“Bonded,” Cassia echoed. She knew it; she could feel it. But never in a thousand lifetimes had she expected a dragon to decide thatshewas home. She turned over her shoulder and met Aevrin’s eyes.
“See, you really do belong here,” he told her, with a fierce smile. “And I don’t think anyone will dare lay a hand onyouonce your boy’s full-grown.”
As if in agreement, Vadalae huffed.
Rylan came home for two days, then had his hearing with the justice, where he pled guilty in exchange for service on the front.
“It’s only a year,” he’d told Cassia, sitting on the Riveker’s back porch, which felt safer to her than the front after the attack, before they went to the justice hall. “Then I’ll be clean to start over, the right way this time. It’s a good deal.”
“A year feels too long,” she worried. People died in the war, defending their shores from Horrors. And what if it changed him for the worse, or what if the year changed her? But she knew Rylan had done wrong in his time with Zey, things she didn’t even want to know about.
“A year’s nothing,” he said. “It won’t be any different than if I’d moved away. Now c’mon, it’s time. I don’t want to be late before the justice.”
It had been hard, saying goodbye to Rylan. And it had been hard, in a different way, accepting that the threat was really over. She still didn’t know how Zey had found her. There were a million possible answers. Perhaps he’d tracked Rylan there and thought her brother was still in the house. Or perhaps, like Rylan, he’d just asked around. His angry, last attempt at revenge on the family he blamed for toppling his operation had failed, and she had survived.
And Aevrin had been willing to risk his own life, to bring the man to justice. That wasn’t something she’d soon forget, even though he’d just shrugged and said it was nothing when she asked. It was Mavek who’d told her all the details of the chase, sprawled in one of the kitchen chairs. Prisca had been in the other, listening with a grim pride on her face. Sorven had lingered in the doorway, hanging on every word, a strange, kind of envious light in his eyes.
And so, a week passed. The window was fixed up. Vadalae stopped hissing when the Rivekers entered the coop, but Cassiawas still the only human the drake let touch him or even get close. She decided Aevrin was right: dragons didn’t choose their bonds; it just happened. Otherwise, why would Vada have ever chosenher? She still couldn’t wrap her head around it all, or what it meant for her future—was this a sign she truly belonged in Zhavek, like Aevrin said?—but when she looked at Vadalae she felt nothing but peace.
Cassia did worry whether Vadalae would fit with the ranch’s thunder. The other dragons had allowed him in the coop immediately, recognizing him as Cassia’s bonded, but they all kept their distance and he was only allowed to sleep in one section, near the entrance and away from the hoard.
Then she walked into the coop one morning to clean his wounds and saw Vadalae napping under Kazeic’s outstretched wing. Aevrin’s gray drake blinked at Cassia sleepily, then grumbled and tucked his head down next to Vada’s. It seemed the gold drake was home now, too.
Aevrin emptied three of the drawers and half the closet in his room and moved in Cassia’s things. Nobody said a word about it. And if she still sometimes felt a little scared, with just her and Gramma Prisca in the big house during the days, when the rare occasional rider came past, nothing came of it. And at night she fell asleep in Aevrin’s arms, feeling warm and protected, knowing she had somebody on her side, somebody who’d fight to keep her safe if it ever came to it. Not that it ever would again.
It was late October, freezing at night and chilly in the day. Months had flown by since Cassia first arrived. They sat at the dinner table, eating stew and millet bread.
“What are we doing for your birthday, Aevrin?” Gramma Prisca asked, and the side conversations all ground to a halt. Cassia looked at him in wide-eyed surprise.
“It’s your birthday?”
“The second,” he admitted to her with a grumble. “We don’t gotta do anything.”
“Nonsense. In or out?” Prisca asked. Turning to Cassia, she explained: “it’s birthday tradition. You get dinner at home and the day off work, or you do your work and we all go to the Elk after.”
Cassia hadn’t been, but she’d been living there long enough to know the Mad Elk was one of the town’s only eating houses, better known as the only real tavern.
“In,” Aevrin said instantly, as Mavek groaned and Sorven sighed and rested his chin on his palm. Cassia couldn’t help but feel a little offended by the reaction, but she kept it to herself. They’d all made clear they liked her cooking more than a little; obviously, the other boys just wanted a night out on the town. And to not have to shoulder Aevrin’s jobs alongside their own.
“And for presents?” Sath asked. Aevrin just shook his head.
“Then you can’t be mad if we just get you stockings,” Prisca said. “Out with it, boy. What do you want.”
Aevrin leaned back in his chair, wrist still on the table, fork in hand.
“Guess I could use a new hat,” he admitted, and then went back to eating.
“What kind of cake?” Cassia asked next.
“Anything but plain,” Aevrin said. When she gave him a scandalized look, he added: “I dunno, I’m not too big on cake.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Cassia told him, looking at her sweetheart like he’d lost his mind.
She was already thinking, nonetheless; there were winter mouseberries already coming ripe in the garden. They’d flavor a cake nicely with a spiced icing. Or maybe she’d try and prove to him that he just didn’t understandgoodcake…
“I just like pie better,” he explained.
Cassia scoffed.
