Looking at them twists some emotion inside me I can’t name, and I rise, giving them space, and make my way to the infirmary to get cleaned up. I feel my dragon battling with me to come out again, but I take the calm, cool air of the night into my lungs and will her to do the same.
The single healer left in the infirmary wastes no time helping get the blood cleared from my face and shoulder. It doesn’t sting like it ought to, and when the blood is gone, there are only tiny, nearly healed indentations from where the ravaged punctured my skin.
The healer’s brows twitch together. “That happen tonight?”
“Earlier this evening,” I admit.
She hums. “We heal fast, but that’s unheard of.” She sniffs around me. “Smells like your blood, otherwise I’d ask if you were sure if the wound was that deep.”
“Could faster healing be my elahi?” I ask, wondering if that’s why Ozias and I haven’t been able to figure it out.Then I remember my wounds from the time we were taken out of the Realm. I healed at a pace on par with Ozias then.
The healer shrugs. “Only one way to find out.” And before I can open my mouth, she slices the back of my forearm with a knife.
My mouth snaps open in surprise. “Brutal,” I hiss, as she places an herbal cloth over the new wound. She pulls it away, and still it bleeds.
“If it’s as healed as the wound on your shoulder in a few hours, then you’ll know for sure.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I mumble, then turn and leave before she has a chance to open me up again. Her hearty chuckle follows me out the door.
When I step outside, the dark of night obscuring my vision save for the reach of a few lamps along the pathways, I remember again I’m still in my human form. Beneath my skin, I feel her itching to come out.No. Not tonight.The pull I felt towards Zhoric on the beach rocked me to the very depths of my core. I can’t afford to be weak.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve gone deeper with him than I intended, and I fear the tide of my feelings if I go to him tonight. He saved me. I appeared before him, distraught and hurt, and he removed himself from whatever he was doing to save me. To kill a ravaged for me. I stop short. A ravaged died tonight. Which means…Ninon.
My feet move on instinct and I sprint, running full tilt towards the enclosures. One after the other after the other empty. Doubling back, I tear through the pathways, the wild beginning of the night still in the air as people clean up debris from Ozias and Atlanta’s falls into the Realm. I ignore all of that. I run for the fields, my eyes jumping from draconem to draconem, a hoard of them grounded for now, a scant few in the sky. I see Issa’s bright scales and head for her, the twine wrapped around my heart finally releasing when, right over Issa’s shoulder, I see the familiar form of Ninon’s dragon.
Ninon spots me at once. She bounds over to me and presses her large forehead to mine, her mane tickling against my temples.
I heard you were fine, but it’s good to see with my own eyes,I hear her in my mind.
I’m nodding, but my breaths come ragged and erratic as the evening’s events catch up to my mind. Tears fall, and my chest is unbearably tight.
Breathe,I hear her say.Breathe.
Her breathing comes deeper and longer and I struggle for a few beats to match hers before mine evens out.
I feel my dragon nudge me and I squeeze my eyes tight.
“Kaisa.”
I twist my head. Ozias is standing there, a short distance behind me. He holds out his hand. With great effort I lift my brow from Ninon’s to hold her gaze. After a time, she nudges me with her nose, the touch conveying that we’re both fine. She’s right. I’m okay.She’sokay.
I briefly lay my hand on the side of her face. Then I turn and take Ozias’s hand, grounding myself in his touch. I will stay here in this form. Nothing will take me out of it, despite the incessant press I feel in my bones, begging me to shift. The itch of my skin, enticing me to transition to my smooth, armored scales, pulses like a drumbeat in my ears.
Ozias pulls me along the pathways towards the Alcazar. I remain silent, knowing we have much to discuss, but not having the energy to bring it up or explain myself.
When we make it to the top of the Alcazar, Ozias releases my hand and walks out onto the terrace overlooking the Sere all the way to Dyeus. I join him, the bracing wind sweeping my hair away from my face.
“You saved Atlanta tonight,” he murmurs.
“She saved me first.”
Ozias turns to me then, his gaze flitting down my figure and back up before returning to Dyeus. “Zhoric doesn’t leave Dyeus unless he must. You’ve done it, Kaisa. He cares for you.”
I look away, out across the Sere, catching on the northernmost and largest island. The castle. I pin the place where Zhoric’s chambers are before answering. “Impossible. There’s been such little time between us. He doesn’t even know me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
A frown pulls tight on my lips. I don’t know why that bothers me.
