With great effort, he looks at my hand, then his eyes sweep up to my face. He says nothing, but there is a fathomless depth to his gaze that strikes my core. I lift my chin and nod. I won’t bother him further, but I won’t leave him either. He closes his eyes and turns back to the sky.
The struggle, as I’ve decided to call this event, goes on for another hour. Two. I stay by his side while he breathes and grunts, gasps and curses. Watching this in full, I don’tknow if this is something that’s happening to him, or something that he’s doing. Despite the question burning on my tongue, I stay quiet. I don’t think it would do me any good to ask in his current state, in any case. I’m enraptured by the power flowing around us. I track the energy, feel the way it moves until I see it; the scale on his chest, pulsing like a heartbeat, fast as a bird’s. The power is so delicate, yet so immense it frightens me. That’s the thing I’m supposed to steal once we bond. I can’t imagine holding something like that in my hands. I recoil at the want of holding it to my own chest.
Finally, the scale’s power dims and Zhoric’s body sags. He’s folded forward, his forearms resting on the ground, his head sagging between his shoulders. The moons are high and bright enough that it makes the smooth skin of his back gleam white like bleached bone against the deep night. The gods eyes are brilliant, glistening orbs now, their colors reflecting and shimmering in the smooth stone floor of the balcony. My hand has slipped to the blades of his shoulders, my tawny skin a brand just below the scars that strike the space over his heart.
Only when he starts to rise do I let my hand slip from him. He doesn’t sit up straight, though, his spine curled with fatigue.
“What is this, Zhoric?” I ask. I don’t have to fake the concern lacing my words.
When he swivels his head to look at me, his body sways, his eyes unfocused and dull. His brow crinkles and a frown tugs at his lips. The great, powerful king of the sky is doing or experiencing a struggle that weakens him. Even I, with the little experience I have, can sense his weakened state. All this power he holds is leaving him and going somewhere else. Either taken or given.
“Could you…stop asking questions…” he murmurs, the words nearly slurring together. Then he sags against my side. I stiffen, but don’t attempt to push him off.
“Why?” I ask, peering down at him, the cloud white of his hair, damp with sweat, sticks to my shoulder.
He huffs—a laugh, if the delicate upturn of his mouthis any indication. “I feel compelled to answer.”
I let my body relax. I can feel the pressure of him against me, but not the slick sweat of his skin, or the strands of his hair on my arm. “Then perhaps you should let yourself answer.”
“If I let myself, I might consume you whole like one of our gods.”
My eyes slide down to the god scale. “Maybe you should. Maybe I would like a bond like that.”
His breath hitches, holds, then sighs out from him, drawing him more deeply against my side. “Is that the bond speaking, or you?”
I don’t answer immediately, but that’s because only one answer comes to me and I don’t have the strength to invent a lie. His heavy eyelids fall shut, and his breathing evens out. He must have fallen asleep. “It can be both,” I admit in the quiet.
Zhoric tilts his head back, and my breath stills in my lungs. Had he heard me? I imagine the feel of his hair tickling my neck. “Were you…” he murmurs, takes a breath, “were you crying for me, or for yourself?”
“It can be both,” I whisper, echoing my last answer, the truth resounding loud and incessant in my chest.
He doesn’t answer and after a time, his breathing steadies into gentle rhythm. His dark lashes fan out against his alabaster cheeks, slightly chapped lips parted with sleep. I let the tips of my fingers skate across his cheekbone and I imagine the feel of smooth skin beneath my touch. I pull my hand away and frown at myself.
I twist my body towards him until his head is against my chest, then, bracing one hand on his head and neck and the other against his shoulder, I scoot back and lower him down to the ground. Dragging him to bed is out of the question, so instead I stand and go to his bed and grab a pillow from it. I’m halfway back to Zhoric when I realize what I’ve done. I’ve picked up an object in my hand. I expect the shock of it to pull this ability from me, but the pillow stays in my grip. The weight of it, but not the feel.
Lifting Zhoric’s head, I slide the pillow under him.
When I stand, I look out beyond the balcony and below, I notice movement. Not just a dragon flying by, or a couple walking leisurely together in the night, but a commotion. Squatting down, I look through the railings. It’s a dragon, twisting and thrashing, chained and held between two other dragons while someone in their human form leads them down an unmarked path between dense foliage. Faint wisps of dark vapor trail off the chained dragon, drifting away on the breeze as they move. Behind them, someone erases the path, righting branches and mending the way with a touch of magic. Zhoric’s admission of Alixor’s elahi pounds through my mind, twisting with Atlanta’s theory. Could Alixor see my power, or something else?
Standing, I spare a glance at Zhoric and the pillow I brought him. If I can touch that now, then maybe…I rush to the door and my hand falters over the handle. If I can hold a pillow, I can open a door. I press down and the latch clicks.
A thrill goes through me as I push the door open. I stride down the hall and when I don’t see them from the nursery windows panic steals my breath. There’s a desperation in me to see what’s happening and I don’t know if it’s because of the conversation I had with Ozias today about how we change in accordance to the mortals’ actions, or if this is another bond, some other link pulling me to it. I need to get closer. No sooner than I have the thought, the manifestation of myself surges through space, taking me like it did that first night Zhoric shoved me out.
I hit the ground outside running, passing through leaves and foliage like a spirit, untouchable and endless. When I finally get close, shock stops me in my tracks. Selnor and the elite Alixor was speaking to the night of our banquet are there, leading a chained dragon into the depths of a cave. It thrashes wildly, tail sweeping from side to side. The tail goes through me, but I feel reverberations of its power, of its pain and sorrow.
“Stop!” I scream, but my voice is muffled, like I’m screaming under water.
I hear Selnor’s voice, distant and dim, but I can’t makeout his words. They finally wrangle the beast through the cavern’s opening, and the dragon kicks its head back, its cloudy white eye locks on me for a long moment. This is one of the ravaged. I’m scarcely sure I’ve made the right connection when the creature is jerked forward down the long corridor.
I follow, everything sounding and looking waterier the farther we go. It’s several long moments before the cavern widens, opening up to reveal more dragons, lined up and chained to rocks. Some are slumped against walls, others breathing raggedly on the floor, while the rest rage against their restraints.
Selnor’s mouth moves as they yank the chains off the draconem in their hold and affix them to the wall. I walk the perimeter and pass five more tunnels. Down each, I get the sense of great, resting power within. A power I recognize now.Draconem. There must be more draconem concealed down each tunnel.
Atlanta was afraid of this. She suspected this was happening and now I know. I know for sure, and where to find them again. I put my hand against the nearest chain and it ghosts through as if it were nothing. I move closer to Selnor to see if I can make any sense of his words, but it’s too muffled. Whatever power got me here isn’t strong enough to manifest the details. One of the draconem that was in their dragon form shifts, and he affixes one of the subdued ravaged to the remaining dragon, and they all but drag the ravaged down one of the tunnels. I want to follow, but I’m forcibly stopped short. Something is keeping me here, in this room. Unease rakes its sharp claws down my back.
The elite with Selnor produces a bottle from a satchel. Selnor raises a hand the the ravaged opens its mouth and the elite pours the contents of the bottle down the dragon’s throat. Selnor releases the ravaged and the creature’s breathing slows, their body swaying, until they settles themselves down on the ground with a heavy thump.
Whatever brought me here loosens its hold, and as soon as it does, I feel the tight jerk to move back the way I came. It’s so relentless that fighting it isn’t a possibility.Reluctantly, I leave the cavern and mark the place by the stars overhead and the distance and orientation from the castle.
