Page 58 of Rifted Hearts
Last night was a blur, granted, but the rift’s boundary had been only a kilometer or so outside the ranch proper. Now it was much farther out—and a lot more humans were living with the natural laws of the Riftworld.
“The drakone riftland has taken over the city.” Remi felt uneasy.
Rhys had talked about expanding the riftland to protect Kaveh’s intended, but whatever Kaveh had told his clan, he must have let them know there was no need to keep their lands expanded now. Could something have gone wrong with the control object that drained power from the phantoms? There was still no explanation for how it had disappeared. Remi didn’t have it, and Lyall and Kaveh had searched for it without success at the base.
“Maybe it’ll take more time.” Javier was using a soothing voice, as if he didn’t want Remi to panic. Or maybe he wanted to reassure himself as well. “Kaveh said it would be better by the morning, and he’s a man of his word.”
Remi wanted to snap back and say that wasn’t true. But if he were to compare untruths, his lies had been a lot more damaging.
“Is the airport affected?” Remi asked, before realizing that without cellphone service or internet Javier and the ranch staff knew as little as he did about what was going on in Tucson. “I have a flight I need to catch.”
“Kaveh said you had a family emergency and needed to leave.” Javier looked abashed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. But we can take a ride out in the emergency storm lane on the highway and get an idea of what’s going on. So far, the only news has come from Flutterberry. She popped into the main building last night with Snow tagging along. It was good to hear my family’s safe, but she couldn’t tell us much about what was going on in the city.”
Remi lifted his luggage into the buggy and sat as Javier picked up the reins and called out to the horses. The carriage had modern springs and comfortable seats, technology that wasn’t impacted by being inside a fragment of the Riftworld. The ride was bumpier than a car and a lot slower, but Remi was too miserable to care. He closed hiseyes, not wanting to see Moon Star Ranch grow smaller as they rode farther away. Javier did his best to keep up a cheerful chatter about Snow’s frequent misdeeds, and the bird himself snuggled against Remi, as if he wanted to give him comfort.
Snow didn’t try to bite even once, as much as Remi deserved it.
Javier swore in surprise. Remi’s eyes opened, and he snapped his head up. A huge shape twisted through the air above, descending in a vortex resembling a scaled tornado.
Panic gripped Remi’s throat. A drakone was coming right at them, and it wasn’t Kaveh.
It was Rhys.
Remi made a quick decision and shouted at the driver to stop. He hopped out of the buggy as Snow flapped up into the air, giving squawks of alarm.
“Javier,” Remi said, “get out of here.”
He glanced around for a place to run or hide, but they were on a two-lane highway that had no traffic and no cover other than some scrawny undergrowth.
Rhys landed with a thump in front of Remi, transforming into his alter form as he did. One look at the drakone’s expression told Remi he had come to do more than yell at him.
“I don’t have the control object.” Remi rushed the words out, sensing even before they left his lips that his protests were meaningless.
Rhys smiled, and there was nothing friendly about it. “I know you don’t have it.”
Then he lunged forward. Remi took the only option left to him and transformed.
He darted between Rhys’s legs then ran as fast as his four legs could carry him. There must be some groundcover or maybe even an abandoned burrow. The wind started then, a furious blast that sent him sprawling and left him gasping in a heap.
Remi heard Javier shout at the horses and the creak of wheels as the buggy took off down the highway. The wrangler knew better than to take on a drakone, and Remi could only hope the man would seek out Kaveh as soon as he returned to the ranch.
Whether Kaveh would care about what Rhys did to Remi was another question.
In the meantime, the only thing Remi could do was try not to be killed.
He suppressed the urge to run and instead went limp, lying unmoving in the dust. The heavy tramp of Rhys’s reptilian feet sent vibrations through the ground as he approached.
The footsteps stopped all too close to him. He could hear the drakone’s raspy breaths and guessed that Rhys was standing over him, trying to figure out if the blast had broken Remi’s neck.
A foot prodded him. When Remi still didn’t move, Rhys gave a grunt.
Cracking one eye open a fraction, Remi saw the drakone bending over him, his clawed hand reaching out to grab him.
Remi bit Rhys as hard as he could.
Chinchilla bites weren’t particularly powerful, but Rhys wasn’t expecting it and jerked back in surprise.
That gave Remi enough time to scramble a few feet away and transform. The living leathers wound around his human body, and thanks to the Riftworld influence, he had added abilities when it came to chinchilla tricks like hopping, jumping, and kicking.
