a little perverse, thank you.”
“A little?”
“Hush. Hold on.” He grimaced. His nostrils flared over lips taut with concentration. Blue eyes had narrowed to laser beam intensity.
The plane skittered and slipped and insisted that it would never get off the ground. The small Cessna didn’t have enough speed, but the wind had enough power. An upward surge caught the wings about a hundred yards from the end of the runway. Tallis didn’t miss the chance. He hauled up on the controls until the nose lifted and the rear wheels left the ground.
Kavya screamed, partly out of triumph. Tallis’s grin was maniacal and transformed his entire face. Mad, but in the best way. Mad in a way she wanted to share—without fear and without regret.
She sent a parting psychic shot back toward her brother. She wasn’t a trained fighter, and she didn’t have his twice-cursed power, but she had a moment of pure adrenaline. Fused with her hatred, she flung her worst back toward the man who’d warped her life for too long. She pictured his joints. Knees. Shoulders. Hips. Elbows. She burned fire into each one.
There was no way to hear his bellows over the sound of her heart, the storm, the propellers, but his telepathic scream resonated behind her breastbone with a satisfying rush.
No wonder he sought so much power—heady and dangerous.
She broke from that seductive trance by reveling in the intoxicating thrill of the elements. The storm played games with the little plane, up and down and listing like a rowboat in a froth of whitewater.
“Shit,” Tallis grunted.
The craft spun twice. Kavya was dizzy and nauseated. “What in the name of the Dragon was that?”
“We either spin with the wind, goddess, or see what happens when our wings sheer off.”
“Spin, then.”
“Only when the storm says so. Surprisingly, it doesn’t respond to your bossy orders.”
“You’ve taught me to cope with that disappointment.”
He grinned again, although his knuckles were still bone beneath skin. No blood and no color. “Does that mean I’m a force of nature? I could get used to that.”
“As infuriating as one,” she said.
“Bollocks. You like it. Besides, I obeyed you when I climbed into this— Whoa!”
The plane rolled again. The wind-tossed waters of the Beas were all Kavya could see out of the front cockpit windows. The g-force against her face meant gravity wanted them. The earth wanted them. And the storm didn’t want them sharing its sky.
Tallis’s desire to live trumped them all.
He steered the Cessna out of its downward plummet. He growled with what sounded like Pendray curses. She joined in using the Indranan tongue. Somewhere in time, however, they crossed from those separate languages and slipped into the mutual language of all Dragon Kings. Like the humans’ story of Babel, the Five Clans had fractured, too, each with its own means of communication. She liked sharing what might be their final words as if speaking directly to the Dragon—prayers and curses mixed, in complete understanding.
A headache that had nothing to do with Pashkah’s mental bullying pierced her temples. She rather liked that. Physical pain, not mental. But not too much pain. Crashing would mean agony beyond imagining. She and Tallis would wind up as he’d described: stuck in useless, broken bodies, unable to die. She’d obliged Nakul’s final wish, yes. This would be different. Their minds would remain intact. She might have the strength to put Tallis out of his suffering, although the idea of lobotomizing him added a layer of gut-wrenching sadness to her fear.
She wouldn’t be able to do it to herself. Endless suffering.
Hating her helplessness, she gripped the armrests until she thought her arms would splinter. She was panicking, and that was never a good thing for an Indranan. If Tallis was holding his fear response at bay—the berserker that almost certainly wanted to overrule his thinking mind—then she could.
“You threatened to strip me.” She grinned to herself, knowing Tallis would be smiling, too. “Think you can manage?”
“I’ll manage just fine.”
“A lot of experience in that department?”
“A lot more than you.”
She wanted to wipe the sweat off her brow but couldn’t find the courage to let go of the armrests. “You think you can handle seducing a virgin?”
“Seducing? We were talking about the forceful removal of your clothes.”
“That’s part of it, I’m sure,” she said with a shiver. The adrenaline, the physical anguish, the absolute terror—they were blending with their ribald conversation until her body felt molten. She was a bundles of nerves contained within too-tight skin. “But I don’t respond to violence.”
“Says you. The right kind can be amazing.”
He said that last with a gasp—sexy and breathless—as the plane righted and swerved sharply to port. Had they been any nearer to the ground, the wing on Tallis’s side would’ve shredded into the earth.
“We’re lucky to still be airborne,” he said after a hard, telling swallow.
“Every second is a victory.”
“We’re agreeing on so much, goddess. You’ll come around. I know it. Strip. Kiss. A little rough play—you’ll enjoy my definition of seduction.”
“Can a man be that assured and actually manage to be amazing?”
“Kavya, right now I’m flying a paper airplane in a turbine.” His neck was rigid with tension. “That means I can spin straw into gold and level mountains. Pick what impossible deed you want me to accomplish next.”
“Make me feel safe enough to sleep beside you.”
Where in the world had that come from?
