Page 55 of Kingdom of Flames & Flowers
Zariah clucked his tongue in annoyance.
“Ready,” I declared, my mouth still full.
It was time to solve a mystery.
ChapterSixteen
Iwas sure someone would see Zariah and me sneak back through the hallways and up to the hatch. I paused at the bottom of the ladder, remembering the spot I’d seen two of the Fireguards murdered for being unlucky enough to see both princes human at the same time.
The blood was gone, but the memory lingered.
“Coming?” Zariah called ahead of me, shedding his pants and clothes as he climbed, letting them fall carelessly to the floor. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, he was naked and climbing through the hatch.
He offered his hand gallantly, and I took it, accepting his help in stepping over the threshold and out into the open air. My eyes shut to slits as I took a moment to adjust to the brightness. Would I ever truly get used to it? Zariah didn’t look too bothered by the sun.
Before I could fully open my eyes, gold scales surrounded me and black, narrow pupils waited with impatience. I pushed his head down and he huffed, a small ball of flames bursting from his snout. But he held it still and let me climb on his neck and down his back.
“Alright,” I mumbled under my breath, my fingers tightening around the hard spikes at his neck. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t think that I’d ever be used to flying. After a lifetime of hiding under the dome, the sky itself was an almost intangible idea, and now I was soaring through it! I only screamed a little as Zariah’s massive wings flapped on either side of me, and he dove off the dome and into the sky.
We flew due west, away from our kingdom, which had seemed so large and encompassing to me before. But out here, the vastness of the desert stretched out to the horizon, further than my eyes could see. Our kingdom was nothing compared to the mountains and landscape that stretched for miles once my eyes looked beyond the immediate blackened earth. For the first time, I wondered about visiting all the other kingdoms in the world—past all the sand and red rocks I could see in the far distance. They probably didn’t worry about dragons and curses. They probably didn’t build giant domes.
I thought we’d fly to the mountains, but we landed just before them in a cluster of low-lying rocks. Zariah’s scales were hot under my hands as I wrapped my arms around his neck, nearly falling off during the rough landing. He buffeted me with his right wing, slowing my descent to the ground.
Using my hand to shield against the sun, I frowned at the rocks. “I see nothing.”
Zariah lurched forward in his dragon form, tearing at the pile of rocks with his claws and armored snout. Some of them were larger than me!
“I’ll just … let you handle that,” I said lamely, crossing my arms over my chest. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he backed away, trying in vain to wipe the soot and dirt from his nose.
“Let me.”
His snout was softer than the rest of him as I took it in my hands, wiping his nose clean with my shirt. I trailed my fingers up his face until they met the hard, unyielding scales of his brow. Gold eyes met mine, then flicked back to the rock pile. I followed his gaze, blinking at the massive black hole that went straight down.
“Oh. That’s it? I guess I expected something more … I don’t know. Grand?”
Zariah huffed and pushed me forward with his nose, showing I should go down.
“Real cute. Why don’tyougo down first, then shift back into a dragon and roast anything that gets too close?”
He growled in his chest, but a second later, Zariah stood naked in front of me, scowling. Without hesitation, he strode over to the black hole and shoved himself in, feet first, with his arms over his head. He disappeared in an instant, and worry immediately blossomed in my chest.
I stood at the edge of the hole, my fingers gripping the dirt. “Zariah? Are you—” The surrounding dirt near my hands crumpled inwards, and I fell face first into the hole. I let out a loud shriek, my fingers scrabbling uselessly at the smooth dirt walls as I looked for a root or a rock or anything to grab onto.
WHUMPF.
I bounced off something firm, but not too hard. It wasn’t the ground. Scales and warmth surrounded me, and then Zariah twisted around so I rolled from his soft belly to the ground. I didn’t think dragons could have the same expressions as humans, but I swear one scaled eyebrow rose at me.
“Thanks,” I grudgingly let out, brushing myself off. Zariah belched out a long line of flame outwards, simultaneously lighting the old wooden torches the lined the corridor in brackets and showing what lay ahead. The path wasn’t really large enough for Zariah’s dragon, but he stubbornly tucked his wings in against his sides and pushed forward.
“If you insist,” I mumbled to no one, sticking close behind him.
I shouldn’t have worried about the tightness of the space—after only a short walk forward, the path opened up into a huge, cavernous space. Zariah leaped into the air at once, flying around an area that was as large as the entire mud quarter! He spit out bursts of fire every few seconds, illuminating the space for me. Massive pits were scattered here and there, diving deep into darkness. Narrow, steep staircases cut into the stone itself around the edges, leading toward more tunnels and more darkness.
And the bones.
They littered the ground in front of me like the dust did in the mud quarter. I told myself they were animal bones, and it worked for a few steps. I made it down the first set of stairs to the main floor when I saw the first human skull.
