38. Solitude
SOUNDTRACK: Fly on the Wall by Jutes
~ VOSKI ~
Usually, after that kind of travel, I’d soak in the narrow bath of the barracks for an hour, until the water cooled, before sleeping for twelve hours. But that fluttering panic in my chest drove me forward, forward, forward.
I bathed quickly, then ran to our squad room to gather a bag with clean leathers for the following day, and a seedcake for breakfast.
I wouldn’t go far. But far enough that I wouldn’t be walking back to the dining hall to eat in the morning.
I slipped through the barracks by shadows and back stairs, instinctively eluding any glimpse from passers, because I was still receiving shouts of greeting and welcome home everywhere I went, then darted into the night outside and jogged to the stable.
After picking up his harness in the tack room, I found Kham in his stable, the huge sliding door open. The dragons were never true captives in their stables. But he must have stopped the stableboys from closing it. And as I drew closer, I understood why.
Koa had been assigned a large stable across the aisle. Neither space would comfortably fit them both. But they wanted access to each other. Both lay in the straw of their stables in a nest they’d each fashioned, bodies facing the door.
Kham had clearly already eaten and was preparing to sleep. But he was unhappy about being unable to lie with his mate.
I frowned. But my mind skittered away from that unease.
He blew at me as I entered the stable, reaching out with his snout and nudging me in the chest. I spoke to him through the link since the stableboys were probably close enough to overhear.
‘I need your help.’
Kham blew his breath on me and nudged my chest hard enough I had to take a half-step back to keep my balance. ‘You offer this as if it’s new information.’
I tried to smile. ‘I need to be alone tonight. To rest. I need to go to my solitude.’
Kham reared his head up and back, snorting, as if he’d smelled something bad. ‘You should not separate—’
‘Kham, I’m not being difficult. I need this. My body won’t relax. I’m overreacting to everyone. But especially her. I have to be rested for the Acknowledgement tomorrow because Ronen’s insisting I ride wing. I just… need to be alone.’
He exhaled sharply and pushed to his feet, forelegs first so that he sat, then pushed the bulk of his body up with his hind legs, tail lashing for balance. When he was upright, he stretched his wings, then shook like a dog.
He sighed, extending his neck so his nose was just inches from my stomach. ‘I will fly you, because I care for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But I cannot stay with you, Voski. I cannot remain apart from my mate for the night. Not yet.’
That hollow gap in my chest ached, but I nodded.
‘Frankly, neither should you,’ he added.
I winced, but ignored the comment, and hurried forward to toss the harness over his shoulders.
As I busied myself getting it buckled on—neck straps looping to be buckled in front of the chest, which were in turn attached under his forelegs, around his middle, and the counter-braces around each leg—I tried to ignore the pit in my stomach.
I wasn’t surprised that Kham wouldn’t stay with me. Normally we’d be quite comfortable at that distance from each other. But it was still surprisingly painful to realize he had another, new priority over me.
My dragon gave a low, rumbling growl and turned his head to stare at me. ‘I do not choose priority over you—she is the other half of me. To leave her is to leave my own limb. The urgency will pass with time. But that time is not yet.’
I nodded hurriedly and finished buckling the last of the straps.
Then, I patted his leg, thanking him for being willing to fly me when he was tired, and started out into the aisle.
The stable had been built in stone by the original Furyknights, hundreds of years earlier.
It was long, with open ceilings, the aisles large enough for two adult male dragons to pass each other as long as they kept their wings tucked.
Thick beam rafters spanned the stone above the resting height of a dragon’s head, though the larger males would keep their necks extended rather than upright.
The building was in the shape of a huge cross, which left room for external yards between each wing where dragons could be bathed, checked by healers, or fitted for harnesses.
Each of the four building wings had a large door leading outside at its end, though one was left purely for Kgosi, and his mate’s use.
The others led toward the Academy buildings, the lawns near the courtyard outside the dining hall, and the eastern wing opened out to the launch hollow.
That was the exit we used most often. I’d always been glad Kham’s stable wasn’t in that wing.
The western wing, where Kham was housed, was quieter than the northern and eastern wings. It suited both of us.
My dragon followed me, head low, through the stable and out into the night.
I couldn’t ignore the ache in my chest—a reflection of his resistance to leaving his mate.
I sighed heavily to lighten the tension and patted his neck.
He’d kept his head low before we started down the slope to the bottom of the launch hollow.
