"How far today?" Dorian asked Lex.
Lex glanced between them a moment like she didn't trust them. "As far as the kingdom line," she answered. "We'll camp outside the forest and go in at dawn. We need to be more careful tonight, though. I don't want you two going off on your own."
"Why not?" Nyssa asked as Dorian pulled her to her feet.
"Because we'll be entering dragon territory."
The trees loomed larger the further south they rode. Compared to where they'd camped the night before, this part of the forest made Nyssa feel like an ant. She had seen roots as tall as her sticking up out of the ground.
As night fell, all the confidence she'd gained the night before dwindled. The Wyverdraki's grief screamed through the air, and Nyssa was reminded of the night Magnice fell.
How the dragons had bellowed with rage and fire, intent on blazing every inch of that kingdom. How when Draven fell, the Rhamocour had screamed with such malice, she thought her eardrums would burst.
But this was different.
Since opening herself up to the Ulfram and Noirdiem the night before, feeling and talking to every animal had been easier. She'd felt everything her eagle and the horses had that day as they'd traveled. It was like some wall had been broken down inside her, and she could now sense all their emotions.
With that thought in mind, the first song she heard of the dragons made her nauseous.
She wasn't sure she was prepared to have their grief impart on and mingle with her own.
And she wasn't sure how to shut herself off.
She cursed herself for trying new things in the middle of the first Dead Moons cycle after the Noctuan King’s death.
Every cry from the forest made her insides curl, her eyes shudder. Dorian insisted she eat something, but she couldn't bring herself to even smell it. She rocked back and forth beside him as she closed her eyes and tried to think of any way to shut it off.
"Nys?" Dorian whispered to her, ignoring his own food. "Talk to me. You're chattering like you're freezing. What's wrong?"
She placed her hand on his arm in response.
A moment passed, and then—
Dorian jumped up and ran. Vomit evacuated from his insides in response to the feeling that had passed into him. Nyssa didn't move. She held on to her spot, silent tears rotting down her cheeks.
"Can't you make it stop?" Dorian pleaded as he sat down beside her again. "Can you block them out?"
"I don't... I don't know how," she admitted. "Since I let them in, I can't make it stop. I felt everything on our ride today. The horse. My eagle. I don't know—”
"Nys, you can't do this all night—“
"What do you propose I do?" she almost shouted. "I don't..." Her hands gripped into her hair as she closed her eyes as the beasts started up a chorus again, and a nauseating chill ran over her skin.
"What’s wrong?" Lex was on her feet and standing over the fire, watching them.
"It's nothing," Nyssa forced herself to say. "It's nothing. I need a minute. Alone," she glared at her brother.
As she trudged away, hugging her cloak around her shoulders, a wave of annoyed anger rushed through her.
Make it stop.
As if she had asked for them to invade her consciousness. She hadn't meant for this to happen when she allowed the Ulfram in the night before.
Her stomach turned with every bellow. She kept walking until she reached far enough away from their group that she was sure they couldn’t see or hear her.
"Make it stop," she grunted again, mocking her brother's words to herself. "Don't you think I want to? Don't you think I would if I could? You think I want to torture myself and hear this all night in addition to seeingfucking flames?"
The lonely darkness was the only thing that heard her words. She dropped to her knees in surrender when she heard the Noctuans again. Her head sank on her neck with the throbbing in her ears, and she pleaded with the sky, tears jerking down her face.
