What do I do now?She had so many grand plans for her life. All of them involved her own personal sun, her big green dragon, and now…
Now she was cut loose, drifting in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable.
Alex told her that heartbreak came in waves. Sometimes it crashed over you, and sometimes it rose slowly, almost unnoticed, until it closed over your head and stole your breath. Though she did not know how to swim, Hele thought she was already under water.
She did not even begin to surface until she was sitting in a nondescript office, her hands folded in front of her and her head turned to look out the window at the rolling waves of Lake Michigan, white-tipped and hypnotic.
I am Hele Aždaja. I live in the Draakonriik. I have my own dwelling. I am angry,she thought dully.And I am sad.
“Hele?”
She turned. A woman with a head of thick ringlets stood in the doorway. She was buxom, with generous curves and a round, smiling face. Her skin was what her mother called“peaches and cream”and her eyes were twin circles of vivid blue. There was somethingdifferentabout her, though Hele didn’t have the vocabulary to put a finger on what exactly it was. Perhaps it was the keen look in her eyes, a cunning sort of air that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
A witch,her mind supplied.That’s what’s different. There’s some strange magic in her.
Standing up from her seat, Hele smoothed her palms down the front of her flowy dress. Static crackled in their wake. “Yes. I’m Hele Aždaja.”
“Oh, lovely! I’m Ruby. Ruby Goode.” The woman stepped inside, allowing someone else to slip in and close the door behind her. There was a flutter of long brown hair and the crackle of magic as the door swung shut without a touch. Ruby gestured to her companion. “This is my research partner, Atria Le Roy.”
Atria looked more like Hele in body type, though there were of course, massive differences between them. While they were both lean, Atria was bronze-skinned, with waves of mahogany hair that fell to her waist. Her hips were generous, and her features were almost catlike in their elegance.
Most curious were the tattoos on her wrists: two shackles of vivid red ink rendered in stark, circular designs like cuffs.
Hele tilted her head to one side. A little bit of her malaise cleared, burned away by curiosity. She recognized those markings from her extensive reading on the gods. Only one order boasted tattoos like that.Burden’s Bonded.A secretive hereditary priestesshood and one of the last in the world. “You are a priestess?”
Atria’s smile was smaller than Ruby’s, more reserved. There was a tightness around her eyes when she answered, “In a past life I was, yes.”
“I’ve never met a priestess before.” She paused, thinking. “Even a retired one.”
Her smile widened. “I’ve never met an elemental before, so it looks like we’re even.”
Hele brushed her long white hair over her shoulder and preened, just a little. She looked at them through her lashes. A little bit more of her heartbreak fell to the wayside, momentarily dulled. “Maybe not. Elementals are more rare than priestesses, I think.”
Ruby guffawed. “That is absolutely true! You wouldn’t believe the trouble we’ve had getting in touch with elementals for this project.”
“Trouble?” Hele blinked. “Calamity doesn’t seem very hard to find.”
“He doesn’t do interviews,” Atria explained, sliding gracefully into the office chair facing the window.
Ruby sank into a chair as well. Her smile hadn’t dimmed even a little bit. It was what her father would have calledmegawatt.“Most elementals won’t even give us a chance to say hello, let alone sit down and talk for a while.”
Hele considered this as she returned to her seat. Her long, gauzy skirt flowed over her legs as she settled. Slowly, she replied, “I… do not think that we like to be known by strangers. It’s exposing.”
Atria threaded her long fingers together on the tabletop and pressed, “Exposing?”
“I don’t know if that is the right word,” she answered, annoyed and self-conscious of her limited vocabulary. Unbidden, Vael came to mind.Is this one of the reasons he will not have me? Because I struggle sometimes?If that was the case, then she knew he did not deserve her.
It still hurt, though, to think that perhaps he did not think her fit to be Chosen because she didn’t know all the words she wished to. It hurt alot.
But maybe it’s not how you speak,she thought, strangely compelled to make the bruised feeling in her chest worse.Maybe it’s because he wants someone else. A pretty dragon with wings and a tail to twine his with.
Hele bit her lip to keep it from wobbling.Stupid. I am an elemental. I am Aždaja. If he wants a dragon, then he is welcome to one. I will find someone else to Choose. Maybe another one like me.
She cleared her throat of the lump that had formed there. Trying to be casual, she asked, “Have you met many others? I understand they don’t want to speak with you, but maybe you know of them?”
A strange feeling of awareness made goosebumps prickle all over her body as Atria studied her. “We’ve tracked down a few. Calamity is the most famous, of course, but there are a handful of notable elementals that we were able to get a hold of.”
Hele stared wistfully at her clasped hands. They looked strange to her — clawless, pale, faintly glowing with blue and purple and yellow light. No dragon skin, no pigment shift. Justher.
