In the dimness of the cottage, his eyes gleamed like marbles lit from within, and I wondered if this was simply him or more of the magic that defined him … that defined all of us dragons. “You’re more ready than you know.”
I shifted my weight. That gaze on me, that rumbling voice vibrating through me, the air throbbing all around us, only served to emphasize how very alone we were.
“Am I?”
“There is a first rekon for everyone.”
“I suppose so,” I murmured. Except there were a good number of those in the pride who had never left the Crags before. Nayden, Kerstin. Many others. He thoughtIwas more ready than all of them? Flattering … but not likely.
“You’re going to do fine. There’s strength in you. I’ve seen evidence of it from the moment you arrived.”
I angled my head sharply to the side, a little startled by his praise. I’d assumed he’d only seen weakness in me. Grief and struggle. The things I’d seen reflected in the eyes of the others when they looked at me.
I knew I was more than that, of course.
I’d been raised to endure, to absorb pain and discomfort. And yet it bolstered me to have another, the pride’s alpha, Fell’s brother, acknowledge that I was not weak or insignificant.
He waved to one of the beds. “They won’t be back for a while. Get some rest.”
Nodding, I moved to the bed and pulled back the dusty coverlet. The linens beneath appeared clean. I slipped into the bed, tucking my cheek against my palm. I never used to sleep this way—with my hand cupping my face. Now I did. Now it gave me comfort to feel the slightly puckered X against my cheek.
My gaze flicked around the cottage. Four walls. A ceiling. A single shuttered window. And a door. A solid door with a latch and an iron bolt. All the trappings of the human world. So familiar and …not. It was something from a dream. An illusion. A memory fogged over by time. An old book read until the pages wore thin, until the spine cracked.
I slid my bare feet restlessly against the cool linen.
His voice carried across the room, a deep strum on my nerves. “Sleep.”
I wouldn’t sleep. I knew this.
I was back. In Penterra. In the place that destroyed things like me.
His voice found me again. “It’s going to be all right, Tamsyn. You’ll see. You grew up here … among them. You’ll be good at it.”
“It?”
“Fitting in. Walking among them, interacting … gathering information.”
Ah. Was that why he brought me with them? He thought I would be good at spying on humans?
It’s going to be all right.
No one could promise that. There was only trying.
Trying to survive. Trying not to die. Trying to find a safe place. A home in this life.
“I hope you are right.”
THIS WORLD WASlike an old coat discarded for a season and then reclaimed, donned again, the fit somehow new, changed even if it still draped the same way.
Harald returned with horses. Arran had gone on to the bigger town of Porthavn farther south along the coast, where we were to meet him. He would secure lodgings at an inn for the night and do whatever else was needed. Vetr did not deign to explain things to me. His plan for this rekon remained elusive. A point of frustration, to be sure. How was I to learn anything if not taught? If not deemed worthy of instruction? It was almost as though he blamed me for my lack of knowledge, my ignorance of dragon ways. And yet he had brought me along. Why? It was confounding.Heconfounded me.
I made every effort to watch and listen, absorbing as much aspossible from what wasnotsaid as much as from whatwas. The imperceptible nods between Vetr and Harald; the exchanges of looks, the grunts of acknowledgment, the tensing of shoulders, the furrow of a brow. I gleaned what I could.
The three of us journeyed along a well-traveled road, the path deeply rutted and scarred like the bark of a gnarled old tree. There had been a recent rain and maneuvering was a tricky, bumpy affair on horseback.
We occasionally passed other travelers. Some on foot. A few in wagons. Every one of them bleak-eyed and twitchy, the lines of their faces strained and tight as they assessed us atop our mounts. These people, the common folk of Penterra, did not look well. They appeared in need of a hearty meal and better, warmer clothing. For some, their feet were covered with little more than scraps of cloth.
And beyond that, the way they eyed us, almost fearfully, troubled me. Did they sense something—seethe magic in us?
