CHAPTER 23
“Your power is in constant flux. It is a great spinning wheel, and you must always follow its curve.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“Fail to use your magic, and it will use you. Use too much of it, and it will take from you instead. Deny yourself time to rest, and it will devour us both.”
—Recounting from the private diary of Jerris, Dragonbound
SERAE
Mid-Autumn, Basmon 1036
The morning dawned with a red sky. The sun shone deep umber until it cleared the horizon.
Sprakt and I spent the sunrise staring out the window in stoic silence.
The stones were cold as ice beneath my forearms as I leaned against the windowsill.
I was trapped inside, wrestling with my conscience, even though the morning stillness beckoned me to the gardens.
My feet itched for soft earth again instead of the unforgiving stone, but something in Wep’s urgency held me back.
So, I paced.
It was too early for a breakfast tray, even if I went to the kitchen to request one.
Yesterday, in the tumult of returning to the keep after buying Sprakt, I forgot about the very real practicalities of caring for him—like what he ate, where he would sleep, and where he could relieve himself besides my chair and floor.
If he were a flighted bird, he could hop right off the windowsill and hunt to his pleasure.
How long did it take wing feathers to regrow?
I’d need to find food for him until then.
I dressed in a simple tunic and skirt, then resumed pacing. Perhaps the silence that hung around the keep was good news.
“You’re restless.”
“I can see why dragons are considered the most intelligent beings.”
“We are. Speak to me in your mind.”
“I can’t right now, obviously.”
“Just think your words directed at me.”
“And a wealth of knowledge, too.” I sighed. My mind was a whirling mess, but I tried to push through it for her. “I hate being trapped inside.”
“Good. Come to me if you need to be free of those walls.”
“I can’t. I have to stay here.” The urgency in Wep’s tone and the desperation in his kiss still haunted me.
Sensing my thoughts, Vaya’la snorted. “The demands of humans mean nothing to dragons and our Bound. There is nowhere safer than at my side. Come to me, and we will walk between dreams.”
I was tempted, but there was no way for me to get a horse on my own at that hour. I could try to wake Callagh, but she would never agree. She also still lived outside the keep, though within the castle walls, with her mother.
A knock startled me out of the morning quiet, but when I opened the door, Teke was smiling at me instead of Callagh. Their arms were piled high with cloth.
“I knew it,” they announced. “Already moping about being stuck inside. Lucky for you, I brought us a project.” They pushed their way inside, dropped the pile on a chair, then tossed a pouch onto my table that clinked suspiciously.
“No arguments,” they said at my sharp look. “I’m paying, which means you need to get to work.”
“Fine,” I conceded, a smile tugging at the corner of my lips. “Help me get my supplies.”
Teke and I did more than just gather supplies.
We dragged the black table up the Training Hall stairs and into my room, along with extra pillows stolen from the Relaxation Room.
I was going to question this, but when Callagh showed up partway through rearranging the space with Lex and Helene in tow, my questions died away.
While I worked, they poked through my bottles and designs, asking questions and feigning interest in my overlong explanations.
After a while, they left me in peace to collect breakfast trays.
I considered protesting that I was confined to the keep, not my rooms, but it gave me the perfect opportunity to expend some of my built-up magic.
So much time among friends in my room reminded me of the weeks I’d spent cooped up with only Gerta.
I latched onto the raw emotion her absence elicited and used it to bloom cherry blossoms by the dozens, then push them all into fruit.
“I’ll never go hungry again, will I?” I asked Vaya’la, examining my work in the form of a tub full of cherries.
“Did you ever go hungry before?” she mocked. She was right, I hadn’t experienced that sort of hardship. A new way I could be of use to the Riht blossomed alongside the tiny pink flowers as they shriveled and turned to fruit.
Chatter outside the door announced the return of my companions—Lispen now among them—and I took care to latch the door to my private bath as I rejoined them.
“Where’d the bird come from?” Lex asked as we ate from our trays scattered around my sitting room.
Callagh’s eyes lit up. “A gift from Wep.”
“Not a gift,” I shot back, but the damage was done.
The rest of the meal was spent with food turning to ash in my mouth as Lex, Callagh, and Teke gushed about the love they imagined between us.
Turned out, I was worse than I thought at keeping my eyes off him during training.
They devolved into tales of sweeping romance rife with looks of longing and passion.
In another life, their show of support would have meant the world to me, but I couldn’t ignore reality.
In the Riht, I was betrothed to Ell. In Inra, I would be trapped with Tam. I had no other options.
When the topic turned to the murky waters of planning our future, the walls of the room threatened to close in on me.
I set my tray aside and returned to my work.
My heart ached hearing the happiness they imagined for me.
Perhaps they thought I could change Dane’s mind, swapping a marriage with his heir to his second son.
If a marriage between a dane and dana was a real one, surely Ell would be better suited with someone else anyway.
Could I approach Dane, admit to being a second-born daughter, and beg him to adjust the betrothal alliance?
Would Wep even want that with me? My mind spun until my fingers clutched my brush, and my usually smooth lines wobbled.
After a while, Helene came to my side and offered to help me work.
“Thank you,” I breathed, flexing my fingers and handing over the brushes I’d been alternating between in this three-color pattern. “They’re a bit much.”
Her soft smile was filled with mischief. “They can’t speculate about your life when they know nothing about it,” she whispered.
I looked at her in a whole new light. “You sly thing.”
Her smile turned to a full-on smirk.
They spent the day cooped up with me without complaint, except for Lex, who whined about everything.
Eventually, a deck of cards made its way out, and the four of them, excluding Helene and me, took up some game I’d never heard of that involved a lot of shouting and throwing of cards across the room.
