She licked his ear.
“Yeah, you know. I'm afraid this may need to be permanent. Not this grotto. We'll find somewhere more suitable soon, somewhere less damp. I don't know where yet. It's going to be . . . going to be difficult. I don't like being alone, but I can't do this anymore. I won't be fully alone. I have you. But I'm forcing you into a life of loneliness and I feel terrible about it. Maybe we can find somewhere with a population of wild dragons you can socialize with and a town close enough that I can resupply as needed until we're fully self-sufficient.”
She nestled against him as he sought her heartbeat in the moonlight. They were intertwined in an instant, two minds simultaneously inhabiting two bodies. This was all he wanted for now, this silent closeness with another living being. He knew Serida was all he'd ever have.
“I TOLD YOU YOU'D FALL asleep,” Serida said as soon as they passed into a moonlit dream. “You were never meant to be nocturnal.”
“I couldn't adjust to the change. Is that why I was always so tired?” Tessen looked around, but saw only murk and mist and a darkness beyond.
“Yes. And cranky. You're a creature of daylight. Darkness robs you of your warmth.” She circled him, her tail held high. “I don't like this in-between. Pick a place to settle this dream.”
He took them to a green expanse beneath a snow-crowned mountain range. A large, mirror-like lake sat before them and a dense forest clustered behind. He slowly walked a circle through the green meadow, allowing his hand to brush across flowers and grasses.
“This isn't anywhere real, but I want it to be. This is the kind of place I want to live.” He waited for Serida to catch up, then pointed toward a small knoll. “I'd build a cabin over there. A dock on the shore below it, and a little raft or boat so I can float around and fish in deeper water. Over there I'd plow a patch into a garden. You would have plenty of territory to hunt, and you could visit the wild dragons in the mountains.”
Serida nuzzled his hand. “We can find a place like this. There are many in our world. But this is alone. This path means you'll always and forever be alone.”
“I'll have you.”
“You need more than me.” Serida craned her neck and looked up as a flock of ducks flew across the blue sky. “You need your family. The one you were born into, the one that chose you, and the one you won't let yourself choose. You are social by nature and all solitude will bring you is endless suffering.”
Tears fell from his eyes and dropped as pearls around his feet. “You need to let me find out on my own if suffering alone is better than suffering because I let people close. Right now I think it will be a different kind of suffering, one of longing, but I won't be drowning in all of this pain and confusion and regret that doesn't belong to me.”
“Let me help you. I need to help you figure out how to make your ability selective, make it so it's only as strong as it is now if you choose to invoke it. You're afraid of losing yourself, but I don't think you realize that by becoming alone you lose yourself even more. You lose everything that makes you wonderful, everything that draws people to you. You become loneliness and resigned despair. You will never help another person, or guide them toward finding their potential like you did with the Uldru. You will never know happiness. You will sleep and wake and eat and breathe, nothing more, and you will be welcoming the same annihilation of self that you have been fearing.” Serida sat on her haunches and closed her eyes as a light breeze ruffled the grasses around her. “You are trying to escape what you are. I don't think you should. I think we should take these days to learn and find balance, and then we should rejoin the others.”
Tessen sat on the grass next to her. “And what happens to us if I decide not to return to civilization?”
Serida's shoulders sank in the dragon version of a sigh. “Then I will be with you as you destroy yourself. I will be with you as the madness of solitude claims your mind and your soul. I will never leave you, but I will mourn you long before you are dead. So will your family. We will grieve because we know that even if you aren't dead yet, you are already lost forever. And your body will follow you into that void long before you are old. Ten years, maybe twenty. Your need for companionship is so strong and ingrained that you won't last long without it.”
“But then you'll be free,” he whispered.
She curved her neck around his back to press her head against his heart. “A bound dragon is never free.”
“Then I am no better than a slaver.”
“You don't listen, do you?” Serida's tone was gruff, no different from the many times his mother had asked him the same question. “A dragonbind is mutual. Once it is forged, we become each other. No masters and no slaves, just a me becoming a perpetual us. I know you think it will be easier to live with yourself if you find this dream place you've conjured, but it will be harder. You need to learn how to live with this pain. Not just exist but fully live, love and be loved, and find some measure of happiness.”
“How?” Tessen manifested a small herd of deer at the edge of the lake. They were elegant creatures, with shaggy white fur and broad silver antlers, but they were unlike anything real. They flashed bloodied fangs as they looked up at him, then bounded into the forest in pursuit of a golden rabbit. Perhaps this dream of solitude was not a dream, but a nightmare.
Serida raised her head and snorted at a rainbow-colored butterfly. “Let one person into your heart. Just one. Be as honest with that person as you are with me. Let yourself feel them. Be responsive to their feelings, but that doesn't mean you can't say no. I know you have trouble with that, but doing everything asked of you has amplified your pain and left you weary. You're easily overwhelmed by the presence of others, but I think you can thrive if you start with just one.”
“Who, though? How am I supposed to find just one person in this world of so many?”
