“And you’re already addicted.”
Tallis smiled right back. “I knew you were unnatural and downright shady, but this is new. Your brother’s in town so you hope to sink to his level of obvious mental degeneration.”
He kicked the engine to life. Propellers swirled with patterns of air, whereas the blizzard made random swoops and threats. Tallis watched, as if out of body, as he wheeled the tiny plane into alignment with the wide, gaping exit.
Vibrations that had nothing to do with the accelerating propellers shook the small craft. The Dragon was angry at their arrogance—the Heretic and the Sun, both of whom were trying as fervently as Pashkah to change the way things had been for generations. What hubris! What gall! The sort of hubris and gall that deserved punishment.
“You know, maybe it’s a parable.” He felt happily sardonic and that contradiction was reflected in his tone. This was merely another reckless step in an otherwise misguided, risky, worthless life. No, this was a cataclysmic leap. “Maybe we’re meant to crash where the Dragon died. Swords forged in the Chasm, fire, tons and tons of lava.”
“You’re talking, not flying.”
“Is this where you said I need to concentrate really hard?”
“Yes.”
“Without telepathy?”
Kavya shot him a prickly glare. “One set of controls, but two sets of eyes and two sets of everything else. We can make this work
“
For all his protests, Tallis didn’t hesitate anymore. The pressure against the top of his spine was becoming more like how Kavya described it: the pounding of a mallet, only that mallet had been studded with nails. He resisted the temptation to touch the back of his neck, where he was sure he’d find dots of blood. At that moment, there were so many ways to risk death and dismemberment.
He went all in with the Sun’s method of choice.
“Aw, fuck it. Let’s do this.”
She slid him a sideways grin. “About time.”
Throttle back, he navigated the plane out of the hangar. Almost instantly a gust of wind caught beneath the wings and tipped the cockpit starboard. Kavya gasped. Her skin had paled, but she bit her molars together so hard that Tallis saw the bulge of muscle and determination along her jaw.
“I got the steering,” he said. “You watch . . . the other stuff.”
The blizzard was a complete and total sonofabitch. Tallis fought the controls with his whole body. Layer upon layer of white made him curse the lack of color. He wanted green and blue and bright sunny yellow— anything but white, or the orange and red flames of a fiery crash. He angled the nose of the little plane toward the runway, which was surprisingly clear. The wind hadn’t allowed snow or ice to accumulate across that long, flat surface. The snow had no building walls to settle against. Instead the runway looked like a winter desert where the sands flew right to left. There was more consistency without the interference of structures from town.
A straight shot.
Him against the wind.
Could be worse. He couldn’t think of an example of how, but he was sure there had to be one.
Judging the direction of the gale and the way the plane pitched, he adjusted the flaps to compensate. They weren’t taxiing straight. More like a sidewinder. Rear wheels skidded and slipped. A sneaky gust lifted the nose off the ground.
“They’re coming,” Kavya said, almost in a trance. “At the hangar. Snowmobiles.”
“Then airborne it is.”
He pulled back the throttle and begged the little two-seater to gather her nerve. More speed.
Kavya cried out, clutching her temples. She shook in her seat, as if whipped side to side by unseen hands.
Tallis didn’t dare let go of the yoke, but he needed his copilot. He needed Kavya as his partner.
“You’re a lying bitch, goddess. You hear me? Get your ass back here so I can tell you what I really think of you. I want the chance before we smash into the Beas.” He risked a sideways glance. “I mean it. I’ll slap you in the face right now. And if we do get out of here, you won’t believe what I have planned.
She shivered again, then nodded. Her voice was an ancient album that had been scratched to hell. The song was still there, but obscured by damage. “Promises, promises, Tallis. Now fly this
—
Kavya fended off Pashkah by distracting him with her own vulnerability. She imagined herself a child of only twelve.
The pain kept coming, but better to aim it at her than at Tallis. He was operating at the highest mental function. Total concentration. That meant he’d be vulnerable to Pashkah’s psychic attacks. She couldn’t let that happen, when flying in the storm required as much brawn as skill. She focused on Tallis’s verbal tirade. He kept taunting her, saying things that no longer rang true, but that served as an escape route.
Escape. Again.
She wanted to turn around and face her brother once and for all. That wasn’t possible.
Not yet.
She took refuge in watching Tallis work. The tendons along his neck tightened, as did the set of his jaw. He was a rubber band about to snap. Except for his hands. She fended off the agony that bored into her bones by watching his hands. His knuckles were white with the pressure of gripping the yoke. Every vein stood in relief. The light dusting of hair across the backs of his wrists seemed exotic. She wanted to touch him there. She wanted to touch him all over.
“Kavya, Dragon damn it!”
The plane suddenly slid to the left. “I’m here.”
“Don’t know where the fuck you went, but don’t do it again.”
“I’m trying to keep him out of your stubborn, perverted head.”
“I like my head a little perverse, thank you.”
“A
“Hush. Hold on.” He grimaced. His nostrils flared over lips taut with concentration. Blue eyes had narrowed to laser beam intensity.
The plane skittered and slipped and insisted that it would never get off the ground. The small Cessna didn’t have enough speed, but the wind had enough power. An upward surge caught the wings about a hundred yards from the end of the runway. Tallis didn’t miss the chance. He hauled up on the controls until the nose lifted and the rear wheels left the ground.
Kavya screamed, partly out of triumph. Tallis’s grin was maniacal and transformed his entire face. Mad, but in the best way. Mad in a way she wanted to share—without fear and without regret.
She sent a parting psychic shot back toward her brother. She wasn’t a trained fighter, and she didn’t have his twice-cursed power, but she had a moment of pure adrenaline. Fused with her hatred, she flung her worst back toward the man who’d warped her life for too long. She pictured his joints. Knees. Shoulders. Hips. Elbows. She burned fire into each one. There was no way to hear his bellows over the sound of her heart, the storm, the propellers, but his telepathic scream resonated behind her breastbone with a satisfying rush.
No wonder he sought so much power—heady and dangerous.
She broke from that seductive trance by reveling in the intoxicating thrill of the elements. The storm played games with the little plane, up and down and listing like a rowboat in a froth of whitewater.
“Shit,” Tallis grunted.
