Flight of the King Read Online Free Page B

white
form through the trees ahead. Taleth was waiting for him on the rocks, and she was purring. He wanted to throw his arms around her soft, furry neck—but the truth was he hardly knew her. His
first hours with her had been spent fighting for their lives, and he didn’t know how she would react to him now. He walked forward slowly, holding his hand out to her.
    Taleth waited until he approached, and then she lowered her huge forehead and rubbed it against Bailey’s outstretched palm.
    When he and Taleth had first come face-to-face, Bailey’s Awakening had been undeniable—he’d actually been able to see himself through Taleth’s eyes, as clearly as looking
into a mirror. Now his connection with her was more like a humming energy inside him, unfocused, chaotic, and untrained. It would take him time, as Tremelo had said, to tap into it at will.
    As Taleth purred and sat down on her haunches, Bailey tried to concentrate on the nature around them, the way that Tremelo had taught him in the fall. He could smell himself, faintly, the way
Taleth smelled him: something comforting and foreign about the damp wool of his winter coat, and unmistakably human about his hair and skin. But that was all—as though the humming inside him
was set on a low dial.
    Bert the iguana shuddered inside Bailey’s coat and tried to crawl up onto his neck.
    â€œThis is Bert,” said Bailey awkwardly as the lizard poked his head out of Bailey’s lapel. Bailey couldn’t be sure whether speaking to Taleth had any effect on her at all.
The tiger leaned forward, sniffing. Clouds of wet breath rose from her nostrils. Her whiskers twitched as Bert craned his scaly head out of Bailey’s coat, and touched Taleth’s nose with
his own.
    â€œBert’s nothing like you,” Bailey said—or maybe he only thought it. Taleth stretched and paced past Bailey to sniff him from all sides. She nudged him again, butting her
heavy head against his upper back. All at once, Bailey could feel exactly what she felt—her relief at seeing him safe, her delight that she’d found him, her sadness that he
couldn’t stay here in the woods with her always. It was not like seeing through her eyes, but as if she’d left a trace of her emotions on him.
    â€œI know,” he whispered. His own breath rose into the crisp air and dissipated. “I wish I didn’t have to stay away. It’s not fair.”
    Bailey tried to hold on to this strange feeling. But the sensation waned, and he was left with only his own sadness, his own relief.
    Taleth perked her head and looked over Bailey’s shoulder into the trees. She was more worried now; Bailey could tell by her twitching ears. His heart began to beat a little faster as he
followed her eyes around the edges of the clearing. Anyone could be watching them at that moment. He put his arms around Taleth’s neck, just as he’d wished to when he first saw her.
    â€œI have to go,” he said. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.” He felt the enormous tiger purring—a rumbling that nearly shook his whole body. But if what
he’d experienced a moment before could be trusted, he knew that underneath that purr, she was also sad, and that he was the only person in the world who could know that.
    Bailey, Phi, and Hal sat together in the dining hall on the first morning of classes, in the company of some other Year One members of the Scavage team. Bailey had left Bert
behind in the Towers—the lizard had looked so cozy underneath the heated electro-current bulbs Tremelo had lent him to keep Bert warm. “Basking,” Tremelo had called it. Tall
windows by their table looked out over the sloping, snow-covered hillside that led down to the Scavage field. Inside the hall, students chatted excitedly about their breaks as they ate
egg-and-spinach tarts and bowls of steaming oatmeal with jam made from last