But they raise their voices just fine, yelling confused orders and suggestions at each other.
Atnag’ox comes over to me, a grim look on his face. “Who was that, Morgan?”
“Didn’t you see?” I ask, both relieved and annoyed by his presence. “That was adragon!”
“Darkness,” he growls and slashes his sword uselessly through the empty air. “We’ll get him! Go, warriors! Back down! I’ll stay and watch this plateau.”
The other cavemen frown and hesitate. “No man may stay up here except for a quick check. It’s not even your turn!”
“Yes,” I agree, wanting them all gone. “The dragon is long gone. Go! Find him, Atnag’ox. Only you can do it!”
“Yes, Morgan!” he says and runs over to the others, then back down the way they came.
My heart still beats hard and fast in my ears. Shit, that was like looking straight at death itself.
A dragon!
Not Praxigor, married and distant, uninterested in everything but his wife. This one looked at me like he was deciding what to do with me.
Below, warriors shout orders into the jungle as if they had even the slightest chance of catching him.
But I can still hear his voice in my head.
You can see every place you can’t go.
And somehow, impossibly, the worst part is that I think he might be right.
On trembling knees I move to the edge of the plateau before I can stop myself, staring into the darkness where he vanished, hoping to see him again.
And terrified that I might.
2
- Morgan-
I don’t sleep well.
It’s not really that I’m still afraid, at least not in any way I’m willing to admit to myself. The furs are warm enough, and no one tries to climb Red Rock in the middle of the night to drag me away. The guards keep walking up and down the stairs outside my cave, speaking in low voices as they pace, and once one of them coughs loudly enough to pull me out of a half-dream.
At one point, I think I hear someone whisper my name. It sounds hopeful, which somehow makes it worse.
But mostly I can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes, I see his face. Those silver-and-gold eyes looking straight through me, as if I’m something he’s already finished evaluating.
Are you sure?
I turn onto my side and pull the furs higher over my shoulder. “Stop it,” I murmur quietly into the skins, though I’m not entirely sure who I’m speaking to.
The frustrating thing is that he was right.
Of course I’m not actually tied to a rock. No one has bound me or imprisoned me. No one is stopping me from walking out of the village if I truly decide to do it. But it would cause a discussion at the very least, Korr’ax detailing an escort for me, Bryar quietly trying to get me to stay, Astrid looking at me from a distance and cocking one eyebrow, Cora biting her lower lip and then saying something profound about being alone in the jungle. It would be awkward as all hell. So I also can’t deny that I’m not exactly free either.
There are the guards who rotate constantly, watching the stairs and caves as though I’m something that needs managing. There are the men from the tribe who treat my presence like a problem to be solved. And there are the others from outside the gates, waiting in the jungle as if patience alone will eventually earn them a place in my life.
Chief Korr’ax hasn’t said it directly, but the message has been clear enough for weeks now. Eventually, I’m expected to choose someone. Eventually, the pressure will resolve itself into something socially acceptable.
I exhale slowly and stare up at the dark rock that is the ceiling of the cave they gave me. Of course I understand the logic of it. The unrest in the tribe isn’t abstract anymore. I see it in the way men look at each other, in the way tensions snap into fights over almost nothing, in the way even the married men carry a quiet awareness that their position isn’t entirely secure. One thinblade from behind in the dark, and suddenly one of the girls is available again.
It’s not that the girls have said that to me. But they haven’t needed to. I can see it myself. When they actually start to talk about it openly is when I know it’s getting urgent for them.
