Chapter 19 #2
“That is exactly what they are made for,” I disagreed, leaning against a rough boulder, ready to resume walking but striving for patience as I let Kerstin have her respite.
“Not such great distances,” she countered. “I’m a dragon.” She gave me a pointed look that I did not miss. It was a reminder that she and I were the same. “Built for flying. Not a human built for walking.”
“You are both,” I insisted. We are both.
She gave me another look. “What a strange creature you are, Tamsyn.” She shook her head and released a huff of laughter that made me feel quite foolish, as though I’d gotten it all wrong—as though I was wrong. “I am not both. And neither are you.”
I shrugged as though it was not worth arguing and glanced away, wondering if she understood the nature of what we were better than I did.
That unsettled me … and annoyed me. Until I thought that perhaps it was the other way around.
Perhaps I understood our nature better. I was the one who’d had a taste of both worlds, after all.
I had been brought up a human. I could empathize with humans as well as with dragons.
No one else could say that in the pride.
Maybe I was the only one who understood we were both things. Dragon and human.
What a strange creature you are, Tamsyn.
I didn’t want to be a strange creature. I wanted to belong, to fit somewhere.
I rubbed my palm against the side of my thigh, the soft buzz there so faint that it made me tense and anxious.
Lately, Fell had been quiet. We weren’t exactly roaming aimlessly, but I didn’t feel as locked in on our direction as before.
I tossed an impatient glance Kerstin’s way. “Are you ready? We need to keep going.”
“Fine,” she groaned, reaching for her boots.
I started forward and made it only a few feet when my hand went suddenly cold. The steady thrumming beat at the center of my palm stopped. Went dead. A line cut.
I gave my hand a fierce shake as though it had fallen asleep and that would stimulate the pulse that had once hummed and throbbed and guided me like the rudder of a ship.
Nothing.
My hand felt nothing.
Fear lanced my heart and my knees wobbled. I turned in an unsteady circle as though I might see something in the blur of snowsplattered rockscape that would clear up my confusion. My mind raced, thoughts churning, frantic to grab hold of something.
Perhaps I’d simply moved too far in the wrong direction, away from Fell, and my palm had gone silent.
I charged one way, my cloak snapping behind me. Then another. And another. Desperately searching for the faintest sign from him. Just a hint. A lifeline. The tether that was always there.
I dashed around wildly like a motherless lamb, senselessly, holding my hand out in front of me as though it were some kind of broken compass. It felt like that. An instrument that had failed me.
“Tamsyn? What is it? Are you—”
Gulping back a sob, I whirled, holding up my hand like a torch that had burned out. “I can’t feel him! He’s gone!”
She frowned. “What do you mean … gone?”
“One moment I felt him, as always, and now I can’t!” I clutched at my chest, at the spreading ache there. A hollow pain. A chasm where Fell’s heart had once been, lodged alongside mine. “What is happening? Where is he?”
Her expression grew grave, her eyes soft and sad and … pitying. “Oh, Tamsyn. I’m sorry.” She clasped my hand that should be alive and buzzing.
“Where did he go?” I croaked.
“If the bond is gone … so is he.”
Panic bloomed in me—the same kind of panic I’d felt on the day a bloody and broken Vetr had stumbled home with the news that Fell was gone. Loss. Despair. This was that all over again.
Only this time, it was the truth. It was real.
“No. That’s impossible. He’s been with me. He can’t—”
“No room to move, to breathe. No food, no water, no company for so long.” Kerstin shook her head slowly as she listed these things.
“Magic needs a place to thrive. Without a place to go, it can do things to you. Break you so badly even the svefn can’t protect you anymore.
Eventually you have to be free or …” Her voice faded as she gazed at me.
“Or what?” I demanded. “You die? I thought a dragon couldn’t die that way.”
“Well, no.” She winced a little. “Not a traditional death.”
“A traditional death?” I laughed mirthlessly. “What does that mean?”
“Well, the svefn can deepen and pull you into a darker, deeper … unreachable place.” Her ochre eyes were wide with pity for me, and I saw my own sorrow reflected in them. “A place where even you can’t find him.” Her head turned slowly side to side. “And he can’t find you.”
“So … I’m too late?”
At her silence, I staggered back, away from her. When she didn’t refute my question, I turned and stared out at the maw of wilderness. The wind whistled, razor-sharp on my face. I looked all around at the vast expanse of snow and rock and white-dappled trees.
Again, I started one way, then another …
until, overwhelmed at the immensity of terrain before me, the limitless possibilities of where he could be, I stopped.
Dropped to my knees with jarring force. It was no good.
My gaze flitted wildly, like a bird seeking refuge, seeking a place to go, a place to land.
There was nowhere.