No. It does no good to stay here. I need to leave. My eyes travel about the room and lock onto thebalcony that looks out over the Sere, towards the mountains.
Tilting my head, I step outside and my hands gliding over the smooth stone railing, solid beneath my touch. I frown at that. The previous two nights, the only things my hands have been able to feel with any solidity was him. I look out over the edge. Above, the gods eyes are an ever watchful presence in the sky. Below, I can see only the mist of the clouds, and the deep, unending blackness of night.
Hoisting myself onto the balcony’s railing, I swing my legs over and slide down until my toes reach the landing on the other side. Holding onto the ledge behind me, I peer down, the height taking my breath. If I jump, maybe I can jolt myself awake. I fill my lungs with air and lean further out. My fingers cling to the stone. All I have to do is let go.
As my fingertips set to release, an unexpected voice reaches my ears.
“Don’t.” Zhoric’s baritone is soft in its depth, but the command rings harsh through the night air.
My blood turns cold. I slowly pivot my head towards his bed. He’s sitting up now, propped on one muscled arm, the other reached out towards me. The smooth planes of his bare chest and lines of his abdominal muscles catch the silvery light from the twin moons outside his window. A tear-dropped shaped hole in the center of his chest swallows all the light, and I recognize immediately, intrinsically, for what it is. The god power is a large, solitary dragon scale. I know I’m staring, but I can’t seem to tear my eyes away. He has no scars, save for a few faint lines above his heart. So different from the many scars I’ve seen on Ozias’s skin, on Atlanta’s, and Issa’s and all the other dragon shifters I’ve ever seen in close detail. Though, beyond his flawless skin, which rubs me the wrong way, he has always been a terrifying, beautiful anomaly. Completely inaccessible. Until now.
My gaze slips back to his face, but his hasn’t moved from mine. “Did you just speak to me?”
Getting up from his bed, he ignores my question. He wears only loose, low-slung pants, his bare feet silent as he approaches me with careful steps, his gaze purposely elsewhere, examining every inch of space around me, but neverlanding on me. “Anything you do here will reflect back on your physical self.”
My eyes widen and I reel myself in until my lower back hits the railing. I glance back down. I’m not desperate enough to leave this dream to find out whether he’s telling the truth.
“Why tell me?” I say over my shoulder. “I would think that after killing one of your elites you’d be happy to be rid of me.”
If he’s surprised by my admission, he doesn’t let on. “I’ve been known to suffer from bouts of insanity. Continue, if you are intent on death after all.”
Turning my body so I’m facing the room again, I hold on tight and lean back, glancing behind me to the drop below. He watches me, eyes tense.
“So this isn’t a dream? If I let go, I die?”
He waits a beat. He doesn’t answer my first question. “You wouldn’t awaken on the other side.”
The other side. He must mean where I am in my dragon form in the Realm. “Why?”
His slow steps take him to a column where the balcony meets the outside wall. It takes me a minute to notice that he’s inspecting a spider web tucked into the high corner of the column. “Mind walking is like that web.” My fingers tighten on the railing. Atlanta said those words.Mind walking.“It’s an intricate, delicate thing that works wonderfully for its intended purpose. But,” he runs his fingers through it, the tendrils breaking and drifting the breeze, “any careless hand, any greater act, can loose the threads to the wind.”
I pull myself in and climb over. On solid ground, I lean back against the railing and cross my arms. Though this form isn’t physical, I can sense the rapid beat of my heart. “And what is the intended purpose? Of mind walking?” The words feel at once strange and familiar on my tongue.
Finally, he looks me directly in the eye. The moment our gazes meet, a tide rises in me, swift and boundless, terrifying and thrilling. “Connection.”
I swallow hard past the tension in my throat. “Andwhat’s connecting me to you?”
Almost as if he can’t stop himself, his eyes travel across my body, and even though my form isn’t real, it burns all the same. What is happening? I must tense up enough that he notices, and, like a startled hare, his focus returns to my face before skittering away. I catch the longing in his expression before he wipes it clean, devoid of all feeling, all life. His brows lower. “Nothing that I have not already destroyed.”
“So then why am I here?”
“I do not know. Nor do I wish to.”
“You may not want to, but I do. You claim to have destroyed something, and yet here I am. Does that make the all-powerful Sar Dyeus a failure or a fraud?” I immediately bite my tongue, his words about my bodily safety coming back to me swift and sure. Then I remember my hands wrapped around his throat. How he didn’t struggle for air, how his skin didn’t depress beneath my touch. Throwing myself off the balcony may harm me, but we can’t seem to physically affect one another here.
His eyes stay on me now, like he’s daring me to say more. When I don’t, a long blink and turn of his head is enough to tell me he’s shutting me out. “Leave, Kaisa. You have found your freedom.”
A shiver wracks my body at the sound of my name from his lips. I cannot tell if it’s a pleasant one or not. “I’m free am I?” My voice raises. “Stuck in the Realm? Knowing my sister, my mother, mypeopleare the way they are because of you?”
The silence rings louder than my words, pounding in my ears.
“It’s all I can allow.”
I sneer. “You’re a monster.”
“Then do not make the mistake of chaining yourself to me by continuing to come here. Stay away, Kaisa. Find a way to live a life you are proud of.”
I laugh, harsh and sharp. “That advice coming from someone like you is an insult. I should kill you for all the things you’re proud of.”
