I turn my head, belatedly realizing that the dragon—somehow back in human form?!—is seated right next to me. Watching over me as I slept?
Odd that I didn’t note the presence of his magic immediately upon waking. Even though I don’t know him—I don’t even know hisname—perhaps his presence nearby has been continual enough that his proximity didn’t alarm me?
I always noted the presence of the tutors who raised me, though.
Then again, I didn’t believe they had my best interests at heart.
Thenagain,they weren’t dragons.
“What’s your name?” I ask abruptly.
His eyebrows arch. “Zan.”
We stare at each other.
Okay. Now he has a name. And he knowsmyname somehow, so we’re not strangers, and it’s not weird that he’s been staring at me while I sleep and I don’t mind it.
Oy.
Carefully I sit up, only then noticing there was something soft under my head.
“Spare clothes,” Zan says. All his earlier emotion is gone from his voice. Worried about my reaction, perhaps? “You can wear them if you want.”
I feel a strange sense of vertigo, looking down and realizing I have been wearing the same sage robes for half a millennium.
And although my magical stasis has apparently prevented them from crumbling off of me, I am coated in a layer of dust.
I can’t even really feel it, but swiping a finger along my arm reveals that my skin tone is pale—not news, it always has been—but not actually ashen.
“...Or you can wash first,” Zan says.
“Wash first,” I agree, oddly queasy.
“I have food too.” Zan begins digging in his pack. “I don’t know precisely how your stasis worked, but it might be wise to have some before moving much. Much more, anyway.”
His tone shifts, just barely, and I find myself glad he’s not as closed off from his emotions as all that.
Because he issoannoyed that I rescued him.
I’ll take it.
But when food emerges, all I can focus on is that I amstarving.
Zan has cheese, nuts, bread, jam.Jam.
I hesitate to reach for it out of habit. I always had to be careful not to show preference for foods that I actually like, lest the Order decide it was an opportunity to teach me discipline and deny it to me.
There aren’t priests here, but the reflex to hide myself is long ingrained.
“This is what was in your pack?” I ask instead.
“Yes,” Zan says acidly, “you risked your life for some bread.”
“Is it good bread?”
A pause. “Yes.”
I also pause. “Do you like bread?”
