Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon by Carole Wilkinson Page B

before. She thought it might be her ancestors calling her up to Heaven, but the voice sounded high and excited, like a child’s. Kai pushed her sideways with his big paws. She banged her head on a rock archway.
    Then she was coughing up water and breathing air again.
    It was pitch dark. Ping struggled to make sense of what had happened. Her body was still floating in cold water, but her head was in air. She sucked in the air gratefully. It was dank and stale. She reached out intothe darkness. Something nipped her fingers. It was Kai. Ping felt around. He was on a rock shelf. She hauled herself up onto it. It was like lifting a sack of stones.
    A sound like high notes played on a silver flute echoed on rock surfaces.
    “Ping,” said the voice in her mind. “Ping.”
    Her fumbling hands found a small dragon shape. She hugged it to her even though the talons and the spines stuck into her skin. She didn’t mind. A few minutes ago she had been convinced she would die and Kai would be left to fend for himself. Just the fact that they were both together and alive was a miracle. Kai nibbled her ear. She heard the tinkling flute notes again. They were coming from the dragon.
    “Ping,” the voice in her mind repeated.
    Her body was numb with cold, but her brain was starting to work again. A realisation hit her like a slap on the face. The voice in her head. It was Kai’s.
    “You saved me, Kai,” she said.
    “Ping.”
    She felt around her. The underwater cavern was small, narrow enough so that she could reach both sides with outstretched arms, not even high enough for her to stand up in. Kai must have found this underwater pocket of air when he dived earlier. He had jumped into the water to push her down to the safety of the underwater cave. He had said his first word and it was her name.
    Sitting in the damp darkness, everything became clear to her, like a spider’s web hung with dew in the morning sun. It wasn’t Kai’s fault that she hadn’t heard his voice. It was her fault. She had never spoken to him with her mind before. All these months she had been chatting and chiding with her mouth, she hadn’t once thought of speaking to him with her mind. Not until she thought she was drowning, when she couldn’t open her mouth because she was surrounded by water. Not until she was forced to, had she spoken to him with her mind as she’d done with Danzi. She had somehow been expecting Kai to start the communication, not realising that she needed to teach him. How stupid she’d been! Babies didn’t wake up one day and know how to speak. Their mothers talked to them every day, teaching them language slowly, word by word. Ping was ashamed of herself. Her concern had been all for herself—her loneliness, the weight of her responsibilities, the sacrifices she’d made to care for the dragon. It wasn’t until she thought she was dying and leaving the little dragon alone in the world that she had cared enough to speak to Kai with her heart.
    She had always thought of her relationship with the baby dragon as a one-way thing. She’d had to do all the work with no reward. Kai didn’t teach her the way Danzi had. She had been too slow-witted to realise the truth. She was the most important thing in the world for Kai. And equally, he was the most important thingin the world for her. He was her reason for living, her life’s work. If he died, she would have no reason to go on. Why had she never realised this before? Caring for him wasn’t a burden. It was a pleasure, a privilege. And it certainly wasn’t a one-way relationship. Kai was very young, but he had already saved her life. He had rescued her from the necromancer. The little dragon nipped her fingers.
    Even though it was pitch dark, she closed her eyes. It helped her concentrate. The necromancer would assume she had drowned. He would search the shepherd’s hut for Kai but when he didn’t find him, he would leave.
    “We’ll wait,” she told Kai without opening her