“How long was I out?” I gasp.
“Six hours,” she says proudly. I bound to my feet.
“Six hours!” I choke out. “How?”
“I’m that good.” She smiles, her expression self-congratulatory.
“I didn’t make contact,” I tell her, crestfallen. Six hours and nothing. “I didn’t see the dragon.”
She rises, her robes pooling around her feet, and says with a knowing smile, “You will.”
I dream that night.Fragmented flashes of color and movement.
Dark rock. Water dripping from a cavernous arch.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Deep purple. Reflective scales. A serpentine movement. Something shifts, something slithers.
Rusted metal. Chains. Soft rumbles ripple through the ground—through the walls.
Heavy air.
Congested. Confined. Claustrophobic.
Something stirs. Restless. Hungry. Rubble clatters to a cave floor.
Suddenly a fist tightens around my heart and squeezes gently. I am unable to breathe, to move. Then in the darkness, a glowing green eye cracks open.
And looks right at me.
I sit up, gasping for air.
Someone is shaking me. Calling my name.
“Serena!” Zadyn’s voice sounds far away. As if we stand on opposite ends of a tunnel. He grips my arms in his hands. I suck in a deep breath and force my eyes to open.
“She’s awake,” I choke up at him. “The dragon is awake. She saw me.”
“I just got home,and I felt something…off. I came to check on you.” Zadyn explains, walking a cup of tea over to me. He takes a seat across from me. “You were convulsing. What happened?”
I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders and blow on the steaming cup in my hands.
“This afternoon,” I start, “Gnorr guided me into a meditation. We were trying to establish a psychic connection to the dragon. I meditated for six hours straight, but I didn’t see anything.”
“Six hours?” He gapes, his arms resting on his knees. I nod. “You can barely sit still for five minutes.”
“I thought I was dreaming just now. But then her eyes—” I recall that piercing green, flecked with colors like I’ve never seen, never knew existed. “She opened her eyes, and shelookedat me. I could feel it. I could feel the cold, the dampness of that cave. I smelled the rust on her chains. It was like we shared a mind for a moment.”
“Gnorr helped open up a channel between the two of you.” Zadyn sits back in his chair.?*
I sip my tea quietly and slowly lift my gazeto him. He stares off into the fire, one side of his handsome face shadowed and the other warmed by the flickering oranges, blues, and purples. I wonder what he searches for in those flames. His father? His mother? A better friend than me?
“I am cruel,” I whisper. His warm, whiskey brown eyes slide to me.
“I never thought that about myself. I thought I was a good person. I thought I couldn’t hurt anyone. I thought Iwouldn’t. But it turns out I can. I can do it with such ease, it actually terrifies me. I lie. I’m a liar now. I—” I shake my head, a sad laugh cracking my chest.
“I lie to everyone. I lie to myself, to you. And I think that if I can just work hard enough to believe my own bullshit, that will make it true. You’re right about me. You see me. All of me, and it is not pretty. You deserve better. You deservegood.I can be nice when I want to be. But that doesn’t make me good. All I am is cold.”
