7. Orchard You Glad to See Me
ORCHARD YOU GLAD TO SEE ME
Aaryn dreamed.
She dreamed of being warm despite the star-filled sky above.
She dreamed of being bigger than she’d ever been before, her breaths disturbing the reeds and grass before her.
And of little orange glowing flowers, which was…
odd, certainly. Captivating. She was… safe.
But confused. Worried. And… still. Too still.
Aaryn was oddly aware of the shape of her own body in bed, the pillow beneath her head, the weight of the covers over her torso. And yet she was also… elsewhere.
It took her a moment to recognize the sensation. She’d so briefly felt this before, just a flash, the night… Starspark was taken.
A familiar face came into view, though she looked smaller than she ever had from this vantage point, and Aaryn gasped, the air of her room cold as it passed her lips, so very different from the warmth she felt in her dream.
It was Thea, the woman who’d stolen Starspark.
The same girl who'd met Aaryn for lunch each day and sparred with her, mostly through wit, except for a few treasured times their bodies had pressed together as Thea had attempted to show Aaryn something exciting.
The same Thea with that freckle on her jaw, visible now as she stared down at…
“How are you doing, Starspark?” Thea’s voice was muddled, as though Aaryn were listening through a wall.
But she heard Starspark’s low, mournful grumble from somewhere deep within herself.
Am I Starspark?
“…know,” Thea cooed, her voice so soft. “…miss her too.”
In the half-sleep, half-waking world she found herself in, she felt her brows rise. Thea missed who?
Her voice was clearer when she said, “You’re safe now. No big bad crown to extort you. No using your breath on innocent villages. You can rest, Starspark.”
He answered with a dismissive huff, and Thea sighed. “You liked me enough to let me ride you. Can you like me enough to quit giving your handlers a hard time?”
Starspark did not answer, and in her dream, Aaryn smiled, finding pride in her chest at her dragon’s stubbornness.
“I know, they're no Aaryn," she said softly. "But you need to spread your wings, you know. At least let us dust you off,” she said, and held up a brush similar to the ones Aaryn used at the castle.
Her heart ached at the sight of it, at the way Thea held it out before Starspark.
He loosed another dejected huff, and Thea sighed, her lips turned down in a frown. She was worried, far more expressive than Aaryn had ever seen her, her expression usually cool and controlled.
Thea slowly lifted the brush, but just before the bristles made contact with Starspark’s scales, she felt the welling of something feral, and he lifted his head to roar—
Aaryn awoke in a cold sweat. The neck of her nightgown was damp, and she wrinkled her nose as she pushed the blankets down her body.
Her pulse was loud in her own ears as she sat up, staring into a distance she no longer saw. This… vision lived in her mind with the familiar haze of a dream, but it did not dissolve upon closer inspection like normal dreams often did. This one remained, a memory.
Was it real? Was Starspark sad and angry? Apparently giving his handlers a hard time?
I’m his handler.
She gritted her teeth.
But he was safe.
With Thea.
Where were they?
Further concentration and inspection of the dream-vision proved unfruitful. There were no landmarks, nothing besides the deep sky overhead and the grasses beyond. And Thea.
Aaryn had not traveled much, of course, and probably wouldn’t recognize a landmark even if she did see one.
She certainly didn't recognize the glowing flowers.
She'd never even seen such things before—surely that had been a trick of the mind, the reflection of the glow of the moon, in this odd vision.
Where could he be? Where could Thea have taken him?
The scar on her palm and wrist burned, and she hissed, lifting it up. Nothing about the mark looked different, but it ached.
What did it mean?
Rest did not find her for the remainder of the moon’s rise. She was consumed with thoughts of Starspark and Thea, and questions she knew not how to find the answer to, or who to ask.
Her night of restlessness followed her into the waking hours. She could sit and linger and wait no longer within the walls of her room.
So she didn't.
Her steps carried her to the orchard, empty at this time of morning. There was a bite in the air from the lingering summer night, but the sun was still bright enough to warm her skin even so early. She tilted her head up to feel the light against her cheeks.
When the Great Dragon could not provide her clarity of mind, he at least provided clarity of sky.
Trees stretched out in every direction, a maze of Granny Smith and Red Delicious and Honey Crisp. Her jaw twanged as she imagined biting into their fruits.
The grass hissed beneath her boots and she wished she could understand its secrets. Did it tell of lovers' trysts hidden amongst the trees? Or perhaps a runaway, trying their chance at a better life elsewhere?