Tallis glanced toward her, eyes aglow with hot blue fire. “Safe. With me. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fine.” She returned her attention to the window and tried to ignore the creaking protests the plane made—and the sudden frost in Tallis’s bearing. “Just stick with calling me by my name. Not goddess. I’ll consider that miracle enough.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Perhaps the Dragon wasn’t angry at them after all. Maybe he just wanted two troublemakers the hell out of the Himalayas. Fine with Tallis.
Through some combination of skill, luck, and complete idiocy, they belly flopped the Cessna in a cornfield. The stark Pir Panjal peaks had given way to less formidable hilly terrain, as well as grasslands, lakes, and abundant population centers. Kavya had navigated along the national highways until final sputters of fuel, as well as a suspiciously freaky sound coming from the port propeller, meant her goal of a landing at the Jaipur International Airport was too ambitious.
That the plane’s nose hadn’t dug a trench was a minor miracle.
As it was, Tallis’s door was jammed into the dirt. The plane was tipped sideways, with the wing on his side snapped back like a crippled bird. The temperature was sweltering and humid. Apparently they’d dropped into hell as a nod to the fate they’d courted. He shed his coat and handed it to Kavya, who padded the door frame where a jagged piece of metal waited to slice her palm. She crawled the upward angle out her door, then turned to take the pack and seaxes from Tallis. Their fingers touched. Hers were still shaking, after nearly five hours in the air. Eyes assessing each other, they must’ve made a strange tableau in the middle of that field.
Tallis blinked and Kavya turned away. After climbing out, feet back on solid ground, he leaned hard against the half-wrecked cockpit. “Any head cases coming after us?” he asked, angling his question toward where she’d taken a seat on his pack.
“No. Coast is clear. Plenty of Indranan in Jaipur, maybe ten kilometers from here. But we’ll blend in better.”
“Good.” He stood back from the plane and gave it a solid looking over. “I’m quite proud of that, you know.”
“Crashing?”
“Landing. A very creative landing.” He walked around to the ruined port side. The wing was like a hangnail—a clinging piece of something that had once been part of the whole. One of the propellers was twisted into the stripes of a candy cane. No wonder it had grated so badly. “And a lucky landing at that,” he said to himself.
“Do I want to take a look?”
Tallis emerged from around the rear of the plane and smiled. “Nope.”
“Then I won’t.”
“You’ll lose that green tinge any minute now and realize that extreme mountain aviation is a completely shite hobby. Tell me this was the one and only time you planned on giving it a go.”
“One and only time.” She stood, strapped on the pack, and arched her neck to a particularly defiant posture. “I’m never running from him again. You should know that. Whatever distance we put between us and him now is for strategy. But . . . there will be a reckoning.”
Tallis watched her with nothing short of complete fascination. Her insides should be jelly. Her mind should be some fog of pain or confusion or madness. But she was still Kavya, the Sun, the goddess who dogged him while waking, not sleeping. Her resolve made him feel invincible.
He walked toward he
r, slowly, just as she’d approached him when he emerged from his berserker fury. Wild animals required patience and caution. Kavya seemed like just such an animal. She was not the pristine cross between deity and politician who’d spoken on that distant altar. Only days had passed, but already that woman seemed years distant, consumed by danger and circumstance. The woman who’d shouldered his pack and stared at him eye to eye was more primal. She’d shed the constraints of her role.
After kneeling to pick up and sheath his weapons, he touched her chin. His fingers wanted to wander, so he let them—along her hairline, over her cheekbones, down to the lower lip that would never fail to arouse him to his core. “This is closer to who you used to be,” he said quietly. “Isn’t it? This adaptability and resolve. You weren’t always untouchable and perfect.”
“I’ve never claimed to be either.”
“Your followers believed otherwise.” Rather than start another argument—he really didn’t have the strength—he turned to survey where they’d landed. They were surrounded by cornstalks taller than Kavya. “Ten kilometers to . . . what was it? Jaipur? How many people are we talking? Because this doesn’t look promising.”
“I don’t know. Maybe six million?”
“Well, well. A welcome change from Bhuntar. A city means food, new clothes, a bath, shelter.”
She started walking. “You had a bath last night, if I recall.”
“If you recall?” Tallis caught up with her swift steps. “You’ll recall that particular bath for the rest of your life.” He dropped his voice an octave. “And so will I.”
“It’s best to get away from the site of the crash,” she said, apparently ignoring him. “People will come to investigate. We’ll find a little town and transportation that doesn’t involve walking.”
“You want me to steal a car?”
Kavya’s laugh was beautiful, even brushed by a hint of leftover hysteria. “No. Not a car. Never mind. You’ll see.”
It was midmorning, and the blazing sun made the snowstorm up in the Pir Panjal seem like a horror movie villain they’d barely escaped. Every ten minutes or so, Kavya would stop, turn her head some direction or another, and close her eyes. She might make a minor course correction. Tallis bit his tongue to keep from asking questions.
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