“Do you know what’s changed?”
“Alixor’s death, for one thing. But that’s the least of what we know. Selnor can’t have been happy and he holds a lot of sway among the elites. We assume they know about the dragonsbane by now. Our best guess is they think it came from the farmhands and are trying to determine who provided it.”
My hands stop mid roll. “Have they blamed anyone?”
Atlanta shakes her head, holding out her hand. I finish rolling and pass it on to her. “We’re not sure. We’re working on finding that out.”
The soft rasp of our work is too quiet for my ears right now. She doesn’t mention me in her ideas on what has changed with Dyeus, but she doesn’t need to. “Do you think they will?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them, but they need the farmhands to be cooperative. They won’t do anything without evidence.”
“Do they have anything that could put them at risk?”
“Plenty, but dragonsbane isn’t one of them. For everything else they have plans in place to keep anything damning hidden.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
She stops my hand before I reach for another parchment. “Those need drying still. Do you need to rest?”
I shake my head. I couldn’t fall asleep even if I tried. “Can we check on Ninon?”
“Of course.” Atlanta finishes tying off the last of the dried missives and sets them in a basket she procures from under the table before leading us out.
As we walk, I’m buzzing with a need to pick her brain about mind walking. I can only read so much before my mind goes off somewhere else. Ninon hasn’t had much time to read, and I told her not to worry about it. She needs all the rest she can get and I answered most of the questions I had with Atlanta’s book.
“How do you think Zhoric would feel about a bond if he knew of one out there? If he knew of me?”
Atlanta tips her head from side to side and eyes me as if she can glean my secrets. “I didn’t know Zhoric. I know stories, we’ve exchanged words, even, but I don’t know his heart. Though, I can imagine…I can imagine his loneliness. I think that alone would make him yearn for a bond.”
Her words make it sound like she’s speaking from experience. “I can’t imagine a man with so much power being lonely.”
“Loneliness is sometimes a choice.”
I decide to ask a question that I hope won’t haunt me later. “Did you write your text on mind walking at a time when you were lonely?”
“Ah. Found that, did you?” she says, swinging her arms in sync with one another for a moment.
I shrug and offer a modicum of the truth. “I was looking for information on bonding, to help prepare myself. Ozias says you’re sort of savant on the subject.”
She huffs out a laugh and rolls her eyes. “He amuses himself too much calling that.”
“But are you?” I ask, tilting my head in question.
Her shoulders inch up in a humble shrug. “More accomplished than most. I’ve taught myself how to mind walk toward any potential bond I have—here in the Realm or elsewhere.”
My eyes widen. “That seems…incredible.” I can’t leave Zhoric to get back to my own mind, let alone try and get to someone else’s.
She offers me a sad smile. “It was more out of necessity than desire. When I first came here, Ozias saved me. I told you before that tactics to get women pregnant were…differentwhen I was in Nevoba. I was forced to do things I didn’t want to do. I was tortured and abused and when all of that didn’t work, they tied me to the end of a rope and flew me near the Realm to threaten me into agreeing to breed. Back then we didn’t even have the legends that you’d turn into a monster when you entered—it was known only as a place of certain, terrible death.”
My mouth falls open, but I have to close it quickly when my stomach turns and threatens to upend the contents. I swallow hard. “That’s horrifying.”
She casts her eyes down to the ground. “By that point…I didn’t care. I was ready to die. But they got too close and I went across the border. Ozias grabbed me and took me in. He saved me that day, but I wasn’t…I wasn’t myself anymore. I couldn’t touch anyone. I didn’t speak. Making eye contact was painful. But I was lonely. So, so lonely.”
No wonder she can imagine Zhoric’s loneliness, I think.
“And so eventually my draconem mind led me to a close connection. Without my physical body present, I was able to start speaking again. Eventually, I sought out other connections and slowly I began to believe in myself again.”
“Have you bonded with any of these connections?”
