Nomi huffs. “No. Fine, then. Are you aware Zan has been here—at Celestial Sanctuary Temple specifically, I mean—from the beginning?”
“Of course. He met Tasa when there were still dead bodies on the ground.”
“He was here even before that,” Nomi tells me seriously.
I frown at her. “He wasn’t here when I created the Quiet. I’d have known.”
She shakes her head. “After that. From things he’s said, I believe he had visited the temple after you created the Quiet, but before Tasa climbed the mountain for the first time.”
I’m not following. “So? I created the greatest magical working of our lifetime. Why is a dragon showing up to investigate it noteworthy?”
“Because he showed up when there was no one else on the mountain but you, and he haskeptshowing up forfive hundred years, Yora. Had you met before?”
“No. Just glimpsed each other once.”
“That you know of,” Nomi says.
I shake my head. “No. I can always feel when Zan is close.”
“More so than other dragons?”
I narrow my eyes. None of her business. “What are you getting at?”
“Zan has never—and I do mean never, because how to deal with the dragon we’re dependent on is something Guardians pass down to each other—taken a direct interest in a sage,” Nomi says. “Healwaysholds himself apart. It’s not that he doesn’t let himself become close, it’s that he’s notinterestedin it. He’s like a passing wise man in a fairy story, dropping knowledge and addressing any issues we can’t and then vanishing again. We know him, but we don’tknowhim. Do you see?”
See that Zan has deliberately made himself a mystery?
See that even the people who should know Zan don’t see him as a person?
I start, “If you’re worried that Zan getting close to me is going to risk whether you can count on him—”
“I’mworriedZan has an obsession with you,” Nomi cuts me off. “I’m worried that he has held himself at a remove because he knows—because he’s taughtus—that dragons are volatile, andthat he has no practice doing otherwise and is not going to be able to control himself.
“I’m worried that you know too little of the world to recognize what it will look like if he starts controlling you, especially because you have no framework for reference other than the Order controlling you and it will look different with Zan. I don’t think he’ll mean to—I’m confident I know him better than that, at least.
“But he wanted to get you set up himself, a thing that he has never done for another sage, rather than allowing me to do my godsdamn job. He is still staying up here with you instead of letting you find your own footing. He let himself be seen with you yesterday, tying the two of you together in the Order’s view.
“I’m worried he’s trying to keep you close to the point where you’ll become isolated—”
I laugh bitterly, and only then does Nomi stop.
“You have it wrong,” I tell her. “He’s doing everything he can tonotkeep me close. I’m the one holding onto him.”
I’m the one putting myself in front of the Order when he’d have literally given his life to hide me.
I’m the one telling him I want him here, and only then does he feel like he can acknowledge that he wants it too.
I’m the one insisting he allow himself to have a home.
I’m the one who has never and will never have anything to fear from the strength of his feelings.
And apparently I’m theonlyone.
Nomi’s brow furrows. “It can feel like that, sometimes. It gets twisted, and you think you’re fighting for a... loved one, when they’ve manipulated you into it precisely for that reason.”
My patience for this well-intentioned caution vanishes. “I’m notstupid—”
“It is absolutely not about stupidity—”
