When he’d needed to kiss her.

That was becoming more frequent.

But this was trouble. Pashkah wasn’t up the pass somewhere, creeping through the white-out conditions of the Valley of the Gods. The man was single-minded. There would be no broken-down buses and feeling through the snow for an inn. Not for Pashkah.

Tallis used to think of himself as a professional of sorts. He had a job to do, no matter that his occupation paid nothing. Its benefits package included ostracizing him from each of the Five Clans, as well as occasional visits from a feminine entity that seduced him into thinking the sacrifices were worthwhile.

Yet that odd, misguided professionalism had been a point of pride. He discredited, upended, maimed, and, on occasion, killed. He sliced malfunctioning systems into pieces, at one point believing the Great Dragon actually blessed the deeds, and that the Dragon Kings would eventually thank him for his surgical rage. They’d demonize him, but they’d thank him for doing what no one else could.

Pashkah seemed to be under that same delusion. It looked more pompous and ridiculous when someone else wore that cloak.

Besides, Tallis had an ally now.

She was sexy as hell and even crazier than Tallis. After all, Kavya was the one who barged into a hangar and starting pulling tarps off vehicles. She assessed the machines with what appeared to be an eye for their soundness—not that he believed any vehicle could be considered sound in these conditions. They were sheltered by the hangar, but the storm sounded like a dozen growling bears, each of them with a different grudge.

He sheathed one of his seaxes and glanced down at the lock he’d split. “I can feel him, can’t I? That . . . pressure? I don’t know what else to call it. In the valley, when people were curious but peaceful, it was nothing but a friendly tap. Just checking me out. This . . . Bathatéi.”

Kavya flipped on a glaring overhead fluorescent light. The unnatural brightness bleached her skin and added shadows to the hollows of the cheeks. She rewound her chocolate hair. “It’s not pressure for me. He’s beating me across the back of the skull. Soon you’ll be back to having psychic shocks shoved down your spine.”

“I didn’t like that,” Tallis said. “Think I’ll pass.”

“What, go for full berserker from the start?” She nodded to a corner filled with stuffed burlap sacks. “Use it as ballast. If we manage to take off, we’ll need the weight to fight the wind. I’ll find fuel.”

“So bossy,” he said, doing as she’d commanded. Self-preservation trumped pride. “Besides, a berserker needs to be provoked. Not zero-to-crazy. This is good, though. I feel like we’re making real cultural strides, you and I. One day I can talk to others about the Indranan and their capacity for distraction—”

She shot him a nasty scowl, although a blush brightened her cheeks.

“—and you can espouse how sensible the stubborn, uncouth Pendray can be.”

“Sensible? That’s not the first word I’d choose.”

“As long as you don’t use it to describe what you’re planning, I don’t care what you do.” He crossed his arms as she opened the door to a battered four-seater Cessna. “I take that back. I care to avoid getting in that thing.”

“Open the hangar bay and get in. You’re the pilot, remember? Just be prepared to listen to my navigation very, very well.”

The utterly frigid metal of the hangar’s wide sheet metal door stuck to his palms as if coated with glue. He shook free of its unnatural grip and looked down to find a strip of abraded skin across each palm. The wind struck him as it whipped through the open hangar. “It’s amazing you didn’t badger your followers into compliance.”

“Don’t start.”

Tallis jogged across the hangar, stowed his weapons in the scant space among the burlap ballast behind the passenger seat, and climbed in. Kavya quickly followed as he buckled up. “This will not work.”

“Your nickname should be Faithless. Heretics have to believe in something contrary to the common canon. You don’t believe in anything.” With a flick of the controls, Kavya turned on the Cessna’s safety lights. “Let’s dare the Dragon, right here in the foothills of where our Creator was born and died. See if you’re a heretic or a nihilist. In four minutes, you’ll be full berserker and fending off my brother again, or you’ll be praying like you’ve never prayed before.” She grinned. “Maybe both.”

“When did you become so obviously insane? Forget Masks. This is all you, Kavya.”

“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 if we work together. Don’t sit there making jokes about reading minds. You’re the one always espousing the virtues of living in the physical world and being one with the earth.”

“One with the earth. Not plummeting toward it.”

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.