The Dragons of Nova (Loom Saga #2)(2)
Diamond-shaped islands drifted like icebergs through tides of wind. Inverted towers and honeycombed living quarters had been carved into the shade of their underbellies. Sunbeams winked through the hollow spaces where gardens thrived and waterfalls fell into the nothingness below, spilling a seemingly infinite amount of liquid into the void as if it were tithing for an unknown god.
Smaller masses floated around the larger ones, like islands to continents. The glider rose higher and higher, giving Arianna her first glimpse of the tops. The land was as colorful as its people: purple mountains offset against emerald trees, gold splattered atop grasses as if the sun itself had been poured out. Every building was painted and adorned on all possible surfaces. Not one had escaped the artist’s brush or sculptor’s touch. Every. Single. One.
“What do you think?” Cvareh shouted over his shoulder.
Arianna wanted to quip back with some scathing remark. It was tacky. It was over the top. It was too much of everything. There was no appreciation for the beauty of simplicity. But her tongue had gone soft and spongy, and her usual wit hadn’t caught up with her.
“It’s not what I expected.” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of more than that. “Now focus on not getting us killed.”
He must’ve agreed with the sentiment, because Cvareh said nothing further. Ari could feel his magic thinning. Bruises were beginning to form on his skin as his body broke down from the exertion. Arianna had no doubt he had a large mark around his torso where she’d been gripping for her life. But the man had yet to speak a word against her potentially painful proximity or hold on his person.
The glider banked. Carved into the far side of the mountains, she could see the outlines of a grand series of structures that defied all sense of logic and necessity. They were suspended in the air, connected by gusty bridge-ways and narrow spiraling stairs. Cvareh tracked them to a large building above it all at the top of the mountain.
“You need to slow us,” Ari cautioned nervously, realizing he intended to land on a flat alcove just on the other side of the structure.
“I’m working on it.”
“Work on it more urgently.” They were coming in far too fast for such a narrow ledge. Numbers flashed through her head, estimations based on estimations, but in every scenario they were splattered against the back wall of the wide-mouthed cavern.
Cvareh tugged on the handles, his magic straining in spite of his obvious will. “You want to try flying this thing?”
The question was obviously meant to be rhetorical, but Arianna had to bite her tongue from answering a resounding yes!
She waited until what she estimated to be the last possible second for Cvareh to pull himself together and get the glider back under his control and on a proper trajectory. He met her expectations of failure. Ari pushed her magic into him, into the glider through her feet. It wasn’t possible to assume complete control without gripping the handles, but it had the desired effect. His magic was vastly weakened by the dominant influx of her own, resulting in the almost total arrest of the vessel’s momentum—and thus knocking it off the suicide course it had been propelling them along. Arianna mentally accommodated for the falter by adding extra lift beneath the wings.
They skipped like a stone on water, skidding to a stop with a crash that crumpled one wing and sent them both tumbling from the glider. Ari’s ears were ringing from the sharp bang of metal crushing against stone. She winced at the sight of the technical masterpiece that was a Dragon glider reduced to half a heap of scrap.
“Are you all right?” Cvareh drew himself to a seated position, taking note of her expression.
“Takes a lot more than that to fell me.” Ari quickly checked for any rogue cuts or scratches she’d need to hide.
“Isn’t that the truth?” He stood. “We need to get moving.”
“To where?” Ari was already in step behind him.
“The Temple of Xin.”
Arianna had studied Dragon culture enough to know of the culture’s pantheon—the twenty needless gods they prayed to for everything from love to peace to luck. She could list off a good fifteen, maybe even all twenty, but Arianna could only align three to what they were said to be the gods of—and Xin was one of them.
Lord Xin, the death-giver and patron of the House of his namesake—Cvareh’s family’s House.
“Unless you can sprout actual wings on Nova, I doubt we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.” Arianna shuffled toward the edge of the cavern, looking up and down. The walls were sheer and frustratingly smooth. Climbing would be a trick. Her mind was already turning around what they could salvage from the wreckage of the glider to help them scale the face when magic popped faintly around her companion.
Cvareh murmured softly to himself in Ryouk, the language of the Dragons. Arianna’s ears picked up half of the conversation, but he spoke too softly for her to catch anything substantial. She stepped closer and his hand promptly fell away from his ear.
“Wings are coming.”
“What does that mean?” She raised her eyebrows.
He laughed. The infuriating Dragon had the audacity to laugh at her as though she were a child inquiring about how water turned to ice. Arianna narrowed her eyes at him in warning.
“You’ll see.” He leaned against one of the side walls, folding his arms over his chest.