I thought I understood, but it still surprised me to know she’d stayed in one place her whole life. Even when I’d been a boy in Harta, we’d moved around a lot. It had taught me how to adapt. I’d assumed that Amaia had had a similar experience, considering how easily she’d assimilated into the Grymia horde.
Samryn dipped suddenly, descending fast, making Amaia’s breath catch in a silent scream. He was heading for a lake, not in the forest surrounding our territory but a stone’s throw outside of its boundaries.
He landed roughly, nearly knocking the breath out of my own lungs and sending a sharp reverberation up my spine and through the backs of my legs. I let a growl of my own out, one of displeasure.
“Ty’bara ellrash,” I muttered. Hartan forstubborn creature.
Amaia was breathing hard, trying to suck in air.
“All right?” I asked Amaia, lifting off of her.
“Yes, I think so,” she wheezed out. I helped her stand, and Samryn had the good sense to lower his wing without hesitation so she could descend, likely due to the flood of biting annoyance I sent rippling through the bond. He knew he was riding the edge of my patience.
When I followed after her, I went to him. “Do that again, and she might not help you. She might not help us,” I warned quietly. A hot stream of breath escaped his nostrils.
Amaia was staring at the shimmering lake, one that stretched so wide it looked like an ocean. But I could just make out the tree line on the opposite shore, dark, tall shadows against the night sky.
When I approached her, impatient to begin, she glanced over at me before gesturing to the lake. “Have you ever seen something so beautiful that it just doesn’t seem real?”
I peered at the lake, then flicked my gaze back to hers.
“No,” I said, answering her question. “A lake impresses you more than the view of the Arsadia?”
“I’ve seen mountains before. I’ve never seen a lake. Only the edge of Drukkar’s Sea. But I’ve never even stood upon its shore.” She met my eyes. “Are you so used to being surrounded by beautiful things that you don’t notice them anymore?”
Her question surprised me. It made me still, made a strange snap of irritation whip down my spine. Once I had been surrounded by muck and squalor, my mother so poor that we’d lived inside a hollowed-out tree on the edge of a Hartan village.
A half-blood, desolate Hartan boy like me? He would’ve neverdreamedof being aKarathwho had claimed a Vyrin.
You don’t know anything about me,I wanted to say. Only it sounded like a petulant child’s words, even to my own ears.
“Are you ready?” I asked instead, deciding it wiser to ignore the question.
She gave the lake one last lingering look as I studied her with a furrowed brow. The urge to use my magic on her, to sink it into her and uncover what she was truly thinking, surprised me. I’d only ever used my ability for a specific purpose. To protect, which sometimes meant edging toward the borders of my own morality.
Now that I wasn’t allowed to use it on her, the urge to do so grew ever stronger. A temptation I could no longer satisfy, which made me hunger for it all the more.
I was always a greedy bastard.
“How would you like to do this?” she asked, but I couldn’t tell if she was speaking to me or Samryn. She approached my Elthika, stilling in front of his wide jaws, which could snap her cleanly in two. The slit of his pupils narrowed on her.
Following, I said, “Just like last time. I’ll use my magic to bond to yours, to give you time. I don’t know how yours works, but I might have a better understanding if we take it slowly.”
“I don’t know how it works either,” she admitted. “It’s just a connection. It comes naturally. I always imagine it’s like an entrance into something. I might not know what I’ll find, but I’m still willing to cross the threshold.”
“Then when you feel my interference,” I told her, “think of my power like a pillar. Something to ground you, something to rest upon if you need the reprieve.”
She darted a quick look over at me, surprise evident in her expression.
“You understand?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said quietly, swallowing hard. I realized she was nervous. Her face had gone a little ashen, her throat bobbing.
I didn’t know why that bothered me so much, but I was too selfish to give her an out. This was about Samryn. I would never turn away an opportunity to help him, no matter what. Even if the obvious fear in this Dakkari girl made my stomach turn.
I also couldn’t understand why she was doing this. No one was this altruistic, were they? Or was I so jaded that I couldn’t seewhy someone would resign themselves to suffering in return for nothing?
Though I had my suspicions, I still intended to use her, as much as she’d willingly let me. And then…if there came a point of her refusal, what would I do?
