We’ve just launched into the air when I get a sharp message from Azar. Do not come here.
That’s a little rude, I say. I’m riding Asteria. He won’t even know I’m your bonded.
We’re coming to you. Prepare.
Prepare? What does that mean? I tell Asteria they’re coming our way, and she wheels around sharply.
“What could prepare mean?” I mumble aloud. “Should I make a cake? Change the sheets on a bed the size of a whale?”
Sheets? Asteria drops sharply. Thankfully clinging to Azar’s back like flotsam for weeks has prepared me for almost anything. I manage to keep my hold until she slides onto the landing pad Gordon and Rufus made on the far end of the dwelling.
If you’d told me a month ago I’d be living in the same enormous, cavernous dwelling that my bonded dragon and his intended mate Asteria inhabited, I’d have been sick, but here we are, and I don’t even hate it.
I don’t hate you, either, even if you somehow turned Azar against me. I’m beginning to wonder whether we were never quite the perfect fit I believed us to be.
For some reason, I expect the dragons to fly over here, with the water dragons they brought swimming of course, but that’s not what happens. No, we’ve barely landed when there’s a bizarre sound like the grinding of gears in a car and an avalanche colliding. A staggeringly large portal opens just over the water in front of our dwelling, and the largest creature I’ve ever seen wings his way through, his massive head covered with terrifying horns that spray out around his face in all directions. He swings his head back and forth aggressively, as if he can somehow catalogue all the blessed in front of him and evaluate the threat they may pose at a glance.
And then he bugles as loud and long as I’ve ever heard a dragon bugle—like a growling scream—and I immediately understand what he’s doing. He’s declaring everything here as his.
If he were a dog, he’d be peeing on the side wall of our new house.
I hate it.
And I hate him.
If he can’t bond a human, he’ll die, Azar says.
I like that idea.
Hyperion sounds happy, even though I can’t see him yet. Maybe we can wear him out and then not manage to find a bright for him.
We’re going to need an awful lot of brights in a very short time. Private communication’s much easier after Azar shoots through the portal.
I’m less prepared for the mass of water blessed, strike blessed, and then a never-ending stream of earth blessed who leap, shoot, and pour through the portal, overrunning the area around us.
How many are there? Without being entwined, it’s harder to listen in on their conversations, and if Azar gauged their numbers visually or in some other dragon-y way, I certainly never heard him say.
Ten thousand more, give or take.
Oh, no. I’ll have to ask their prime minister to be sure, but I doubt there are enough brights in Australia to bond them all, much less brights who are ready and willing to give up their lives for a dragon. We promised them we wouldn’t bond anyone against their wishes. I’m not going to budge on that, not even for the ugliest, scariest monster I’ve ever seen.
Because he may not know it yet, but I’m a monster too.
I’m small but mighty, and that makes me unexpected.
I have half a mind to stab him a few times with my swords just to see how much he bleeds.
Do not do anything stupid. Asteria’s communication was both private and very, very soft.
I turn, craning my neck. “Why would you think I’d do that?”
You’re stroking the handles on those swords like you do that little barking menace. He’s not here, but I don’t like that the swords calm you down.
“Fluff Dog is a girl,” I say. “And she’s not a menace.” She has taken the recent move pretty hard, and she’s been barking more than I’d like, but I’ll defend her until my dying breath.
Don’t do anything stupid. Try really hard. Asteria’s making jokes now. I’ve warped the dragons, clearly.
Thunar’s been making a large loop around the area, and now he’s swinging back. As he scans the area, he seems to become agitated, his tail twitching faster, and his nostrils flared. By the time he lands in front of our dwelling, clearly determining that it’s the nicest one close, he’s fuming. You downplayed the transformation of the earth blessed. They’re as powerful and as strong as the strike blessed now.
