She chewed her lip, then twitched a nervous smile. “No. Of course not. I’m a scribe.”
“Not even from before you became a scribe?” Dianthe’s voice was soft and supportive, without a trace of judgment.
Leena felt she could tell the fairy anything and she’d keep it in the strictest confidence. So she told the truth. “I grew up in the temple, so there is no before.”
Dianthe tensed beside her, only for a fraction of a second, and then she uncrossed her legs and hugged her knees. “Is that common among your kind?”
“No.” Leena smiled. Now they were in territory she didn’t care to talk about, no matter how much she knew she could trust Dianthe. Her brow furrowed. “I had special circumstances.” She made her answer curt enough that she was sure her friend wouldn’t push it.
A long silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the grunts of the warriors practicing in front of them. Leena slid her scroll and the box with her quill into her satchel. She should go back to her tent.
“It’s just…” Dianthe nudged her arm before she could climb off the stone. “…I wonder why that’s allowed. I mean, your special situation.”
“Hmm?” Leena didn’t understand what she was getting at.
Dianthe folded her arms across her middle. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had a deep respect for scribes and the sacrifice all of you make for your beliefs. I wonder, though, how one can give something up before they even know what it is they’re giving up. Aren’t there… things you’re curious about?” Her eyes darted to Colin but didn’t linger.
All at once, Leena’s skin tightened. She’d been too obvious in her observation of Colin. Dianthe could see right through her to that strange thing he produced in her. Her heart thumped in her chest. “I… It would be inappropriate.”
Dianthe sighed. “Of course. It’s against the rules.”
“Not strictly,” Leena admitted. “The Quanling—our superior as female scribes—takes a vow of celibacy, but scribes such as I only take an oath to devote our lives to recording the history of Ouros. That oath is incompatible with marriage, mating, or children as those things would distract us from our calling, but… technically… other things are not prohibited as long as they don’t pull us away from our work.”
The fairy’s smile widened, one corner of her red lips twitching with amusement Leena wasn’t sure she followed. “Do some scribes often indulge in these other things?”
Leena scoffed. “Honestly, no. None of us would have the opportunity. We rarely leave the temple or encounter anyone outside the order. Even among our kind, males and females live their lives in separate wings of the temple. We rarely cross paths.”
“Hmm.” Dianthe drummed her fingers on her knee. “So you are in a unique position then to… broaden your horizons.”
The innuendo landed in the pit of Leena’s stomach, and her eyes flicked up to Colin of their own accord, her heart pounding harder at the mere idea of experimentation with the golden mountain of shimmering muscle who at that very moment was throwing Sylas to the sand. “Until I become Quanling,” she said absently.
“Is that something you want to do?”
Leena took a deep breath and turned back toward Dianthe. “It’s all I’ve ever worked for. If all goes well, I’ll replace my Quanling, Marjory, next year when she retires.”
“In a year! But you’re so young!”
Leena wasn’t sure why Dianthe seemed horrified by the idea, but her smile had flipped at her admission. “I started in the order at a young age. I meet all the requirements.”
Wings fluttering, Dianthe turned her face toward the sun and closed her eyes, seeming to absorb the heat. “Well then, if you have any curiosity about… other things… I guess now would be your chance to get it out of your system.”
Palms sweaty, Leena checked that Dianthe’s eyes were closed before taking another lingering look at Colin. A thought she’d long suppressed wormed its way to the surface of her mind. Was she attracted to him? Did she want to experiment with the things she would one day swear to leave behind? She shook her head. The very thought was folly.
Absolutely this was the right time to leave, to slip back to her tent before things became even more confusing. She pushed off the rock and looped her satchel over her head so that the strap fell across her body, adjusting it on her shoulder. But before she could exchange parting words with Dianthe, the three sisters strode onto the beach.
The three women were a formidable sight. Raven, with her long black hair and striking blue eyes, exuded raw power, even with baby Charlie in her arms. Avery, who had almost identical features as Raven but a curvier build, was never without her sword, and Leena had witnessed her brandish that iron better than any man. Clarissa with her platinum hair and dark roots always struck her as the most unpredictable. The woman was friendly, though occasionally irreverent, and wielded her power in the most unexpected way, through song. Together, the three commanded attention. Immediately, the dragons stopped practicing and looked their way.
In Raven’s arms, Charlie, who seemed to have grown an inch overnight, pointed to Gabriel and squealed, “Da, Da, Da!” Avery and Clarissa hung back a few steps behind their sister. Strange. It looked almost as if they were dreading what was about to happen.
Raven raised her chin. “Everyone, if you’ll gather around, we have some news.”
Chapter Two
Colin wiped the sweat from his eyes, lengthening one arm across his chest while extending his opposing wing to increase the stretch. He moved in closer, curious about what Raven had to say. She looked serious, and it was never a good sign when a powerful witch like her was serious.
“What’s going on?” he asked as the others filed around him. He noticed Leena at the edge of the crowd of dragons, near Dianthe. He always noticed Leena. His inner dragon seemed to have become a compass that pointed toward her rather than north. He forced himself not to look at her and instead focused on Raven as Gabriel lifted Charlie from her arms.
“Last night, when we spoke about how Aborella died and what she shared in her last moments, it’s possible some vital information was overlooked,” Raven said.
