“Is this the way it’s going to be?” I didn’t understand what she meant, so I couldn’t formulate a response. No, that wasn’t right. Even if I could put a sentence together, I wouldn’t say it. “By all the gods, Master…” Her breath came out in a huff. “Dain. We’re about to commit a crime against the crown together. Surely we can have a simple conversation?”
But we couldn’t, didn’t she understand that? The thing that kept me silent was protective. If my mouth opened, if I took a step towards her, I just wouldn’t be able to stop. In my head, I could see it. Mumbling my confessions against the curve of her neck, right before I kissed her response away. It would come out, all of it, and so I darted sideways, taking Fern by surprise as I walked around her.
“No?” Gods, she followed me, nipping at my heels like a cattle dog. “Is this the way it’s going to be? You’ll do things for me, but won’t say a word. Not a good morning or you’re welcome or never fear, Fern, for we will triumph today?” That had my feet slowing, then stopping as I my focus shifted to myshoulder, but not behind it. “That you’re nervous too, but if we stick to the plan, all will be well.”
Even if I could speak to Fern, I wouldn’t have said those words. My visions only ever showed me what went wrong, never… Shit, had Argent told Viridian?—?
“By all the gods.” That little hand I’d stared at was curiously strong. Grabbing my tunic, she spun me around. “If being near me is such a chore, then perhaps this plan is for the best.”
Kael delighted in talking about the way Fern’s eyes sparkled like fine sapphires when she was angry, but I didn’t see the appeal. Her displeasure was like acid on my skin, burning me all the way down to the bone until I couldn’t feel anything but numb.
“Those drawings…” I went perfectly still as a wash of the most intense cold froze me to the spot. “What the hell were they?” she snapped. “Lance seemed to think…” A shake of her head made clear she was dismissing that thought before it was fully formed. “I am trying hard to understand, Master Dain.”
Oh, we were back to that, were we? Perhaps that return to formality was a good thing. It’d make the break, when it came, easier to bear. Not this, though. She stepped closer and my eyes were everywhere. Taking in the way the leather riding jacket fit her, the shape of her skull, revealed by the helmet she’d pulled on in preparation of flying out.
The terse press of her lips.
Part of me wanted to reach out, forcing the tension away with a swipe of my thumb. A far more self-aware section of my soul knew I’d never dare such an imposition. Better I be pelted by a million rocks than this.
“If my company is so objectionable, just say so,” she said. I was staring far too intently, but watching her lips, hearing the words, was not helping my comprehension. “If you…” A shake of her head and she started to pace back and forth. “This isn’t the time.”
She glanced my way, then her brows creased.
“Then when would be a good time? Look.” Throwing herhands up, she strode forward. “If you can’t bear to be around me, then tell me that. Auren and I can break from the wing and go to the other end of Nevermere, ensuring that you are free of me. I don’t know what I did to make you hate me so?—”
“Hate you…?”
My voice sounded rusty, my throat in desperate need for some kind of lubrication.
“What else can it be?” she said. “You don’t look at me, don’t smile, don’t speak a word to me unless you’re forced to. I’ve had men shrink from me in revulsion before, so you needn’t work so hard to try and conceal your dislike. I left men who despise me on my dragon’s back before and I can do it again.”
“I don’t…” My heart was beating too hard, too fast, drowning out everything else but her, and wasn’t that a relief? As I stared at her, it felt like it came rushing to the surface. “I don’t hate you, Fern.”
Some little niggle at the back of my skull knew there was something else I should be doing, but this girl had decided to open the floodgates and now I was helpless to do anything else but let it rush you.
“What else could it be?” she asked as she stepped closer. It felt like she was staring into my very soul, stripping away my defences one by one. “Why else would you shrink back if I get close to you?” I looked down and saw my body was instinctively flinching away. “If you won’t even show me the same courtesy you would a serving woman, what other explanation is there?”
Gods, no… I thought, right as I surged forward.
Clapping my hands down on her arms brought the sweetest rush of relief, because finally I was touching Fern. That wasn’t enough. I towered over her, forcing her to crane her neck only for my own head to drop down. A tiny swipe of my thumb along her arm was the only movement I managed, right before the words came rushing out.
“If I look away, it’s because I must force myself to stop from staring. If I shrink back, it’s because I’m terrified you’ll see just how fucking much I crave your touch.” Her eyes widened. “If Ineglect to say good morning, or how are you, or to talk about the damn weather, it’s because I know if I open my mouth I’ll start confessing how I feel and…”
I’d excused myself from replying before due to having a dry throat, but it didn’t stop me now.
“I’d tell you that my eyes are drawn to you first over all other people. That if you’re in the room, no one else exists. That my mind has recorded every single one of your expressions in minute detail.”
“What?” Fern went to pull away, but that wouldn’t do. “That can’t be?—?”
Dain, Argent said, but I couldn’t focus on my dragon, not now.
“Here.” That damn journal was yanked free of my tunic and thrust into her hands. “You don’t believe me? Well, look at this.” Her palms smoothed over the battered leather cover, and it was almost as if I could feel the same caress on my skin. “How do you tell a woman that you’ve been dreaming of her since you were a small child? That your visions of her were the only companions you had growing up. That you recorded every dream, every vision in that book, terrified of forgetting a single one.”
Dain, we—Argent pushed.
I couldn’t pay him any mind, because something broke in me when she cracked the cover, flicking through the first few pages. No one had ever looked at my journal, no one. Hiding it from my blood brothers consumed my waking moments, right up until the point they died. My childish drawings were terrible, little more than scrawls, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t my lack of skill that had her gasping.
“That when you were a boy, you thought of the girl in your dreams as just an imaginary friend, but when the visions persisted past childhood and on, becoming a young man, they changed. That whenever times were hard, and you feared you might not make another day, you lost yourself in the dreams of the girl…”