The game was mostly friendly until Lex announced, “You’re worse at leading cards than you are at leading the ranng.
No wonder Raif won’t hand over command!”
Lispen jumped from her chair. “We are not fighting over command, you ass!”
“But you’re fighting about something?” Teke asked.
Helene and I looked up to watch. I’d never talked about Lispen and Raif with her, but I guessed she had picked up on the tension between them, too.
“We’re not fighting,” Lispen repeated through clenched teeth.
“Then you’re fucking.” Lispen kicked straight for his gut, Lex lunged to the side just in time to miss the brunt of it. “You can be as mad at me as you want, but it’s one of the two. I’m never wrong where a cock is involved.”
“Don’t be so crass.” It was Callagh who spoke up, earning raised brows from the other three. “What? I like sex as much as the next, I’m just tired of him always talking about it.”
I glanced at Helene, whose lips pressed together, but her eyes dropped away from my gaze.
A knock at the door dispersed the subject. Teke jumped up to answer it.
“A letter for you.” They held out the familiar white wrapping and red crest. Another letter from Merria?
“Just leave it on the table,” I said. The last thing I needed today was stress from my idiotic sister.
A smile twisted my lips at the thought that both Wep and I had an older sibling we could rarely stomach—though it quickly soured.
That older sibling was my betrothed, and deep down, I knew trying to change that wouldn’t work.
That feeling of being trapped settled over me, drooping my shoulders as I turned back to my work.
When the sun sank in the sky, restlessness won out, and the group trickled away one by one.
Each left with a promise to return tomorrow.
I cleaned my brushes and tidied my bottles of dye and cloth while Callagh set the rest of my room back to rights.
She tutted as she tackled the mountain of papers strewn across my writing desk, then gaped when she peeked into the privy and discovered my fruit-laden tub.
I’d forgotten she carried a copy of my key.
“You can make fruit?” she asked. Then, ignoring my stuttering, “Does Wep know?”
I sighed. “He will. I just need time.”
“Well, let’s just leave this here for him to see. Or maybe, you prefer the one-on-one time with him?” Her smile widened.
The room was suddenly far too hot. “I don’t know what you mean,” I lied, pretending like the entire afternoon’s conversation hadn’t revolved around me and Wep.
A stillness crept over her face as she regarded me. Whatever she was searching for, she only asked, “You care for him, don’t you?”
If only anything were that simple. Had I been sent here as his future bride instead of Ell’s, there would be no question.
With my father’s deception, my complicity, and the impending betrayal of Inra hanging over my head, the better question was whether I’d be allowed to live, let alone worry about which brother held my heart.
And now, there was Vaya’la to consider. Whatever she had in store for me, I had a feeling it would one day take me far away from Drakh and the Riht.
There was zero chance Wep could pick up and go with me, abandoning his duty to his dane and the people.
If he even wanted to. Tears pricked my eyes, but I blinked them away and said, “It’s not meant to be. ”
After bringing me a dinner tray with a bowl of seeds and berries for Sprakt, she left me in peace.
I picked at my food while the sun slipped beneath the horizon.
I considered writing more in my new journal, but I was too fidgety to write.
I’d been sitting in stillness the entire day, but unable to fully slip into my trance-like state with Vaya’la, not with so many people in the room.
Instead, I paced.
“This restlessness is grating,” Vaya’la chided. After keeping her silence for most of the day, this comment irked me.
“You would be too if you were trapped in the same room all day.”
“Then come to me.”
I huffed. “Not this again.”
“Fine. Go to the garden where the sacred tree grows. Sit beneath it on the bare earth, and we can begin.”
Technically, I’d made no promises, I reminded myself, and the gardens weren’t outside the castle.
It was hardly a risk to go mere feet outside the keep walls, especially under the cover of night.
Without another thought, I grabbed a thick cloak and tossed it over my shoulders.
I picked up my boots but did not put them on, preferring to pad down the hallways barefoot.
Sprakt jumped onto my shoulder. There were few moving about the keep at this hour, but still, I sidestepped the common stairways and hallways.
With a bit of luck, I made it to the garden unseen.
“Now what?”
“Close your eyes and feel for the tree.”
“How?”
“Use your feet.”
My feet? “That doesn’t make—” Seafoam green exploded from my lifelight as astonishment gripped me.
A thread of magic pulsed beneath me, untangling from the rest and latching on, linking me to the essence of the tree.
The little strand tugged, compelling me forward—not quite through my feet, but through my connection to Jaeda and all of her sparkling threads.
I followed it to a section of the garden I hadn’t visited before, tucked in a private corner.
Soft pink and white blossoms floated to the ground and bench beneath a wide canopy.
I sat directly on the earth beneath the tree’s shelter.
Sprakt hopped from my shoulder to the bench and eyed the tree, looking for a low branch to jump toward.
I tamped down a flicker of guilt at being outdoors and focused only on Vaya’la.
“Deep breaths, Small One,” she whispered to me. “Settle your mind; steady your heart.”
The chill air whipped around me, prickling my face, though most of my body was warm under the cloak.
The ground was damp but forgiving. The last rays of the sun’s purple light had disappeared below the horizon.
The moon and stars twinkled overhead, lighting my surroundings with the softest glow.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breath.
“Relax,” Vaya’la breathed.
With every exhale, I focused on relaxing a part of my body, starting with my toes, then ankles, then legs and knees, then hips, and up my body until I reached the top of my head.
“Connect to me.”
I let go of myself, slipping into Vaya’la’s mind. I fell from consciousness and tumbled into sleep.