Page 88 of A Scar in the Bone
I reached inside my knapsack and pulled out my remaining food, extending the package of wrapped bread and dried venison to her. “Very well. Here. Take this for your journey.”
“We didn’t pack enough to share,” Kerstin complained in outrage.
“We can hunt for more food,” I replied, sending her a withering look.
Sylvi accepted the bag and slung it over her shoulder.
I returned my gaze to the ground. Now that I was here, and it was time … the final moment of revelation, a perplexing hesitancy came over me.
I felt Kerstin’s eyes on me as I inched forward and dropped to my knees. Instantly, wetness soaked through the fabric of my trousers, but I didn’t care. I tore my gloves from my hands and flung them aside. Bending over, I sank my bare hands into the icy slush as though I could somehow reach him myself. I went deep, past my wrists, my fingers clawing and curling through snow, the tiny particles of ice melting against my warmer skin and turning to water.
I frowned. I’d expected toknow, tofeelhim this close, but my palm stayed dead. Silent.
“Kerstin?” I looked up, my stare landing on her.
She nodded, clearly reading the request in my eyes. Fresh determination firmed her lips. “I will try.”
When I glanced back to where Sylvi had once been, it was to see the speck of her retreating back, her strides quickly carrying her away over the rise. Another moment and she was gone, dipping out of sight.
I snapped my gaze back to Kerstin.
She exhaled, as though gathering strength with her breath, and helped me to my feet, positioning me away. “Just give me a moment.”
I nodded, fighting for patience. Waiting, I looked at her, the ground, then back to her again.
Kerstin held out her hands, palms down. Her eyes sparked, pupils shuddering, elongating, thinning to vertical slits. The ground shifted, snow sliding away as a jagged crack formed, deepening. She made a strangling sound, her skin flashing bronze, blurring to iridescent dragon skin.
I hastened back several steps, getting farther away from that widening crevice. “You’re doing it!”
Her face reddened with exertion beneath the bronze glimmer and fade of her dragon skin, but still she held her hands over the ground, moving them like she was pulling something apart, ripping something wide open—the seams of the earth itself.
Her nostrils flared, ridges rising and bunching along her nose, widening its slope, allowing her to breathe harder, faster, to take in more air. Her arms trembled, grappling with the great strain of her efforts.
I looked down, watching as that crack yawned and went deeper, deeper … deeper.
I squeezed my hands into fists, and they shook as though the cold was finally affecting me, but of course it was not. Anticipation buzzed through me like a charge of current.
Beads of perspiration dotted Kerstin’s face despite the glacial air. I peered down into the dark depths of that deepening chasm, hoping for the sight of—
“There!” I cried.
The clouds of ashy dirt and snow cleared, and the earth revealed a box. A crude coffin of dragon bone.
I didn’t know what to expect, but of course they would have put him in such a thing. Humans weren’t the only ones to weaponize and make tools out of a dragon’s anatomy. He would not have been able to break out of the coffin and claw his way to freedom.
Kerstin stopped, breathing hard, the sounds wrenched from her almost like sobs.
I clasped her shoulder, not breathing at all, excitement vibrating in my voice. “You did it!”
She nodded and swallowed, the cords of her throat working.
Together, we stood side by side at the edge of the crevasse she’d formed, staring down into the endless deep, waiting for something to happen.
“Fell!” I called down into the abyss.
Nothing.
Kerstin and I exchanged looks, not sure what to do next. The wind ruffled the fur of her mantle, rippling along her cloak. She shrugged. “I don’t suppose he’s going to open the lid himself if he’s still … dormant.”
