If you’re going to be opening portals and defending Liz,Phileas says,you’re going to have to bond some human or other, or you’ll run your energy down too low.
He doesn’t say that I’ll die, but he’s right.If I don’t want to bond Liz, I’m going to have to bond someone else soon.
As the humans prepare to either return home or come with us, I can’t help watching her.For a human, Liz is graceful, fierce, and strong.If I have to bond one of them, shouldn’t it be her?
But she’s also the most dangerous, for precisely that reason.
I want her.
And I don’t have the slightest ideawhy.
8
Liz
Agrippa suffers no ill effects from eating two swans, so before we leave, Phileas manages to find a deer.I look away as he eats it, but it doesn’t seem to bother Norm.
He’s on cloud nine.
I wish he’d go back home to work more of his connections, but he insists he can still find people via phone, and he won’t leave Phileas for a second.
I don’t blame him for that, I guess.Being bonded by a dragon really is his dream come true, and as he already told me, he has no children.His parents even havesixother kids they’re way prouder of than him.
I can relate to that a little bit as well.
When we return that night, every single partially-bright human insists on coming with us.They all said they’d brought what they needed—they did all have backpacks or shoulder bags, at least—and they didn’t have people to tell goodbye.
I think they were afraid Azar would change his mind.
Another ten bright humans insisted on coming.Three dozen non-bright humans are also tagging along, most of them family or friends of the brights and semi-brights we’re taking.The others went back out into the world, pledged to find us more humans like them to collect tomorrow.
They’ve all sworn to use discretion, but any way I look at this, the risk of a leak is high and will just grow higher.
One disgruntled human is all it takes.
One military or former military person who feels more patriotic than fascinated.Technically, what we’re asking people to do is treason.
Before I came, I was hopeful Norm would have friends he could reach out to.I figured we might find a handful of humans within a day’s distance who would want to bond a dragon, but I didn’t expect this kind of reaction, and I assumed very few of them would be brights.I’m so encouraged when Azar makes the return portal that I’m almost giddy.
Once it’s open, Phileas and Agrippa fly though first, their newly bonded humans on their backs.If Karen’s slipping and yipping a little bit, well, no one’s likely to be critical.
Her halo of green fuzz looks like a mossy helmet, and I like it.
Twenty humans?Hyperion’s been waiting for us, apparently, and he doesn’t look impressed.
We found twenty more,Azar says,but they’re out searching for others as well.We’ll go back tomorrow to see how many others they can contact.
Youdoknow there are ten thousand and four hundred of us, yes?
If I were blessed, I’d probably love Hyperion.As it is, I spend most of my time wishing I could clock him in the head with a two-by-four.Not that I could ever pick up one that would be long enough to leave a mark.
Many blessed are gathering, having felt the portal.It makes a kind of sucking then exploding sensation when Azar opens one.The first time I felt Hyperion’s, I thought we were under attack.
We’ve found brights willing to be bonded,Azar says.And two earth blessed have bonded humans—and eaten successfully.It was a successful trip all around.
Dragons trumpet, roar, and shriek their delight.
The humans who came with us freeze in place.I imagine the idea of dragons is one thing, but being confronted withthousandsof them all at once of various colors, shapes, and sizes is quite a different matter.
