"I know. Neither do I, apparently, but people keep insisting."I drew my knees up."Maybe looking after is not the right way to regard this. We can just keep each other company and commiserate because we both miss Alar and we are both lonely."
Something flickered behind the amber, there and gone. "I am not lonely. Dragons are patient. I'm waiting for him to return."
"You sound very certain that he will."
She lifted her head. "He has no choice. Distance doesn't break the bond. It stretches and thins but does not break. He will come back to me, and he will come back to you."She shookher great head."I do not enjoy waiting. But I am a dragonia. I have infinite time to spare."
I felt the sting of tears and blinked them down. "I hope you're right."
"I usually am," she said."Alar told me so himself."
I laughed, surprising us both, and for a moment, her prickliness eased into something that was almost comfortable, companionable.
"Little Warrior,"Onyx's voice sounded in my head, filling me with warmth."What are you doing roosting on a peak with Veynathei? And where is that ill-tempered beast you bonded with? He does not strike me as one to let his rider wander the cliffs alone."
"He went hunting,"I answered. "And I'm not wandering. I'm meeting a friend."
"Hunting." There was a note of vast disapproval in Onyx's mental voice. "He leaves the most strategic asset of Elucia on a ledge and goes to fill his belly. Typical."
I felt them getting closer, Onyx and Ravel, and then Onyx came down out of the light, his obsidian scales drinking the colors rather than throwing them back. He settled onto the shelf beside Veynathei with a heaviness that shook the stone.
Ravel sat in the saddle, goggles pushed up, his dark hair windblown, watching me with critical dark eyes. Evidently he shared Onyx's opinion about me being out here alone with Veynathei.
"Are you following me, Commander?" I asked.
"Keeping an eye on you." He dismounted. "Your paramour asked me to look after you before he left."
I didn't like him using the term paramour in regard to Alar. It wasn't an insult, but it had a negative connotation. It implied temporary status, not an everlasting love.
Then it dawned on me what he'd actually said. "Alar asked you to look after me?"
"He did."
I didn't know what to do with that. Alar had been fighting his jealousy over Ravel for months, sensing that thing between us that had never been romantic but was nevertheless real. Of all the people he might have asked to watch over me, Ravel was the last I would have guessed, and the fact that he'd chosen him anyway told me something about how frightened my prince had been to leave me, and how much he loved me.
He could have asked Codric, but he didn't believe that Codric had what it took to protect me. He believed that Ravel did, and he was willing to see past his jealousy to keep me safe.
Tears prickled the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them make an appearance.
Ravel came to stand a few paces off, near enough to talk, but far enough so it wasn't intimate, and the morning light caught his eyes, highlighting the gold flecks swimming in their dark depths.
These were the same flecks that had looked down at me from Onyx's back five and a half years ago, the night my village burned and Ravel had arrived with a flight to chase off the Shedun monsters. Onyx had landed in front of the watch tower and reached into a terrified sixteen-year-old's mind to let her know that he and his rider had seen her, and that she had done well.
That old thread neither of us cared to pull connected us, and it was why Alar had never quite trusted the space I shared with this man.
"You don't need to spy on me," I said. "I'm all right."
Ravel studied me a moment longer, then nodded. "Then I'll leave you to your meeting." He inclined his head towardVeynathei, who had been watching the exchange with what amounted to dragon curiosity.
Ravel got back onto Onyx, and the dragon lowered his massive head until our eyes were nearly level.
"Take care, Little Warrior," Onyx said. "And tell your beast that a rider is not luggage to be set down and collected later."
Then they were gone, climbing into the auroras, and a few minutes later Morgateth dropped back onto the shelf with the unmistakable smugness of a predator who had eaten well.
"Are you girls done?"
"We are."Veynathei stretched out her wings."Until the next time, Kailin."