Serida rubbed against his side and trilled. “She has already found you. If you hide again, she will find you again because she is like me. She loves you unconditionally and can't bear for you to fade from this world alone. She is as willing to fight for you as I am. Let us both guide you back to yourself and the world.”
The blue sky turned pink and orange, then gray, then black as a rapid sunset ushered in a starry night.
Tessen yawned, then reclined onto the grass and stared up at a spray of shooting stars. “I don't want to burden anyone else with my own internal collapse.”
Serida settled next to him and laid her head on his chest. “That is not a choice you get to make for us. It's time for us to leave this dream. There is more to learn when we wake.”
THE ARM ON HIS CHEST didn't belong to a dragon. Neither did the head using his left shoulder as a pillow. The scent of jasmine waltzed lightly on the misty eddies of the morning air.
He kept his eyes closed as his fingers wandered through her silky hair. He was on his back with his arm around her, and her warmth flowed through his side. This was unexpectedly comfortable and familiar.
...and quiet.
The dominant emotion he felt from her was relief. She had always been good at shielding her feelings from him, revealing only what she wanted him to know. Or what slipped out by accident.
Splash!
Tessen slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to the right. Serida swam through the pond, scooping up the occasional fish and flinging it at Lenna. The larger dragon caught most of them, but the latest fish hit her between the eyes. She growled at the flapping fish and kicked it back into the pond.
He let his hand rest on the back of Kemi's head and said, “The only other time you slept on me like this, we woke to the nightmare of the Parandor arena. I hope that doesn't portend anything horrible today.”
“You're an asshole.” Kemi's voice was muffled, as if she spoke through a clenched jaw.
“Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if I'd have another opportunity to do this.”
She raised her hand, then let her fist drop onto his sternum. “Do what? Become a m
iserable recluse? I know what you're doing. You're giving up, and I won't let you.”
“I know you won't.” He embraced her tighter and kissed her hair. “I think Serida talked some sense into me last night. I don't think I can be around people right now, but maybe just one person is okay.”
“We need to get back on the road to Auberline this morning. They're on foot so we should be able to catch up with them before they get too far ahead.”
“No. I can't be near them right now. They don't shield themselves like you do. The Spellkeeper won't admit she's grieving and in agony, even to herself, and there is a weird dynamic between her and her husband that I don't understand. It's like unexpected love mixed with mourning and I think she's hiding something from him. My uncle is furious with you for not telling him what that spell was going to do, but he has so much self-control that he's acting like everything's okay. Mordegan's just pissed with the world, and Juna has these urges to kill Radamar, but he balls them up and throws them into the marsh. Iefyr is infatuated with both Benny and Radamar, and he thinks the feelings he can't suppress are going to leave him heartbroken again. I can't be with them right now, not if I'm going to learn how to control this enough to live with it.”
“Fine. I'll give you two days here. Then we're going to Auberline. That will give you a couple more days before you have to be near anyone but me. And you're still an asshole.” Kemi sat up and sighed before twisting to face Tessen. Fresh bruising and a sutured laceration marred the left side of her face above her jawline.
He reached up to touch her uninjured right cheek. “What happened?”
She winced and looked down at her hands. “We were attacked by quag imps. Iefyr had to use every bit of fire-skill he could summon to defeat them, and we lost two horses. Everyone is alive, but Benny lost a finger and...” She gingerly touched the suture closest to her mouth. “...and Radamar clipped me with his polearm. I didn't tell anyone that and they think I was clawed by an imp talon. I don't want him to feel guilty about messing up my face, especially since the scar will be hideous.” She swallowed her tears and looked toward the pond.
He held her hand to his face and guided her fingertips along the scar on his own cheek. “Scars are reminders that we survived. You will have one, but it won't be bad. Not with that delicate stitchwork. Did Iefyr do it?”
“No. Mordegan.”
“Mordegan taught Iefyr, so it seems they use the same technique. It'll heal well, and you'll remain as beautiful as you've always been.”
Kemi narrowed her eyes, then grimaced as tears stung her injury. “Sarcasm doesn't suit you.”
“I'm not being sarcastic. That's Shan's talent, not mine. You're beautiful and a scar won't change that. You'll always be beautiful.” He sat upright and gently embraced her. “Don't let anyone make you think you aren't, especially yourself.”
“Oh gods, why do you do this to me?” She pressed her forehead into his shoulder as a sob shook her back.
It starts with her. She'll help you if you let her. Serida chirped as an accompaniment to her unspoken words, then dove once again beneath the water.
“I'm not so oblivious that I haven't noticed the turmoil I've caused your heart,” Tessen whispered. He wove his fingers through hers and kissed her brow. “If you came from any other family, if you carried any other last name, I would almost think we were fated to be together. Dragonbound with dragon eyes, potential for excessively long life, fought together, survived together, and you seem to forgive me for my peculiarities. But you're not from another family. You're Kembriana Lightborn, Silverwind Princess of Anthora and the next Moonlight Guardian. And I'm . . . I'm just the result of a mistake made by two lonely and misunderstood teenagers.”
“I don't know what to do about you,” she sobbed. She squeezed his hands and shook her head. “I'm afraid my heart is going to spend the rest of its life chasing you.”
