The moment they stepped outside, Zara’s attention was instantly everywhere. The morning sun spilled across the carved stone pathways, terraces built into the mountain, and homes shaped out of cliffs and crystalline rock.
She slowed in front of every other building.
“This is gorgeous,” she murmured. “It’s like the architecture is part of the mountain.”
“It is,” he said, amused. “Drakkoria expanded outward and inward, not upward.”
“It’s nothing like what I imagined. I need to draw this, like all of this. I’m gonna need so many pencils.”
Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Hektor found himself smiling at nothing.
They reached the café, sunlight spilling through amethyst windows. Breakfast was simple but good: spiced tea cakes, fruit, coffee strong enough to wake the dead.
And the gossip.
Zara was laser-focused.
He listened, fascinated despite himself, as the table behind them argued about a politician’s affair, and another whispered about a dragon lord’s disastrous speech.
“Is it always like this?” Zara whispered.
“This is mild,” Hektor said. “We’re in the domestic district. For real chaos, you’d have to go closer to the market?—”
“This is better than Lifting the Vale,” she cut in, grinning at him.
He nearly spat out his coffee.
“Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” he muttered.
But Zara only laughed, leaning back with that spark in her eyes, like Drakkoria was hers to unravel, and he was hers to tease.
After breakfast, they wandered in a different direction, taking the long way through the residential ridge. Zara paused constantly—kneeling to touch the crystalline steps that shimmered faintly, pointing out the sculpted rock gardens perched along the cliff ledges, tugging on his sleeve whenever she spotted something new.
“It’s like living in a fantasy art book,” she said, turning in a slow circle as sunlight split into colors through the quartz formations. “Why didn’t you show me this sooner?”
“Because you were busy pretending to date a basilisk,” he said dryly.
She elbowed him and kept walking.
Eventually, she turned to him, bright-eyed. “Okay. I’ve seen cafés, markets, cliff houses, and a rock bridge that probably violates every safety law ever. Now you have to show me your house.”
He tried to sound unaffected. “Fine.”
But she practically bounced the entire way, making it impossible for him not to smile.
Inside, Zara spun once in the entryway. “Hektor, this reminds me of cabins in the Upperworld ski towns. But…more dramatic.”
“It’s just a den.”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s you as a house.”
She explored the rooms, delighted by the smallest things, the hammered metal light fixtures, the stone carvings in the hallway, the shelves of books arranged more by instinct than organization.
When they reached his study, she stepped inside with a little gasp. “Oh wow. Okay, yes. This is definitely where the heavy brooding happens.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely do.”
