Behind me, I hear Cora turn away quickly, her shoulders starting to shake.
The warrior clears his throat. “I… I can improve it.”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “It’s a fine chair. It just needs to be improved.”
He nods as if this is an important mission and carries the chair back down the stairs with great seriousness, presumably to rescue it from its own design flaws.
I lower myself to sit on the edge of the platform. “There are too many men. And they have too much time on their hands.”
“You’re very popular,” Cora replies.
“I feel like I’m under siege.”
Cora finally chuckles. “Most women would consider that a compliment.”
“They’re competing for me,” I groan. “But they don’t know me at all. All they know is that I’m female. That’s literally all they know.”
That makes her quiet for a moment.
Below us, the village is already moving. Smoke rises from cooking fires, and warriors train near the gates while others use the village forges, noisily smithing iron. Beyond the walls, distant campfires still burn where the outside tribes wait and watch.
And somewhere in all of that attention, I can feel something tightening. Something that’s getting harder to ignore.
I shouldn’t think about him again. But I do.
Because for a brief moment last night, he stood above all of this without effort, as if none of it applied to him at all. As if he was completely outside it.
And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.
- - -
“That’s what they’re like,” Astrid says as she hands me an uneven mug filled with an herbal concoction. “They get under your skin like nobody’s business. Try this and tell me what you think.”
I accept the hot mug and sniff it. “A new attempt at coffee?”
“No,” the tribe’s shaman sighs. “I gave that up. Too frustrating. Now I’m just trying to make a brew that isn’t too toxic or sour to sip every morning. That one’s not it. But it’s the closest I’ve come so far. It’s a mix of the petals from those green, propeller-like flowers, those leaves hanging from the ceiling and the bark from some kind of tree, I think. I’m being very scientific about it, as you can tell.”
I take a sip and just about manage to not make a face. “It’s… distinctive. And hot. Well done.”
“The hotness is actually the only thing I like about it,” Astrid says. “The flavor is kind of meh and the mouthfeel is lackluster. So there was a dragon last night? Must be the one Dex talked about.”
I lean back on the wooden chair. “I think so, too. Maybe he was looking for Callie.”
“Likely he wasn’t looking for anyone in particular,” Astrid says. “But maybe forsomething. Did he seem like he was searching? They usually look for gold.”
“He went to the edge and looked out at the jungle,” I tell her as I try another sip. “Maybe he thought he could see gold from up there.”
“Maybe,” Astrid says. “I only have one other dragon to go by, and he wouldn’t be able to sense gold from that far away. But the dragons have great differences between them. I suppose it’s possible.”
“Where is Praxigor now?” I ask. Astrid’s husband is the only dragon I know, too. Well, kind of know, anyway.
“Oh, he’s around. Somewhere in the jungle, probably looking for black dragons to intimidate. He spends every night here with me, but he leaves right before sunrise because… well, you know.”
“Because the cavemen fear and hate him,” I state. “Yes, I know. They are dragon slayers at heart, in their very bones. Maybe that’s what I don’t like about them. That their real purpose is to kill something, not build.”
“It may not be that simple,” Astrid says mildly, looking at me over the rim of her mug. “But I see what you mean. I never considered a caveman. And I’m glad I didn’t. Loving a dragon is insanely demanding. I mean, everything around it. The love itself, just the two of us, is the easiest thing in the world. And the best. Not that I recommend getting close with the one you saw. Those things are deadly and some are genuinely evil, in the true sense of the word. I only barely survived Praxigor’s courting.”
I lean my head back until it touches the headrest. “What do I do, Astrid? The tribe really wants me to get married to calm things down. But I don’t want to. Not like that.”