“Right now, it has caught me. Don't let me run away again. My mind lies when it screams that it wants to be alone.” He let go of her hands and embraced her. “I need you to help me. I tried to dampen, I tried to purge, I tried to run, but I don't think that's how this thing works. Maybe I need to embrace it. And you. I need to feel what you're feeling. Drop the shield, Kemi, drop the emotional restraints.”
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Are you sure? It's . . . there's a reason my mother taught me early how to veil my feelings from empaths.”
“You're my north star in the darkness. Help me find my way home.”
She winced as a shudder spread through her shoulders. “You can't go home and neither can I. Jadeshire is lost to your family, and Anthora and Mountain Home are lost to me. I can't return to my parents, either of them.”
“I suspected as much when you told Ragan not to let your mother know what you were doing. If neither of us can go home, we'll find a new one.” He carefully pushed her hair away from her eyes and smiled. “But first, you need to help me.”
Don't take it all in at once. Focus on one aspect at a time. Serida was next to them now, dripping wet and smelling of fish.
And then Kemi's shield fell.
And then Tessen felt everything.
Her uncertainty hovered above them, a gray cloud shading every facet of her life. Her family, her titles, her future . . . all of it swirled with the daily mundane and rained ashes of sadness upon her shoulders. She was afraid she wasn't good enough, smart enough, capable enough to take on what was needed of her. She dreamed of being someone else, anyone else, but she woke each day to find herself trapped in a life she had not chosen.
Rage simmered around her feet, a low and steady boil that revolved around her relationship with her parents. She loved them, she hated them, she feared them. Mostly, it was fear that rose as steam from the bubbling rage. She was more afraid of her mother than her father, a truth that surprised Tessen until he recognized the underlying notes that told him Kemi knew far more about Lyssandra's deeds and end goals than she had ever revealed. Or course she did . . . Kemi was training to be the next Moonlight Guardian and needed to know the secrets and history that came with the title.
But she didn't want to know. Hovering around her fingertips like gnats swarming rotten fruit was resentment. It carried Lyssandra's distinctive tang. Kemi resented both her mother and something her mother had told her.
“What did your mother tell you? Why don't you want to be the next Guardian?” Tessen asked, his face buried in her hair.
She sniffled as she squeezed him. “She taught me the order of our world, and I refused to accept it. She wants to coerce me into becoming something I'm not and doing things I think are despicable. I can't let her reshape me into a monster. That's why I can't go back to Mountain Home. That's why I can't let her have Benny.”
“What does she want you to do?”
“Become her. And her mother and grandmother and all the women who were called Guardian before her. They guard who can see the moonlight and who can harness its magic.” She sighed deeply and let her hands slide to his lower back. “I have more for you. I wear two shields, one for everyone else, and one for you. I'm scared, though. I'm afraid you'll think less of me if I share this with you.”
“Is it irritation and hatred because I'm an asshole?” Tessen asked. A playful punch tapped his gut, and it took him a moment to recognize it as something she felt and not something she did.
“No.” The cloud of uncertainty reflected in her eyes as she looked up at him. Her embrace loosened and she ran two fingers down his cheek and jaw. “Promise you won't run away if I reveal this to you.”
“I promise.” He smirked at Lenna, who stared at him from the sunlit side of the vines. “Besides, Lenna will just chase me down again.”
“She won't. If you run after this, I'm letting you go.”
And the second shield crumbled.
A tangled knot twisted in his gut, a prickling longing for closeness, for intimacy. His breath caught in his lungs and his heart accelerated to a flutter as
a rainbow of emotions wrapped around him, embraced him like a heavy cloak. This was joy and exuberance and desire and lust, with a hint of obsession and an overwhelming, all-consuming need to be touched. This was agony at separation and delight at return, a tingling vibration that spread through each part of his body in turn as he shifted away or pressed closer. This was comfort and familiarity, an irrefutable hope for a future that rationality and tradition screamed was impossible. This was pain, an injury a simple friendship couldn't heal.
“You're very much in love with me, aren't you?” he whispered. He stared into her glossy eyes as he stroked her hair. “You have been for a long time, but I rejected you and your mother told you that you had no business harboring more than friendly feelings toward me. You tried to move on and forget how you felt about me, but it only grew stronger and hurt you more. Now your heart aches with every beat and you feel like you're destined to be alone because you've never felt like this about anyone else and don't think you ever will.”
She looked away as the tears fell down her bruised face. This was despair and hesitation, embarrassment, regret. The hope was fading to cold ashes.
He nudged her chin back to center and gently, carefully kissed her lips. She relaxed against him, but the feelings remained as sharp as knives. She leaned back and shook her head. “The most wonderful dreams I have are where we are married with a couple children. We don't have to worry about my parents or the burden and fear that comes with me being their daughter. We are happy and free and we have far more years ahead than we have behind.”
“You told me you won't return to your family.” Butterflies fluttered around his chest as he let his hand settle on the back of her neck. “That means you've already decided to start over, as someone else. I want to give you the life you desire, the life you deserve. Will you let me?”
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