Chapter 27 #2
“I tried to kill myself, when they didn’t.
” The words are coming quickly, now, a rushing current I can’t stop.
“After I watched my fiancé being carried away by one of them, I crawled into the burning shell of my parents’ house, and I just…
I just laid there. Waiting for the flames to reach me.
Which they did. They covered every inch of my body.
But something stopped me from burning—a magic that I didn’t understand at the time. I didn’t want to understand it.”
Realization dawns slowly across his face. “You think it was Sesca’s magic?”
I nod. “I don’t have proof. Just a theory.
I don’t know how she could have protected me across the space separating us.
I don’t know if she was even truly born yet, or just a half-formed creature the gods were still shaping from the aether.
But I knew her before we met that night at your soldiers’ camp.
I just…denied her. To everyone, including myself.
And I kept denying her even after we met face to face, and even after coming here, until I finally realized I had no other choice but to let her in if I was going to survive. ”
He folds his arms across his chest, his head bowed in thought.
“I’ve never told anyone these things, because I didn’t know how people would react back home, if I showed any ties to dragons. Even before Emberfall, the people of my city hated dragons so viciously…if they knew what I was…”
I can’t bring myself to finish that sentence. The silence stretches for an unbearably long time, heavier than any of these chains I’ve been carrying, and I wonder if I’ve only made things worse, telling him all of this.
“What happened that night…” he begins carefully. “It’s nothing you could have helped. Dragons have been shaping this world long before either of us existed. You were born to bond with her; it wasn’t a choice you made.”
“But it was selfish to keep my visions to myself. Selfish to stay in my city instead of leaving and embracing this curse, this destiny, this…whatever it is. Selfish and cowardly. And because of that, thousands of people died.” I clench the railing so tightly that pain bites through my palm.
“So you see why I don’t really want anyone to know me? ”
Another long stretch of silence. The wind picks up, pulling the clouds away and revealing more of the stars and moon—but still no dragon.
Where are you? I wonder.
No reply.
That familiar fear of abandonment continues to wind its way deeper, snaking around my heart and threatening to squeeze it. To crush it.
Then Reave moves closer, his hand coming to rest right beside mine on the railing, fingers just barely brushing against mine.
Staring up at the moon, he quietly says, “I still want to know you.”
I tilt my face toward him, but I don’t know how to reply.
My throat is suddenly so tight that I likely wouldn’t be able to get the words out, anyway.
So I stay silent, following his gaze skyward.
My hands start to absently fidget after a minute, trailing over the marks on either of my arms, clutching them the way I always do when I need to ground myself; I don’t even realize I’m doing it until Reave speaks again.
“That mark on your left wrist…”
I take another deep breath. Another slow exhale. I might as well tell him the truth about this, too, as long as I’m spilling all of my other secrets. “It was…his. The one I was going to marry. A symbol of the vows we made.”
“He had the same mark.”
I nod, even though it’s not really a question.
A pause. “Did you love him?”
I can’t lie, even though some confusing part of me wants to. “With my whole heart.”
Reave considers this for a long moment, his expression shifting through everything from jealousy to resignation before settling on something that’s impossible to read.
When he finally speaks again, he changes the subject.
“It’s true what you said earlier: Divine dragons and their bonded ones can exert control over lesser ones.
The presence of a Flamebound has historically allowed for other people to forge bonds with some of those lesser ones, too, which is another reason every ruler in Kaldra would love to have you on their side—to help them make armies bolstered by dragons and their magic.
And the dragons that have long protected my city…
they’ve become less predictable since you and Sesca arrived.
Harder for us to control, because you two are already interfering, even without trying to.
They recognize her divinity, even if she doesn’t fully understand it herself yet. ”
“How did you control them in the first place?”
Reave hesitates. “It’s complicated.”
“Right.” I fix him with a look. “And absolutely nothing else I’m dealing with is complicated, so yes, good point, that’s a great excuse not to tell me anything.”
He lets out a sigh.
“Just answer my question. I know your kingdom rose to power during a prolonged period where there were no divine dragons gifted by the gods…but why did the lesser dragons agree to serve Mouren? Why did they give you so much power and magic?”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “They didn’t.”
“They didn’t? Then how…” My words fail as his eyes settle on me, a sudden darkness in their depths that I’m no longer sure I want to explore.
“They didn’t give it to us,” he says. “We stole it.”