not used to the dry heat of the desert. You were dehydrated and exhausted. You’ve been pushed past your limits.”
Tressa shrugged, a smile on her lips. “You’d be surprised how much stamina I have.” She pushed away the memory of the tears she’d shed not long ago.
“Someday I hope to find out.” Jarrett winked and tossed her a teasing smile.
Tressa’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” Jarrett said with a laugh. “Don’t take everything so seriously.”
“We’re only hiding from two mysterious red dragons who were tramping through my abandoned village, while trying to reach your lover, a queen, no less, who might help us. No reason to be serious. You’re right.” Tressa meant it as a joke, but the weight of her words tamped down all conversation.
A silence fell upon them. Tressa marveled at Jarrett’s navigational skills. In the forest, she’d seen landmarks that could help guide her, streams, unique trees, that sort of thing. But here it was all the same. Only the sun’s position changed, but that happened so slowly Tressa could imagine getting off course easily.
In front of them, four camels swayed, weighed down by the men riding them. With curved steel at their hips and fierce grimaces on their faces, these guards, disguised as guides, protected them from the front. Six more guards traveled behind them, dressed as common merchants and minor nobility.
Jarrett explained how their clothes identified them to casual onlookers. The merchants wore robes, lined with golden fringe. Their turbans sat short and squat on their heads. The noblemen wore fine silk robes with turbans reaching toward the clouds. Tressa and Jarrett traveled under the guise of a man and woman recently married. Her gown was a bright amethyst and he wore a plume of peacock feathers on his back, signifying his virility and dominance.
Tressa thought he looked ridiculous, but Jarrett wore his disguise with pride. Back straight, eyes focused ahead, his camel only an arm’s length away from hers. He wasn’t afraid to let everyone know she was his promised. And while Tressa would have preferred to be responsible for her own safety, she was grateful to Jarrett. Without his help, she’d still be back at Ashoom, not knowing what to do next.
A shadow cast across them, blocking the sun.
“Ah, so you do have clouds here,” Tressa said, shielding her eyes as she looked.
“That is no cloud!” Jarrett jumped from his camel, landing in a squat, his scimitar drawn. “Tressa!”
But it was too late. Something had already plucked her from her camel, carrying her into the sky.
Chapter Fifteen
Fear engulfed every part of Tressa's being. She'd ridden on the blue dragon, but he hadn't snatched her from a camel's back and carried through the air like a mouse dangling from an owl's talons.
The golden dragon's claws wrapped around her arms and under her armpits, piercing her flesh. Blood trickled down her arms.
Tressa shrieked, her throat already torn into shreds from the desert heat, but she couldn't hear anything over the wind's constant screeching in her ears.
Or maybe it was the dragon.
She wasn't sure she'd live to find out.
Tressa's legs dangled, her bare feet tickled by the warm winds racing between her toes. Her sandals had fallen long ago.
She forced her eyes open, hot wind piercing her eyeballs. In the distance she saw it: a castle. Golden, rising up in a spiral from the ground through the clouds. It loomed closer, and with sigh of relief Tressa realized the dragon wasn't secreting her away, deep in the desert, to eat her for dinner. It was taking her exactly where she and Jarrett had been headed. To the throne in the desert, where Jarrett's lover reigned supreme over the land of heat and death.
Her relief turned to fear in a heartbeat. Jarrett had said the only thing that would protect her was her position with him. But the dragon had left Jarrett far behind in the desert. It would be three days until he could get to her. The queen could do a lot to her in three days.
True, she'd learned to defend herself. But one girl against a whole kingdom? She'd done it once, but only with help from friends and a great deal of luck. Here she had no one, and likely her luck had run out with Stacia's death. If Jarrett had told her the truth, and there was no reason to think he hadn't, Stacia's reign at the Blue had been considered a pathetic one by the rest of the Dragonlands. She