Finally I release her and wipe my eyes and face with my palms. “How did you find out about all this?”
“I didn’t know everything. Not until I got here. That was the other reasoning I gave myself when I decided not to pull you into this.” Ninon nods and we walk closer to the group gathered to watch the children shift. As first, ithappens slowly. Not at all like the swift, rapid change I’m accustomed to seeing from the dragons of Dyeus. As I watch, it appears as though they’re vibrating, like the beating of a bee’s wings, but their bodies remain absolutely still. It reminds me of waiting in the Sere to be relieved by another hunting group, feeling the ground tremble under us, dust and pebbles dancing at their approach. I feel an echo of that now beneath my own skin. The air becomes thicker as a subtle glow emanates from their bodies, and what looks like steam rises from their skin before clouding their forms from view as their transition takes hold. Over a dozen small dragons now stand where the children once were, craning their heads, stretching their wings, shaking their manes as if to saywatch this, look what I can do.I turn back to Ninon and find her staring at me, her gaze discerning.
What I’m witnessing is impossible in the face of everything I know. And completely incredible if I deny what I thought I knew for even a moment. “If you didn’t know for sure what you’d find, what was it that made you decide to come?”
She looks away from me towards the mountains. “You know of the passages in certain texts I have that seem to suggest we shouldn’t believe everything the sky kingdom tells us. And my mother’s notes in the margins of others.”
We pored over those lines together as children. It gave us the confidence to feel what we did when it came to Dyeus, even if we never spoke about it to anyone but each other.
“I’ve thought of those lines often, but it wasn’t until we started to look for a way to create the contraceptive that I learned more. Then, one of the first times I tried to retrieve the dracduat, I found a binding of parchment tucked into the crevice among the flowers.”
That was well over a year ago. “What was it?”
“A letter from the women here in the Realm, telling of our truth and encouraging us to claim it. Hundreds of names were signed.”
“How did you know to believe it?”
Ninon shakes her head, almost imperceptibly as she watches the dragons ground themselves and return to theirhuman forms. “My aunt’s name was on it. It was enough for me.”
I straighten and just manage to keep from craning my neck around like a wild creature. “Is she here?”
“No.” Ninon smiles sadly. “She passed. Like my mother.”
My emotions feel as dark and tumultuous as a raging storm above the Rising Sea. That’s two people close to Ninon who’ve now succumbed to the sudden deaths. It’s beginning to feel less a question of if it will happen to her, and more like when. Bile stings my throat with the urge to throw up what little liquid sloshes around my stomach. “Ninon…”
She shrugs, and turns back to me. “More than wanting to find her, I wanted to believe this place was real, that what I’d read was true. Enough to find out for sure myself, but not enough that I wanted to put you at risk. You had a life back at home. And I couldn’t continue being a huntress even if I’d stayed.”
Ninon only became a huntress alongside me because we’d vowed in our youth to do everything together. While I was content enough in that space, glad of the distractions from the farmhands when they came and the camaraderie of the other hunters, Ninon was always learning something new. Trying something else, as if searching for her own place. Once she’d learned that the women here weren’t entirely mindless monsters, there was absolutely no way she’d remain a huntress. None of us would.
“So, now what do we do?”
Ninon presses her shoulder against mine. “We watch. And we learn.”
So we do. For the next hour or so, we watch the children shift back and forth between their two forms. I can’t keep my eyes off the girls and the pure joy on their faces; how freely they slip from skin to scales.
“Only the children and some of the more powerful dragons can shift at will during the day,” Ninon explains. “From my understanding, everyone, Ozias included, turns savage outside the borders of the Realm after nightfall. Forus, I’m told we’ll feel savage for the first few nights as our dragons are released, but then we’ll settle into the change. After that, we can try to shift back into our human forms at nightfall inside the Realm if we wish.”
An odd sensation washes through me. Relief mingled with disappointment? “What do most people do?”
Ninon shrugs. “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t yet kept my mind from going savage. They tell me it can last a few days to a few weeks.”
“And until then, you’ll be stuck as a…” I pause, wondering about the correct way to phrase it. “In your dragon form?”
Ninon nods to the group that’s starting to break up. “Until we’re strong enough to shift, that’s the case.”
I draw my bottom lip in between my teeth. One of the things that bothers me most about turning into a dragon at night is the lack of control I have over it. The sooner I can figure it out, the better sense I can get of this place. Ninon came in knowing what to expect, like Atlanta said. I don’t do well with showing up unprepared.
“I trust you’ve had a happy reunion?” Ozias asks from behind us, breaking me from my thoughts. “With the figment of your imagination, of course.”
Ninon raises her brows.
“I wasn’t sure you were actually here,” I explain. “I believe he’s attempting to tease me, and failing.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. You look fairly riled to me.” He smiles, showing all his teeth. I twist my head away from him. I enjoy his smile entirely too much. It’s threatening to raise my spirits. “Now let’s eat before the night makes you both a lot less fun, but far more interesting.”
Ninon gets hung up on his words, her lips pursing, but I crack a smile. “He’s teasing. And failing. Again.”
“You sure know how to take a stab at a man’s confidence.”
