Dragon Flight by Jessica Day George Page B

kill you,” Marta said, defiant. “He knows you’re here, and he’s coming for you.”
    “Is he?” Krashath’s tongue flicked out and his eyes half closed. “Is he now? How delightful.”
    “You won’t think that,” I chimed in, since there was no point in hiding it now, “when he’s blasting you and Arjas into ash.” Despite my words there was a cold, sour twist in my stomach.
    “We shall see who becomes ash, human,” Krashath said. “I am more than ready to face my brother.” He reared back a little, and his tongue flicked out again. “In fact, why don’t you call to him? Tell him to hurry tomy city.” He reached out and grasped Marta with one foreclaw and me with the other. “Tell him to hurry before you fall.”
    And with that, Krashath hurtled out of the long windows of the throne room. Shards of glass scratched my face and caught in my hair as we broke out into the air above the courtyard. Krashath hovered there only a moment, while below us there were screams and the sound of horses panicking. Then he shot upwards, up among the towers of the palace. Without warning he opened his claws and dropped us on the conical copper roof of one of the highest towers, then flew away, laughing.

Letting Go
    “Creel! Are you all right?”
    I thought this was very sweet of Marta to ask, considering that she, too, was clinging to the spike that rose from the pinnacle of the roof. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was scrabbling at the smooth copper surface with her slippered feet.
    My position was little better. I had my hands just above Marta’s, and my legs sprawled wide, stretching them around the conical roof as much as I could. It was not unlike riding a very large dragon. A very large dragon that was flying straight up with little concern for its passenger’s safety. Still, if I didn’t find a more secure position soon, my arms would be pulled out of their sockets by the weight of my body.
    Blood pounding in my ears, I dared to look down the slope of the roof. I concentrated very hard on looking only at the edge of the roof, and not beyond it at the open space through which I could fall endlessly before splattering on to a lower roof or even the courtyard all the way below …
    Dragging my attention back to the roof, I saw that the edge jutted out, creating a ledge some two handspans wide. It wasn’t much, but if we lay against the roof and stood on the ledge, we could stay up here much longer than if we had to hold ourselves up with the spike.
    “Marta, there’s a little lip on the edge of the roof. We’re going to have to slide down and stand there. If we try to hold on here, we’ll get hand cramps and fall.”
    “I’m not sliding down this roof, Creel.” Her words were perfectly rational, but there was a hysterical edge to her voice. “We’ll keep sliding, right off that little lip …” She trailed off into a moan as she looked past the ledge.
    I realised that she was right. The copper roof was very slippery, and twice as high as we were tall. By the time we hit the ledge we would have gathered enough speed that we would be lucky if we didn’t go flying right off the meagre foothold and into open air.
    “Think, Creel, think,” I muttered.
    “Ooh, I looked again,” Marta said. “I think I might be sick.”
    “Don’t! You’ll make the roof even more slippery,” I told her. “It’s bad enough that we’re wearing silk.” I glanced down, but only to look at my own clothes.
    A germ of an idea began to form. “Marta, can you take off your sash with one hand?”
    “Are you mad? I can’t let go of the spire! If you want to die,
you
let go of the spire!” She gasped for breath fora moment. “My hands are so sweaty right now, it’s all I can do to hold on.”
    Which was another thing I’d been trying to ignore. My own hands were so wet that I was afraid to even think about them.
    “If I start to slide,” I asked, “will you at least use one hand to slow me