Garrick was bound to protect me. As was Isanara. One by the gods, one by choice. But Isanara was an orphaned adolescent dragon in a dying land. Her decision to bond as my familiar could very well have been one of survival rather than preference.
I wanted to shove away the ice-cold burn. I wanted the softness I’d felt moments before.
Garrick straightened, a parcel from inside his pack in hand. I did not let myself turn to face him. Relief mingled with disappointment when he finally moved away to the other side of the fire.
“I will help you prepare the meal,” Garrick announced, adding our own provisions to the meat that Varian prepared.
We received enough food from the temple to sustain us between gates. But the Seven Gates followed the curvature of the mountains, which meant that each one was further away than the last. There was no way we’d be able to carry enough food in a pack by the time we reached the final stretch after the Peace Gate.
Varian accepted Garrick’s help without a word, moving over to share the workspace she’d set up.
If I’d been in charge, we would have eaten cheese and bread for every meal. Maybe I would have managed to chop up one of the apples that the acolytes included, the fruit so bright and juicy I hadn’t seen its equal in hundreds of years. With the same cache of ingredients, Garrick had prepared dishes ranging from apples poached in wine and tarragon to a bacon, cheese, and apple jam sandwich that had earned a place of honor in my nightly dreams.
“He does not have to put in the effort, you know.”
“I am not taking romantic advice from a child.”Fuck. Since when was this thing between Garrick and me romantic?
Thankfully, Isanara was too busy being offended to latch on to that particular slip-up.“I am over one hundred years old.”
“And I have walked this blasted continent for four hundred years. Go flaunt your age to someone else.”
Of course, my familiar decided to do precisely as I suggested. She snapped her wings and walked past me, past Tomin kneeling before Seraxa’s altar stone, and shoved her head into his traveling pack.
“Isanara!”I stomped after her but stopped short of actually reaching down and yanking her head out of Tomin’s pack. Those spikes that ran from the crown of her head to the base of her tail were sharp. I’d seen them slice through leather like it was nothing. I did not fancy losing a finger.
Tomin managed not to jump away from her this time, but his lips continued to move in fervent, silent prayer. I hoped the Goddess of Peace was listening, because thus far my familiar had proved wildly unpredictable. And moody.
Not unlike her witch. “I’m sorry about her. She’s still learning her manners.”
“I am not a child.”But even spoken mind to mind, the words were muffled as she buried her head inside Tomin’s pack. What in the Dark Lord’s hell was she searching for?
“Then stay out of people’s packs without me having to remind you.”
Tomin rocked back on his heels, dividing his gaze equally between me and my little dragon. “And you are going to be the one to teach them to her?”
My stomach tightened painfully. But I deserved the barb, and more.
“Probably not,” I admitted.
My mouth opened and closed in an embarrassing approximation of a fish as I searched for the right words. Before I could find them, Isanara emerged from the recesses of Tomin’s pack, a chunk of brassy-yellow stone clutched between her jaws. The warm tones contrasted with the lavender hue of her scales, as did the sharp, angular edges.
To my utter and complete shock, she flared her wings, slid her forelegs out in front of her, and crunched down on the chunk of stone. It disintegrated between her jaws as she chewed and then swallowed.
“What… what is it?” I stammered.
Tomin’s honey-gold eyes were as round as I imagined my own must be. “Pyrite.”
“Your familiar is sustained by the magic and power of the land itself,” Varian said. She still crouched before the fire, an array of food spread before her, but she watched Isanara with the same fascination as the rest of us. A little thrill of triumph bubbled in my chest. It was my dragon that had finally broken the priestess’s impenetrable composure.
But discomfort quickly replaced it.
The mysterious priestess knew more about my familiar than I did.
“Gems will sustain her longest, and then pure ores,” the priestess continued. “Even soil and stone will pacify her, though not for long, mixed and diluted as they are.”
“You could have told me this.”I sent the thought in Isanara’s direction, but she was too busy chewing to bother with a response.
But my stomach dropped as my mind made sense of Varian’s words. “The magic and power in Velora are dying, just like everything else.”