‘Thank you, Kham. You can just drop me off. I’ll unharness and leave it there, then you can come for me in the morning.’
‘I will. If you’re sure?’
For a split second, I saw the image in his mind—he and his mate curled together, merely lifting a wing to find each other, warm and comforted. Happy. Then me—in the dark, in a bed alone, restless and—
I cut Kham off with a curse. “That’s not fair!” I muttered as we trotted down the launch hollow. “This doesn’t work for me as it works for you. I don’t feel the same way.”
‘You could.’
For a second, bitterness rose in me—hot, unadulterated resentment at my dragon for having found his One and having no questions. Such utter devotion and loyalty that it outstripped his love for me—
Kham reared back with a sharp call, that lowered into a growl.
We stood at the bottom of the launch hollow, staring at each other.
Kham blew from his nostrils as if he’d been running, or flying at speed.
‘Voski, do you hear yourself?’
I looked at my feet, but I couldn’t deny the arguments rising in my head. ‘I know you love me, Kham. But you can’t deny that having a mate has divided your heart.’
He took the steps forward to be near me again, dropping his head and turning it to fix me with one, fathomless, compassionate eye.
I felt the wash of love from him and blew out a breath.
‘My loyalties are not divided,’ he sent emphatically. ‘You impose separation. If you would accept your mate, we four would be a force together—’
‘Stop!’
Kham’s head rose again, though more slowly this time. His eye rolling to remain fixed on me. But he didn’t comment, and that was chilling.
I swallowed hard. ‘I heard you. It’s not possible. Please, let it go.’
A low groan resonated in Kham’s chest, but he sighed, then sank down, folding his legs under him until his bulk lay on the dirt.
I stared at him, agape. ‘Are you refusing to fly me?’
‘Not at all,’ he said turning to nudge the mounting strap that fell over his shoulder, the end of which was pinned under his bulk. ‘But I know the weak often struggle to mount. I thought I would make it easier for you.’
“That isn’t funny.”
‘I found it quite amusing.’
I gave him a flat look, but I was too tired to care that he’d landed a blow. I clambered up onto his back, holding tightly to the straps when he lurched back to his feet and flapped his wings, preparing to launch.
My solitude—the treehouse Gil and I had built years earlier when we were still young and stupid, and sometimes wanted out of the barracks—would take an hour to walk to, but flying with a dragon was mere minutes.
Kham needed no direction. We’d been coming here for years.
There was no path to the solitude. But we’d built it among the branches of a thick pine that was green year round.
Unless someone walked directly underneath it and looked up, they’d never see it.
To our knowledge, no one had ever discovered it.
Gil came out here less and less. But it was my sanctuary. The place we’d both fled at times during our careers as Furyknights—sometimes for fun, sometimes to grieve, sometimes just to be alone.
It was my second favorite place on earth, and the place in which I felt the safest.
Kham landed in a nearby clearing, then stood for me to unharness him.
After I’d rolled the harness up and placed it under the tree where it would be sheltered from any rain, I clapped my hands to dust them off, then turned to face him again.
‘Thank you.’
‘I love you, Voski. Even with a mate. You are my bonded one.’
‘I know,’ I sent back, waving him off. ‘Don’t worry about me. Go enjoy your mate and get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.’
He huffed, then leaned down and blew his hot, damp breath over me, blowing my hair back off my face.
‘Rest well,’ he sent. Then he turned and rolled into a gallop, taking off a few paces later, before climbing into the sky and calling.
Letting his mate know he was on his return.
I swallowed, then jumped to clasp a branch overhead, pulling myself up into the tree, toward the trapdoor in the floor of the treehouse.
As the cold, rough bark scraped at my palms, I shook my head, remembering his words.
You impose separation. If you would accept your mate, we would be a force together.
I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t imagine it, even if I’d let myself try.
And yet, here in the dark and cold alone, I also couldn’t deny that those words lit a flame in my chest that did not want to be doused.
I gritted my teeth, unlatched the trapdoor, then pushed up, into the shadows of the treehouse, shoving the heavy wooden square back, inhaling the welcome smell of pine and damp cold.
As I pulled myself into the small space, the familiar comfort of it wrapped around me like a warm blanket and I breathed easier.
My father’s voice echoed in my head, in time with the clomp of my boots on the hollow floor.
“It’s always better to be alone.”
My father hadn’t been right about much. But he was right about that.
No one who spent a night alone ended it in regret.
No one.