Anytime I wanted something when I was here in Dyeus, one of the attendants would do it for me. I look around again. No servants; no one but him and me.
His hand moves with ease, pouring the now steaming water over the leaves to let them steep. He arranges the pot and a cup on a wooden tray, lifts it from the table, and takes it over to the open balcony where I saw him last night. He sets the tray on the smooth stone floor before folding himself down next to it. Then he simply sits there, staring out into the dark night, lit only by the stars, the twin moons, and the gods eyes in the sky, the area between the ovals glittering bright like a hazy, sun-bleached rainbow.
I slowly pace the room, hoping the mundane nature of this dream will wake me or move me to another, but no matter how I try, I always end up facing him. I twist away, grunting in frustration. Trying another tactic, I go to his drawers to rifle through the contents to see what my mind might conjure, but my hands pass uselessly through everything I touch. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the door. I walk towards it with purpose, but stop hard about a centimeter away, as if I ran into a wall.
“What?” I raise my hand and it crosses through, but when I try to make another step forward, it’s as if a rope is tied around my middle, stopping me from going any further. I spin around to face him, and he’s still sitting there, sipping his tea.
“This is ridiculous.” I try the handle again, but every effort only proves how stuck I am. With a huff, I drop my hands heavy against my thighs, a loud clap echoing through the room. The Sar Dyeus pauses in his motion, the cup in his hand hovering over the tray on the ground before he places it back down. Had he heard me? I stride across the room, stopping mere inches behind him. He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t say a word. I lean down next to his ear, looking him sidelong in the eye. “Blink if you hear me.”
He glances down, picks up his cup, and takes a noisy sip.
I furrow my brow. “What an annoying dream.”
His hand tightens around his cup, his eyes locked on the gods eyes above us. I follow his gaze. The ovals shimmer, iridescent in the darkness, steady and far brighter than last night. Otherwise the sky looks unchanged, no cause forthe tension I’m sensing from him.
With nothing else to do, and nowhere to go, I sit beside him. And since he cannot see me, I stare at him. Elbow on my knee, chin resting on my hand, I leisurely run my eyes across his face, appreciating the slope of his nose, the bow of his lips, the stern set of his brow. It’s a shame he’s done such horrible things for as beautiful as he is.
With the room silent, and my head empty of thoughts as I gaze at him, I hear muffled sounds of crying babies in the nursery. I look towards the noise. A small baby wails, the sound pained. When I turn back to him, the muscles around his eyes are tight. Then his eyes close, almost as though he can’t help himself.
“How strange,” I murmur. Why would he endure sounds like this when he can silence them? A memory charges through me, fast and furious. Once, when I was young, a mother giving up her son refused to remain silent. The girl she’d born didn’t survive and when they took the boy, she wailed and screamed while others held her back. Even with the great hall densely packed with all of us to witness, the sound of her shrieks still echoed in the caves, splitting my ears. I remember not being able to breathe. I remember Ninon putting her hands over her ears. I’d pulled at her, trying to leave, but she wouldn’t. Then the sound stopped. The mother’s mouth was still open, throat corded, eyes bulging as tears streamed down her cheeks, but there was no sound. The Sar Dyeus’s hand was raised in a fist, and I knew, right then, that he’d taken the sound of her despair, or covered it so it could no longer be heard. Ninon left with me after that. I cried that day, praying that I wouldn’t have to endure what that woman did.
My chest rises and falls in a violent wave. Finally I look away from him, my jaw tight. I stare at the gods eyes for so long my vision blurs. Then, I squeeze my eyes shut, put my hands over my ears, and scream. I scream and scream into the endless darkness, knowing I’m the only one who can hear it and the release of it builds until it’s something else, until it’s no longer despair, but rage. Rage at what he stole. Rage at what he has done. I whip my hands from myears and whirl around in front of this man who has taken everything from so many. Fromme. His face is set in that same neutral mask it always is, his gaze somewhere off in the sky. Fast as a viper, I wrap my hands hard around his neck. I expect them to pass through, but I meet resistance at the contact. My eyes widen and I thrill as I squeeze until my knuckles turn white, but his skin doesn’t depress at my touch. My teeth bared, gritting tight, a snarl ripping from my throat, I squeeze harder, delighting in the feel of my fingers wrapped around his throat. When I glance up, he’s looking at me. I know he doesn’t see me there. He doesn’t even know what’s happening. He doesn’t know my rage. He doesn’t know anything about me. The thought sweeps through me so fiercely, I can’t stand to look at him any longer. I let my head drop, thumping against his chest, hands still wrapped around his throat. I breathe hard until the anger withers away once again into despair.
“Why?Whyyou?” My words stumble on a sob. The fates could bind me to anyone, and yet they chose him.
I give one last lingering squeeze before I finally let my hands slip away and I wilt back, sitting heavy on my heels in front of him until my body curls into itself like a seed. I put my face in my hands, and weep.
Dawn is near when I wake, and I feel that no time at all has passed since I laid my face in my hands and cried before the Sar Dyeus, to opening them now. I’m in the enclosure once again, only this time, I’m still a dragon. The only sounds are the soft rustle of leaves and the distant flap of wings in their last flight before morning. I twist my neck to the wall next to me where, in the next enclosure over, Ninon should be. I hear no grunting or scuffing of claws. I hear nothing at all.
Panic grips me and squeezes tight.Ninon?
I’m not expecting an answer, and so after a beat, when there is one, I jolt upright.
Kaisa?
As if I’ve had this body my entire life, my motions are graceful as I glide out of the enclosure, around the corner,and come face to face with Ninon. Still covered by chains, but gorgeous and awe-inspiring in her dragon form. Her scales are like the twilight sky, a purple so deep you could see the first few winks of the stars within it. Her mane is inky black, her antlers a lightning strike against the dark. I sense, more than hear her gasp.
You’re beautiful, she tells me.
So are you, I tell her.
Then, somewhere we cannot see, the sun crests the horizon and in a soft mist we melt into our humanity. Ninon crouches on her hands and knees beneath the netted chains and I pull the keys hanging from the wall and rush to release her. Flinging the chains off her back, I pull her to me and hold her. I hold her and I cry.
“What happened?” she asks, a trickle of alarm in her voice.
My arms tremble as I clutch her to me. I want to tell her I don’t think I can do this. I hold her tighter instead of letting the words slip from my lips. She squeezes me back, compressing my ribs against my lungs.
“Are you all right?” I ask, finally pulling back.
Her smile is as bright as the dawn of the new day. “I did it.”
“Yes, you did.” The rush of new tears sting my eyes. I imagine never seeing this face again. I imagine being too late for her to spread her wings in flight. I won’t let that happen. The sooner the cycle is stopped, the safer she’ll be.
So wrapped up as I am in Ninon, I don’t even hear Atlanta’s approach. “Oh good,” she says. “You got her out.”
I clear my throat and release Ninon. “She broke out of the savagery, sometime early this morning.”
“Is that so?” Atlanta asks, a smile broadening her face. “Well then, congratulations. You both will have an exciting night tonight.” She shifts her attention to me. “And you? How was last night? Any more bad dreams?”
