“Yes?”
“Shut up.” She’s smiling as she says it, and she swims closer until we’re floating side by side, shoulders touching in the glowing water.
I take her flying with me at night—not through a thunderstorm, but through clear skies with stars scattered above and mountains sleeping below. She doesn’t scream this time. Just holds on and breathes deep and asks me to go higher, faster, until we’re threading between peaks with nothing but moonlight to guide us.
“I could get used to this,” she says when we land. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright. “Flying with you.”
“Just with me?”
“Just with you.” She holds my gaze. “The others are too serious. You make it fun.”
“I make everything fun.”
“That’s debatable.” She’s grinning. “Mostly you make things chaotic. The fun is a side effect.”
“I’ll take it.”
I learn one fact about veterinary medicine: the proper technique for suturing a wound on a creature with scales. She demonstrates on a training dummy while I pretend to understand terms like “subcutaneous” and “approximated edges.” When I successfully repeat the technique back to her—mostly—she applauds with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“You’re mocking me.”
“I’m celebrating you.” She’s beaming. “Rurik Malor, dragon warrior, has learned to do stitches. Auren’s going to faint.”
“Don’t tell Auren.”
“I’m absolutely telling Auren.”
“Traitor.”
“Consider it payback for the pillow fight.” She pats my cheek, the touch lingering for just a moment too long. “Now. Your turn. What fresh horror do you have planned?”
We tradesecrets without meaning to.
I tell her about the hostile dragon—a young male driven mad by isolation, slowly dying alone in a cave system three territories away. I visited him for months. Brought food. Talked to him even when he tried to kill me.
“What happened?” she asks. We’re sitting in the library, surrounded by medical texts she’s been forcing me to study.
“He snapped. Finally lost whatever was holding him together.” I stare at the book in my hands without seeing it. “Nearly killed me before Zyphon intervened.”
“But you kept trying. Until the end.”
“Someone had to.” The words taste like ash. “He was alone. No one should die alone.”
She doesn’t offer platitudes. Doesn’t try to make it better. Just slides her hand across the table and laces her fingers through mine, squeezing tight.
“You’re a good person, Rurik.” Her voice is soft. “Under all the jokes and chaos. You’re good.”
Something cracks open in my chest. “I’m not?—“
“You are.” She squeezes harder. “Don’t argue with me. I’m a medical professional. I know things.”
I laugh—can’t help it. “You’re a veterinarian.”
“Which means I’m very good at identifying when someone is being an ass.” She grins. “Now. Tell me about this hepatic artery.”
She tells me about her parents over the next few days, in fragments and pieces. The way they wanted her to be a lawyer. The estrangement that’s lasted three years. The fact that they don’t know she’s alive.
“Do you want them to know?” I ask.
