“Exactly,” Macy agrees as she settles in behind Xavier on Flint. “We can go the second the next blast hits.”
“We will,” Jaxon says. “But I’ve got a backup plan, too. Just in case.”
“Oh yeah?” Xavier says. “Want to let the rest of us in on it?”
Before he can answer, another gust of wyvern wind comes howling around the island and straight at us.
“Too late,” Macy shouts as she grabs on tight to Flint.
I hold on tight, too, because the second the wind sweeps across us, Flint and Eden launch themselves straight into the air.
It’s abrupt and fast and scary as fuck, so scary that Macy screams for the first ten seconds straight. Which I totally get. If my vocal cords weren’t paralyzed, I’d be screaming, too.
Of every terrible and bizarre thing that’s happened to me since I got to Katmere Academy, this is one of the most terrifying. Especially as we come up on thirty seconds and the cavern continues to stretch endlessly in front of us. There’s no way we’ll get to the island in less than ten.
Flint and Eden must have reached the same conclusion, because I can feel them bracing themselves even as they rocket forward faster and faster.
My vocal cords unfreeze themselves just long enough for me to let out one wild yell, and then the wind is screaming straight toward us. Flint and Eden barrel-roll away from the wind while still going close to what has to be a hundred miles an hour.
Macy’s back to screaming, and so is Xavier, but the wind misses us. Which means we have forty more seconds to get to the other side. Eden puts her head down and races forward, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as I can, even as I count to forty. No way do I want to see what happens next.
Sure enough, I can hear the wyvern wind whistling as it races toward us. But this time, when Eden tries to evade it with another side roll, it doesn’t work. The first edge of the wind clips her left wing as it starts to slide toward the rest of us, and I have one second to think that we’re totally screwed. No way are we going to make it out of this alive.
But Jaxon throws a hand out and slaps the wind back before it can touch us. And then, using every ounce of power he’s got, he pushes it back and then holds it there, just long enough for Eden to right herself and go slamming across the edge of the island onto what looks to be some sort of landing pad.
And as she skids to a fast and rocky stop, I manage to suck in the first real breath I’ve taken since I climbed on Eden’s back.
Flint lands right next to us, and after we slide off the dragons’ backs, we all collapse on the ground.
83
Sometimes Homecoming
Really Does Mean
Coming Home
It takes us a few seconds to actually move—honestly, I think we’re gathering our courage. Or at least I am. I have no problem admitting that I’m a little scared of what might greet us in the Boneyard. Eden’s grandma had said no one survives the actual Boneyard, and yet as a dragon herself, she would have survived that windswept path. So the real danger must still lie ahead.
Jaxon takes hold of my hand and gently tugs me to my feet and down the path leading away from the cliff’s edge. The others follow right behind us as we walk down into the Boneyard.
I gasp when we finally make it to the entrance, because OH. MY. GOD.
“Holy shit,” Hudson says, 100 percent echoing my thoughts as I scan from one side of the fifty-foot-high cavern to the other.
“Are these all dragons?” I whisper, staring out at the piles and piles and piles of bones. Rib bones rise twenty feet in the air like massive monuments, testament to these majestic beasts the rest of the world only remembers now in fairy tales. Shattered leg bones the length of trucks. Cracked skulls the size of cars. Just everywhere you look…bones.
“Yeah.” Flint sounds more somber than I’ve ever heard him, and when I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, I realize he’s crying. Not full-on sobbing or anything, but there are definitely a few tears running down his cheeks.
A quick look at Eden shows she’s having exactly the same reaction.
“I didn’t expect there to be so many,” I say, reaching out to grab Flint’s hand with my free one. “It’s…” Terrible and beautiful and awe-inspiring all at the same time.
“Home,” Eden whispers as she takes the final step over the threshold. “It’s home.”
“Every dragon really gets called back here when they die?” Mekhi asks. “Every dragon in the whole world?”
“Every dragon,” Flint tells him. “My grandparents, my great-grandparents, my brother… They’re all here.”
And suddenly, I’m deeply ashamed. When we decided to travel to the Dragon Boneyard for a bone to get Hudson out of my head, not once did I consider that we’d be robbing a grave. That that bone is someone’s sister. Someone’s father. Someone’s child.
“My mom’s here, too,” Eden says reverently. “She died a couple of years ago, when I was away at school. I never thought I’d get the chance to come here. I never thought I’d get the chance to say goodbye.” The last couple of words come out thick and painful, and I feel them all the way down deep inside me.
It devastated me when my parents died—there’s a part of me that’s still devastated now and will be for a long time to come. But at least I got to say goodbye to them with a formal funeral. At least I have a place where I can go to feel close to them. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if they just disappeared one day, and I never even knew where they ended up.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” Hudson says beside me, and for once there’s no artifice to the words. No sarcasm or layers of protection or hidden agenda. Nothing but raw, honest truth when he continues. “I’m so sorry Lia did what she did to bring me back. And I’m so sorry that what she did hurt you so badly. I’d take it all back if I could.”
And shit, now I’m crying, too. Because what am I supposed to say to that? How am I supposed to feel?
“You’re supposed to hate me,” he answers. “God knows, I hate myself.”
“It’s not your fault,” I whisper, and though it hurts to say it, for the first time, I actually believe it.
Whatever he did, whatever his reasons, I know that Hudson didn’t mean for anything to end this way. He wouldn’t ever have wanted my parents to die to save him. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. Sometimes, you just have to offer someone your blind trust. Take the leap.
And so it’s not his fault.
It just is.
Our gazes connect, and it’s like the wall that separates our minds and souls has been lifted. Suddenly, I’m feeling everything he’s feeling. The anguish. The guilt. The self-hatred. All of it.