Did they know where Starspark was, and just couldn't tell her?
She scoffed and continued her trek, wishing it were so easy. Instead she awaited word from the prince. As if he knew better for her dragon than even Aaryn did, who had cared for him more days than not.
She was so lost in her thoughts, her growing frustration, that she didn’t hear the crunch of the grass behind her until it was too late.
As she stepped over the protrusion of a tree root, a hand covered her mouth. Aaryn gasped as she was ushered into the shade beneath a plush canopy of branches and leaves. The scent of heather and earth filled her senses just as her back met the rough trunk of a thick tree.
“Don’t shout,” Thea warned, half her face hidden by a dark hood.
Aaryn blinked at her, surprise and something adjacent to that but…warmer filling her.
Thea leaned her whole weight into the palm pressed to Aaryn's lips, her hand hot, cheeks giving way beneath her fingers. Her body pressed against Aaryn, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Inches separated them.
It was likely the closest they'd ever been.
These were observations, if anything.
Their eyes met, and Aaryn forgot what emotions she was supposed to feel. Was that a—no, it wasn't a scar newly slashed into her left brow, but a shaven mark.
Thea eased her grip, and her eyes glinted warily from beneath that hood. "You know, when I used to daydream about us in a different time, meeting under different circumstances, it happened somewhere like this."
She daydreamed about us? Me?
Thea waved her other hand around them, at the branches above and the red, shiny apples, the only witnesses to their interaction.
"We bumped into each other at a place like this.
An orchard. Your apples tumbled to the ground and I, obviously, graciously…
" Thea released Aaryn's mouth to place her fingertips to her own chest, puffing it out proudly, and it never occurred to Aaryn to scream for— "...
Help you pick them up. You'd thank me profusely, and our eyes would linger a little too long.
" Like they were doing just then, as Thea described something close to one of Aaryn's own fantasies.
Thea sighed, and their chests brushed again.
"Then we walk together and I spend infuriatingly too long wondering if your side glances are filled with the same longing curiosity that mine are. "
Her gaze softened as she spoke, and it dipped to Aaryn's lips, who suddenly had the urge to wet them, and flicked her tongue out to do so. Thea followed the movement.
Things seemed to fall away around them beneath the heat of Thea's gaze, the intensity of her presence. She forgot the prince, his warnings, her own anger. Instead she felt something akin to offense that Thea apparently did not remember their first meeting with such fondness as Aaryn did.
Aaryn huffed. "I thought our first meeting was plenty romantic."
What the tear am I saying? Who even mentioned romance?
Then Thea smirked, but there was something sad about the twist to her lips. "I'm glad you thought so. It took me weeks to plan it."
Heat filled Aaryn's cheeks and it had nothing to do with the sunshine speckled down on them between the branches and leaves.
She leaned a little more against the tree, as if that would give her any extra space away from Thea, any clarity.
It didn't.
No wonder Thea did not hold that day in the market in as fond regard as Aaryn did. It was never real to her.
Not like it was to Aaryn.
It was her own embarrassment that hastened her reply, the edge of a defensive blade in her words. "Well, if it was fake to you anyway, I can assume the only reason you'd be here is to return my dragon. Where is Starspark?"
Thea rolled her eyes. Aaryn hated that she found it attractive. "Don't go putting words in my mouth."
Which words did she refer to? She didn't ask it aloud, but Thea must have read it in her expression anyway.
"It was never fake to me," she said softly.
"But it was just a ploy." A plot to get closer to Aaryn, just like the prince and the investigator suspected. "Why me? Just because I had a dragon? Why not any of the other Tethered?"
"I thought you were pretty."
Aaryn snapped her lips shut, the statement filled with such innocence, such longing, perhaps for that alternate reality where none of this had happened and they truly were just two women who'd met in an orchard.
I miss her too.
Had that been real? When Thea had whispered such a confession to Starspark?
Then, as if Thea hadn't dropped such a revelation and made something like regret and want stir within Aaryn, she held her hand out and stepped away. "I can take you to him, if you come with me."
Even in the swirl of confusing emotions, Aaryn knew that was a bad idea.
"No. Bring him back to me, where he belongs. At least then he'll eat," she responded.
