Page 78 of Tailwind

‘I need to get back next door. I’ll come check on you later, okay?’

‘Yeah, I need to spend some time with Gottyk anyway.’

I let her pass me and open the door.

‘Josie,’ I called out to her.

She paused.

‘Thank you.’

Josie shrugged. ‘Hey, you did this all alone. No need to thank me.’ She gave me a conspiratorial grin and shut the door behind her.

Hot air blasted my wet hair. I smiled.

‘You know, buddy …’ – I turned to my dragon, out of his stall and too impatient to wait much longer. – ‘… I think we did a pretty good job.’

I stroked his nose, feeling the ridges of his scales as if they were brand-new. I stared at the myriad of colours, from peach, to tangerine to an orange so burnt it could be brown. The horns on his head branched upwards, so stark white compared to the rest of him. He blinked at me, first his filmy inner lids then his outer scaled ones.

Another blast of hot air.

‘I’m committing you to memory, just in case.’

Gottyk’s head tilted, his big eyes shining in the cool Prevere blue lights. Then he started pacing. First to my left, then to my right. Then he circled me, nudging my shoulders and back as he did. My legs trembled from the effort of not buckling under the force.

The cuts on my face came alive, stinging from the fresh tears rolling across them. Gottyk became a big orange blur against the grey of the aviary. Luckily he was big enough I couldn’t miss when I flung my arms out to wrap them around his neck.

The scales scraped against me, but it didn’t matter. He was warm, he was familiar, he was home. A home I might not get to come back to. I heaved deep breaths, consumed by the smell of sulphur, hot metal and the mountain rain that dripped slowly from my dragon.

I closed my eyes to try and keep the emotion from gaining total control. Gottyk’s neck sparked, soft clicks of his ignition with no fire. The noise fledglings made to their mothers.

‘You baby.’ My voice was muffled, but it didn’t matter. He knew what I meant without hearing me anyway. If there was anyone in Volitant who truly knew me it was my dragon. Maybe more than I knew myself.

He shifted. I could feel him raising his head towards the door.

I tensed. Had Thorne decided he wanted to do more than gloat?

The door creaked open. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’

So, that’s why Gottyk hadn’t gone on the defensive. It was Theo. I wondered when Gottyk had moved him out of the enemy category. Last time he’d been in our aviary my dragon had curled around me, not letting him near.

I scrubbed at my face, remembering too late that it would make the wounds worse.

The aviary door thudded shut and the shape of Theo became clearer and closer the more I blinked my old tears away. He’d changed into his team uniform, purple fleece with blue wings on the chest and thick black trousers for the Kuramine cold.

It reminded me of the heaviness of my armour and flight suit, the layers weighing me down. To take them off would be lighter, but if that meant never feeling it again … I’d happily take the weight a thousand times over.

‘You never fail to meet my expectations, Paldon.’

I frowned, one hand on Gottyk for support as pain lanced through my eye.

He smirked and leaned forward so our faces were level and pointed to himself. ‘Notice anything different?’

I bit back a terse ‘no’. Instead I scanned his face. The same smooth brown skin, unbroken by spots or dry patches, all down to the skincare he’d been lecturing me about since we were fifteen. The same deep eyes that I skimmed over. Then I noticed the way his curls wafted in the breeze from Gottyk’s nose.

‘You had a shower, congratulations.’ My voice was the only part of me that was dry. My damp hair clung to the back of my neck, starting to peel away strand by strand in the warm air, making me itch.

He scoffed and took out the Volitant mandatory medkit stored under the workbench of every aviary. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have sorted yourself out. I swear you could be cut in half and you’d still try to walk it off.’ He took me by the elbow and led me to the stall. ‘Sit.’