Chapter 18
S everal more days crept by in my lonely stone cavern. While the mirror did offer glimpses of home—and they did change, sometimes one spot on the island, sometimes another—I noticed the scenes never included humans. Occasionally, I could see fish leaping from the surf, or the fin of a dolphin just off the beach. Sometimes a wild boar would wander past or a stray dog, and of course, there were the gulls.
But no people.
Did the dragon think that by showing me no humans I would be less lonely and more content in captivity? I wondered, my lips twisting with bitter amusement as I stitched and sewed, stitched and sewed. I glanced into the mirror again, studying the black dolphin fins outlined against the blue of the waves. If I were home, I might throw myself into the sea, relishing its warm, salty, liquid embrace. I might swim out to the dolphins, pumping my arms and legs, seeing how close I could get to them and whether they’d allow me to swim with them.
Such memories brought a true smile to my face. It faded quickly as I glanced around my bare, stone bedchamber .
I sighed, and the sound echoed in the still air.
One part of this plan was simple. I did not have to feign homesickness. Day by day, the melancholy increased.
And the dragon noticed.
At night, when he came to my bed, and I woke up—which didn’t always happen—I’d find his hand next to mine as if he wanted to reach out and offer comfort but feared to touch me lest I awaken. Filled with curiosity, after I’d gauged by the deep, even rhythm of his breaths that he truly slept, I would allow my fingers to gently touch his. Holding my breath for fear of alerting him, I permitted my fingertips to gently trace the back of his hand, feeling every ridge, every line, every bone, every knuckle, every vein.
What did his fingers look like? I wondered. The hand felt like a man’s, but how did it look? Was his skin the same color as mine, or had it a different hue? Was he of an unnatural color—blue or green or purple, for instance—and that was why he hid in the shadows? Or was he scarred and disfigured, and that was why he hid? I could not feel any scars; that didn’t mean he had none. Perhaps they were on his other hand. After all, I could only feel the one hand between us.
Much as I loathed to admit it, touching his skin, feeling his flesh, his warmth, evoked a slight measure of comfort.
It is because he’s the sole person with whom you communicate, I told myself to ease my guilt. Otherwise, you are entirely alone. It’s how he is tricking you into being happy in his presence.
“Are you as lonely as you seem?”
That night, the voice floated at me through the darkness, startling me. I jerked my hand away with a gasp, mortified. Had he been awake the entire time? Had he also been awake when I’d explored his hand the night before ?
Humiliated, I scooted away from him, grateful for the gloom that concealed my shame.
“Wh-why do you ask?” I stammered. Was he referring to me touching him? Or…
“Because,” he said, “when you sew during the day, you watch the mirror with such sadness.”
Ah. Then he had been observing me.“I am…unused to being alone,” I admitted, weighing my words. “I went from living with four other family members on an island full of people to a dreary existence in this cave where I am forever alone, seeing and speaking to no one.”
“You speak to me,” he protested mildly.
I felt my facial features bunch up in a frown. “I do not see you,” I reminded him. Which, again, left me curious as to why he came to my bed at night, in the thick darkness, where sight was impossible. “And I only speak to you sometimes. Did you think that would stave off loneliness?”
If he had, he didn’t admit it. Instead, he confessed quietly, “I had hoped the mirror would help.”
I rolled onto my back, lifting my focus to the shadowy ceiling.
“It does,” I admitted. “But it also makes the homesickness worse. I cannot explain it.”
Silence. Was he angry? Or was he mulling over my words?
I felt motion, then his hand—the hand I’d recently been exploring—closed over mine, its warmth almost shocking against my cool skin.
“You do not have to,” he said quietly.
Did that mean he, too, had a family for whom he yearned? And a home that he missed? If so, why was he, an admitted Warkin, so far from the legendary cliffs and deserts and high pastures of his home region? Or was he so very far from that? I did not know where he’d flown me on the night he brought me here.
I did not ask. He wouldn’t reply. Instead, I lay there in the dark, beside my captor, a man capable of shapeshifting into a dragon, and I allowed him to hold my hand. Not only did I allow him to do that, I allowed myself to find solace in it.
Finally, after long minutes of stillness and fingers clutching fingers, I worked up the nerve to put the next part of my plan into motion.
“Will you allow me to go home?” I requested quietly. “Simply to visit?”
The hush that stretched between us was so long, so thick, I feared I had ruined my plan by asking too soon.
My plan was simple. I hoped to make him think by busying myself with the long job of sewing the beautiful gown, that I was—if not happy— meekly accepting my fate. I needed to persuade him that I’d consigned myself to a destiny as his mate in this lonely cave so he would be comfortable permitting me to return home.
And once I returned home?
One day, I would stay there. Somehow. My father was a ship’s captain with many contacts. There were other captains and seagoers on our island. Word traveled. Someone could find ways and means of helping me. Perhaps one of the Scraggen, the legendary witch-women? Clearly, if this dragon could have sensed me through my father, he would be able to track me anywhere I fled. It followed, then, that I must find a way to break this magical tie. And magic could only be broken with magic, could it not?
“If I let you go,” the beast said quietly, “I fear you’ll never return. You will never come back to me.”
Of course, he would fear that. He wasn’t a fool. My job was to convince him otherwise .
“I give you my word, Dragon,” I answered. “I will come back.”
And I meant it. This time. I’d no intention of trying to flee on my first visit home. No, on my first visit home I would explain to my family what had befallen me, and set my father to seeking the information I’d need to escape. He, in turn, would ask his contacts, his fellows in the shipping, pirating, and trading business, for help. I needed them to find answers on how to break my bond with the dragon before I could even dream of escape.
“How do I know that you will come back?” he insisted. “I would run, were I you.”
At least he is honest, I thought grimly, but I forced amusement into my tone.
“Where would I run?” I chuckled as if the idea was so silly that it was amusing. “I live on an island. Where could I go on that island that you could not find me? You found me once, through my father’s blood. What hope have I of avoiding you?”
“This is true,” he replied quietly. “Yet, I wish…”
He stopped. I waited for him to speak. When he failed to, I prompted, “What do you wish, Dragon?”
In the darkness, I felt rather than saw him shaking his head.
“Never mind,” he answered. “It matters not.”
With that, he rolled away, putting his back to me.
“Good night, lass. I will think on your request.”
He would think on it. He would think on it! The answer was not an immediate refusal, as I’d feared. He was not angry that I’d broached the topic. He hadn’t dismissed it outright.
Please. Please think favorably on it, I begged silently.