"She's yours in every way that matters, and when you go, she'll be here without her rider. Someone will need to look after her." Kailin set the drawing down. "I'll make sure she's okay. I can communicate with her through Morgateth, or directly if she's close enough. She won't be alone."
I hadn't thought of that. I'd been so consumed with my own grief at leaving that I hadn't considered who would watch over Veynathei in my absence. The fact that Kailin had already thought about it and committed to caring for the dragon who was bonded to the man she was losing made my heart swell with love for her.
"I'll include something for you in every letter," I said. "Pressed precious flowers. Fabric swatches from my royal attire. Books. Terrible poetry, mine and that of others."
"You write terrible poetry?"
"The worst."
"I'll treasure every word." She reached for my hand. "Come to bed with me."
I went.
We didn't rush. There was no urgency in what followed, despite the hours counting down and the dawn approaching like an executioner. We undressed each other slowly, deliberately, committing the act of undressing to memory alongside everything else.
I kissed the hollow of her throat, the curve of her hip where my hand had rested so many nights while we slept. She traced the line of my shoulders, my jaw, the place behind my ear that made me shiver.
We moved together with the familiarity of lovers who knew each other's rhythms and the desperation of lovers who knew this might be the last time. Every touch was a goodbye. Every whispered word was both a declaration of our love and a farewell.
I tried to memorize everything. The way her golden hair spread across the pillow. The small sounds she made when I touched her just right. The way her fingers curled against my back when the pleasure built. The look in her eyes at the moment she let go, that expression of complete trust and complete surrender that she showed to no one else but me.
I loved her. Completely. Irrevocably. In a way that distance and politics and prophetic dreams couldn't diminish.
But love, as one of my royal ancestors had written, did not grant dominion. It granted only the privilege of worrying, and Iwas about to worry about her from the other side of a mountain range.
Afterward, Kailin curled against me, her head on my chest, her breathing gradually slowing toward sleep despite her whispered insistence that she was going to stay up all night because she didn't want to waste even one moment of the time we had left together.
I held her, watching her beautiful face and committing every last freckle to memory, waiting for the last of her resistance to surrender to exhaustion.
"Don't let me sleep," she murmured, her words already thick and dissolving at the edges. "I want to stay awake with you."
"I'm right here," I said. "I'll be here when you wake up."
Her breathing deepened. Her body relaxed against mine, growing heavy with sleep, and within minutes, she was gone, one hand still resting on my chest as if even in sleep she needed to confirm that I was still there.
I lay in the dark, listened to her breathe, and tried not to count the minutes.
When the window shifted from auroral dark to the gray that preceded dawn, I carefully disentangled myself from Kailin and tucked the blanket around her shoulders. She murmured something unintelligible and burrowed deeper into the pillow.
I dressed in my civilian clothes, the ones I'd worn when I first entered Elucia posing as a merchant's son. They felt strange after months of military uniforms, the fabric softer and less purposeful. A merchant's wardrobe for a merchant's disguise.
Then I reached out through the bond.
"Veynathei."
The response came immediately, as if she'd been awake and waiting."What's the matter?"
"Can you meet me on the landing platform outside the officers' quarters?"
"I'll be there before you are."
By the time I navigated the corridors and stepped onto the stone platform that jutted from the mountainside like an outstretched hand, she was already there, perched on the edge with her wings folded and her iridescent scales muted in the pre-dawn light. She appeared almost silver, like a statue carved from moonlight.
Her amber eyes focused on mine as I approached, and despite the shields I was holding firm around my mind, she knew that something was wrong. She'd probably known for hours, feeling my anguish leaking through the bond despite my attempts to contain it.
"You're leaving,"she said.
She'd either deduced it from my civilian clothes or felt it through the bond.
