“Chosen?”
Something stirred in his eyes then, but she couldn’t define it. “It’s what we call our mates. When a dragon Chooses, there is no other. There is no going back. There is no tolerable separation. The same parts of our minds that can navigate the Earth’s magnetic field realigns to make them the center of our world. To lose one is… fatal.”
Ice dripped down her spine. “We have something similar,” she told him. “When we marry, we twine ourselves together and become symbiotic. Losing a spouse isn’t always a death sentence, but it can be. When my grandmother passed… my grandfather didn’t live well. He got sick, and no matter what I did, he only ever got worse. I watched him wither away until one day he was just gone.”
Taevas searched her gaze for what felt like a long time before he said, “Then you know how terrifying it can become, thinking of tying yourself to another when you’ve seen what can happen when it goes wrong.”
It occurred to her then, in a slow drip of realization, that she and Taevas were very much alike. The similarities weren’t confined to the sadnesses of their past, but to how they’d reacted to them.
Alashiya sucked in a sharp breath. Gripping his hands, she rasped, “Is that the part of you that was locked away?”
“I thought so,” he answered. “Life is easier when you can control these things.”
“What things?”
“Becoming attached. Falling in love. The specter of loss.”
Her heart squeezed in painful recognition. “I understand.”
“Do you?” Taevas tilted his head to one side. His expression was softly troubled. “Do you really understand, my Shiya?”
“I understand what it means to hide from the world,” she answered, “and I think you’ve been hiding for a very long time, my dragon.”
One corner of his lips kicked up in a small, wry smile. “Only you would think that.”
“Maybe I’m the only person who sees you clearly, then.”
He leaned forward to press a soft, seeking kiss to her lips. It was all tenderness, all longing, and when it was over, Alashiya was left boneless and warm. “Of that I have no doubt,” he murmured into her lips. “Now, my beautifulmetsalill,shall we make some breakfast?”
Thinking of the hideously chopped cucumbers from the previous night, Alashiya wrinkled her nose and teased, “Do you even know how to make toast, great Isand?”
“I breathe fire, remember? Toast I can do. Eggs… might be beyond me.” Taevas gave her another kiss. This one was sweeter, lighter, like he wanted to offer her a reward for supporting him through such a harrowing tale — or perhaps make her forget. “But I amexcellentat making coffee.”
“I already made my coffee,” she protested as he levered her out of the chair.
Taevas cast the mug a disdainful look. “It’s gone cold! I’ll make you a new cup if you make the eggs.”
Despite the heaviness of everything they’d talked about and all the worries that dogged her, Alashiya couldn’t fight the smile that pulled at her cheeks when he gave her that haughty look, like the idea of her drinking lukewarm coffee personally offended him.
“I’ll make breakfast,” she promised, letting him lead her out of the living room, “but only if you sit and tell me about that tapestry. I want to know every detail.”
Taevas didn’t turn his head to look at her when he replied, “I’ll tell you everything you want to know,metsalill,but I promise, you’ll see it yourself soon enough.”
There were two versions of the story — one told to the rest of the world and one heavily debated amongst the clan.
The argument stemmed from the rumor that his ancestor, the princess Saara who’d needed saving from two feuding dragons vying for her noble seat, was not an arrant princess, but an elf.
Taevas had scoffed at that version of the tale many times growing up. He’d slept beneath the tapestry that told the story all his life. Wouldn’t he notice if she’d been rendered with pointed ears?
Nevermind the fact that the tapestry had been commissioned long after her death, when elves had formally forbidden the taking of non-elvish mates, making the depiction of her as an elf… not risky per se, but less than socially acceptable. Regardless, it seemed too outlandish to be true. He’d certainly never seen any elvish traits in his uncles or his father — or he thought he hadn’t, at any rate.
It wasn’t until he met his first elf on the battlefield that he began to wonder if there was some credence to the story. If, perhaps, the famous Aždaja coloring — vivid crimsons and violets — couldn’t be traced back to a jewel-toned elf somewhere down the line.
Not that it mattered, really. Dragons had notoriously dominant genes. If there was an elf somewhere down the line, their traits would’ve been lost within a generation. The question of Saara’s identity was little more than an idle curiosity for all his life. The greatest effect it had on him was that he had something of a soft spot for those proud beings who held themselves so apart from the world.
He watched with satisfaction as Theodore Solbourne willfully defied a thousand years of tradition to marry his prettylittle witch, thinking that if Saara was an elf, she’d be proud to know that Taevas had played some small part in nudging Theodore to free her people to love again.
But it wasn’t until a couple years later, when all the rumors of how elves found their mates began to trickle in, that Taevas began to wonder.Reallywonder.
