Frowning I catch her eyes with mine in the looking glass. “I needed to make a decision that doesn’t have my life or the life of those I love hanging in the balance.”
Ninon sets down the shears and feathers off the cut hair from my clothes. “Your burden is a heavy one.”
She knows as well as I do that when I’ve committed to something, I will see it through to the end. So, she doesn’t make excuses for me. She doesn’t tell me to bow out. She doesn’t say anything at all, instead she lets me sit with this feeling, allowing it to consume me, with her there as my support. I lean back against her torso and her arms drape over my shoulders, crossed over my chest.
“Do you think I’ll succeed?” I ask, looking up at her from under the fan of my dark lashes in the mirror’s reflection.
“I know you can do anything. You always have, and you always will.”
“This isn’t like anything I’ve faced before.” I twist in my seat and she loosens her hold on me. “We hardly know the interworking of this world.”
“You feel it though, don’t you?”
I don’t have to ask her to clarify—I know what she means. I feel the rightness of this world in my very essence. I nod until my head falls and I’m staring down into my lap, the tiny black hairs from the cut sprinkled across the back of my hands. “I’ve been seeing Zhoric—the Sar Dyeus—at night,” I admit to her. Telling Ozias has been helpful, but it hasn’t felt like a weight has truly lifted from my shoulders.
“Mind walking.” She says it like a statement and I feel her gaze hot on the back of my neck.
I nod.
“Are you planning to tell anyone else?” she asks.
“Ozias knows. But otherwise, no.” I life my head, meeting her gaze again. “I offered Zhoric to bond with me. I was afraid of trying to force the bond on him and it not working.”
She’s silent at first, analyzing the risk I’ve put myself in. “And what did he say? To your offer?”
“He’s still considering. But I think if he does…it’s because he plans to use me.”
Ninon is quiet. Not because she has nothing to say, but because she is thinking so deeply for the words to expresswhat she wants, in exactly the right way. “Does that bother you?”
I tip my head until it rests against her. I close my eyes. “I’m afraid, Ninon. I’m so afraid that all of this will go wrong and that he will have me in his grasp to use my power how he wishes and make everything worse. I’m frightened that he’ll…” I swallow down the emotion clawing its way up my throat “…that he’ll take being draconem away again and I’ll be imprisoned in the sky kingdom forever.”
Ninon bends at the waist and wraps her arms tight around me, tucking her face next to mine. “You have the strength of the Realm behind you. You have the power of our people lying in wait for you to call upon. Don’t let go of that, even if it comes to this. Even if he seals your draconem, she’s still inside you and a part of you. He cannot take from you what you already know.”
I squeeze her arms and hold on until the tension drops from my shoulders and the panic that wound its way around my nerves loosens thread by thread.
“How areyoufeeling?” I ask her.
Ninon stands and lets her hands slide to my shoulders where she gives me a pat. “Good. I’m going to rest today so we can try flying tonight.”
My face breaks into an earsplitting grin. This is exactly what I needed to hear. This is what I need to do—to let go of my task for a moment and be with her. To feel what it is to be this beast I once slayed on sight, but now know, beyond any reasonable doubt, is mine. “Then I’d better find Ozias to practice shifting so I can stretch my wings.”
Ninon gives my shoulders one final squeeze. “That’s the woman I know.”
After I’ve cleaned up and pulled myself together, Ninon walks me through the halls and up the many stairs that lead to the grand circular chamber at the top of the Alcazar to find Ozias. As we climb, the loose pants I wear swish pleasantly across my legs. The deep V-shape at the waist leaves my midriff bare all the way to the simple bandeau top that covers my breasts. With my freeing haircut, I feel ready to take on the world.
“The short hair really does suit you,” Ninon remarks as we reach the final landing.
I shake my head, the ends of my hair brushing along my shoulders as I give her a full smile. “Does it make me look more approachable?”
A low rumbling reaches my ears, and, with the smile still plastered on my face, Ozias stands waiting, his amber eyes like liquid fire.
“Dangerous,” he says. “That’s how it makes you look.”
My skin pebbles at the deep timbre of his voice, at the way he drinks me in.
Ninon touches the back of her hand against mine, shooting me a gentle, knowing smile before she turns and disappears back the way we came. I know she’s going to rest so we can fly together tonight, but without her presence, my confidence turns to resilience under Ozias’s solitary gaze.
He steps closer, fingers reaching up to dance around the ends of my hair, his fingertips brushing the top of my shoulder, sending chills down my spine. “I like it. I have half a mind not to let anyone else see you like this until I’ve had my fill.”