Thea's eyes narrowed, her head cocked to the side like a curious puppy. Ready to bite. It made her hood fall, and Aaryn gulped at the sight of the newly shorn pieces of hair that brushed the curve of her chin, the freckle beneath her jaw. She had cut it since the night, since Aaryn’s vision. "How do you know he won't eat?"
Aaryn felt victorious then, holding knowledge that surprised Thea. And in its shadow, a sense of mourning, too, because once upon a time Thea would have been the first person she'd tell a secret like this to. Even now, she rolled her lips to keep the information within.
She couldn't reveal what she knew, not to Thea. The enemy. Right? She should hold her cards close to her chest, like her father had once taught her.
Then again, her father had lost their entire savings at a table of crooks and been chased from the house upon delivering the news. Maybe his advice was not to be followed after all.
Aaryn swallowed under that shrewd gaze and told the truth. Or part of it. "He's my dragon. I know him. I know he wants to come home, where he's safe."
"It's not his safety I'm worried about," Thea muttered.
Aaryn's first thought was likely due to their proximity, the cursed lingering feelings in her chest.
Me?
Why would Thea be worried about Aaryn’s safety? Evergale had been nothing but kind to her.
She let something like a plea drip into her voice, thick as honey. "Bring him back, Thea, and I can ask the prince for leniency. If you helped me, perhaps you wouldn’t face punishment at all.”
For just a moment, Aaryn thought she looked disappointed.
Thea’s expression shuttered, and she spun away, raking her hands through her short hair. It was a good look for her, Aaryn thought absently, uselessly, foolishly.
"The crown is the enemy, Aaryn, not an ally. You're so blind to them," she practically spat, frustration lining her words.
It made her chest sting, and indignation burned. If anyone had a right to be frustrated with this situation, it was Aaryn.
"They have done nothing but provide me with a home, and a community, and a purpose! You're the one that stole it from me!" she snapped, pointing a finger at her chest.
At least Thea looked surprised by her outburst. Maybe too surprised, as her cheeks deepened, a flush of anger or annoyance, and not the shy but pleased blush Aaryn had become acquainted with.
"They do that on purpose! To distract you," she seethed, "so you don't ask questions! Which I suppose doesn't matter, since you've never asked a single question a day in your life, Aaryn!" The venom in Thea's words ate away at her. "You've got to think past the castle walls."
The hurt landed like a clap, Aaryn's cheeks flaming, and it shifted to anger. "I have a question, alright," Aaryn practically growled, and leaned in close. "Where is my fucking dragon, Thea?"
A mix of emotions flashed across Thea's face, and Aaryn had a front row seat to each one, fleeting as they were. Sadness. Resignation.
Even, and perhaps the most devastating of all, the flash of heat in her gaze as it dipped to Aaryn's lips.
"Maybe the next time I find you, you'll be ready," Thea said, shaking her head. She backed up a step.
“What?” Aaryn asked, reaching out, because she sensed Thea’s departure. “What do you—“
Her hand closed around nothing but air as Thea disappeared. “Thea!” She registered the sparkles dancing in the air, the remnants of magic sweet on her tongue.
Aaryn blinked, jaw agape, shock rippling through her.
Magic? In this day and age, when it was so forbidden? How did…
Is that how Thea had… had bewitched Aaryn? Oh, how she hoped for that to be the truth, to explain away this… titillating adrenaline that lingered after their confrontation.
Aaryn sank into a squat, covering her face with her hands as she screamed into her palms. The shiny jewels of her wristlet pressed into her cheek.
She just wanted her dragon. Her companion. Three years she'd spent tending to Starspark every single day, but now… nothing. His absence was a wound and it would not heal until she was reunited with him.
With Thea's disappearance, that wound festered, and bitterness seeped from the poorly-dressed edges, anger filling her as hot as a dragon's breath.
No using your breath on innocent villages.
Thea's words from her dream-memory-vision rang through her head and she huffed, pushing to her feet.
It's not his safety I'm worried about, Thea had said.
What did that even mean? Starspark wasn't being taken into battle. There were no battles. Evergale was sovereign.
Great scales, that woman was so infuriating, so confusing!
The bright sun no longer felt as warm in Thea's absence, the breeze ruffling the leaves and making chills break across her skin. She searched the area, but found no sign or hint of Thea at all, as if the trees themselves helped conceal her.
Aaryn stared up at the sky, perfectly clear thanks to the Great Dragon himself, and pleaded. If Thea could manipulate magic, couldn't he grant Aaryn some to get her dragon back?
Bring him home.