Lord Tavarian gave me a wry smile. “Yes, I’ve heard about that,” he said. “Professor Haviar was so pleased when you managed to recover his pipe for him, he wrote me a letter praising you and your accomplishments. But in doing so, he reminded me that you haven’t been taught to realize the full potential of your talent.”
“I…what?” My heartbeat picked up speed. “You mean I can do more with it?”
“Undoubtedly.” He rose from his chair, offering me his arm. “Would you like for me to show you?”
“Of course.”
I allowed Lord Tavarian to lead me down the steps, and we sat down right in the middle of the grass, cross-legged, our knees mere millimeters from each other. “Hold your hands out, palms facing me,” he instructed.
I did, and he pressed his own palms against mine. That spark of energy leapt in my veins again, and I became hyperaware of the warmth of his skin against mine, the subtle strength in those rough yet elegant hands. I felt that something stirring in the air, an invisible current that made my heart race and the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight on end.
Careful, my mind cautioned.
More! my heart roared.
Tavarian’s gaze met mine, and something flared in their silver depths, as if he felt the same emotion that stirred in my own heart. But in the next second it was gone, those pools mercurial once more, impossible to penetrate.
“Close your eyes,” he said softly, “and clear your mind, as you were taught.”
I did as he said, falling back on the breathing exercises we were taught during our morning meditation drills. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Over and over I repeated the breathing pattern, until my heartbeat slowed, until my scattered thoughts had been cleared away, and I simply was. Uncomplicated, unmoved by either confusion or desire or power.
If only I existed like this all the time, I thought, and then batted that thought away. My insecurities, my doubts and fears, were not allowed in this sacred space.
“Good. Now call upon your talent.”
I opened my inner sense, and that familiar cacophony of sounds filled my mind. At first the sound was overwhelming, but as I held onto my calm, grounding myself in my headspace, I realized the sound wasn’t coming from the outside world, but resonating from within my head.
“That’s it,” Tavarian said encouragingly as I began to parse the jumble of sounds into separate, distinct signals. “Now, find the box.”
My mind instinctively grasped the word, and in an instant, I’d eliminated two thirds of the signals. Tavarian fed me additional details—size, weight, materials—and within a few minutes, I managed to pinpoint the object.
“There.” I opened my eyes and pointed to a window on the second floor. “In that room.”
“Very good.” Tavarian inclined his head. I realized with a start that the palm of my right hand was still joined with his. “Now close your eyes again.”
I did as he said, joining our left hands together. I wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but somehow Tavarian was able to track my thoughts through our joined hands. The moment I had that realization, a seed of panic bloomed in my chest. What if I revealed something I shouldn’t have? What if I thought of—
“Zara.” Tavarian’s voice, deep and sure and steady as the earth, cut through the maelstrom of fear in my head. “It’s all right. Whatever memory or fear has been triggered has no hold over you. Push it aside and bring yourself back to the present.”
A wave of relief washed over me, so intense that my eyes popped open. “Hang on. You mean you’re not actually reading my thoughts?”
“No. I’m merely feeling your emotions.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Why? Are you afraid I’ll see something you’re not ready to share?”
“No,” I lied. “I just…this is all so strange to me. How are you able to do this? Is this your talent?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up into one of his half-smiles. “You could say that,” he said. He held up his hands again. “Come, Miss Kenrook. Let us finish what we started.”
Taking a deep breath, I pressed my hands against his and closed my eyes. “Good,” he said once I’d cleared my head again. “Now this time, I want you to reach for an object and visualize it in your mind.”
“Huh?” I furrowed my brow, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “How do I do that? How can I visualize something I haven’t seen?”
“It’s not a matter of seeing,” Tavarian said, his tone as placid as the surface of a mirror. “It’s a matter of perceiving.”
A burst of confusion took root in my mind, sending the signals scattering. Taking in another breath, I gently pushed the emotion away, then opened my inner sense again. Perceiving, I thought as I reached for the nearest signal.
I focused all my attention on the signal, allowing the soft chime to wash over my mind. Seconds passed, but as I sat there, simply perceiving, a shape began to take form in my mind. A horse…no…a dragon. Tiny, the size of a bronze doran, and studded with sapphire stones…
“A pin.” I opened my eyes and pointed at Tavarian’s pocket. “It’s a dragon pin.”
He smiled, then pulled the pin out of his pocket. “Captain Marcas told me that a dragon pin was found on your parents, but that it had been sold off,” he said. “All dragon riders are required to have one for formal occasions. This one is yours.”
He pressed the pin into my hand, and another ball of emotion swelled in my chest. But before I could thank Tavarian, a servant rushed from the house.
“My Lord.” He bowed. “A courier is here with a missive from Councilor Salbrath. It cannot wait.”
Tavarian was on his feet in an instant. “My apologies, Miss Kenrook,” he said briskly, all business. “I must attend to this matter. Please enjoy the gardens, and feel free to practice your talent while you wait. I should not be gone long.”
He strode into the house, the servant on his heels, and I let out a breath, relieved to finally have a moment to myself. Ever since I’d set foot in this garden, I felt like I’d been tossed into the sea—one moment coasting on gentle waves, the next gripping onto a raft as tumultuous waves of emotion battered me.
“Well?” Lessie nudged my elbow, and I gasped—I hadn’t realized she’d come to sit next to me. “Are you going to put it on?”
I laughed. “This isn’t a special occasion,” I said, but I pinned the brooch onto my blouse, just over my heart. I wished I had a mirror to see how it looked, but I knew the tiny sapphires, so close in hue to Lessie’s own scales, would be stunning against the white of my shirt.
“Perfect.” Lessie nestled her head in my lap. “See? I told you everything would be fine.”
We cuddled in the grass together, content to bask in the rays of the sun as we waited for Tavarian to come back. As my mind wandered, I cast my inner sense out, curious to see how far I could go. To my surprise, my exercises with Tavarian allowed me to stretch my senses much farther than before, past the garden, past the fields, all the way to the outskirts of—
GONG.
I jerked as the sound reverberated through my head, louder than anything I had felt before. It was as if I were standing directly beneath one of those temple bells, the kind as tall as me, listening to it ring. The vibrations went straight through my body, and I quaked from the force of them.
“Zara?” Lessie’s voice was high with alarm. “Zara, are you all right?”
No. No, I was not all right. Because the waves of sound had coalesced into a giant chunk of black diamond roughly the size of a dinner plate. Two of the sides sported dull but jagged edges, as though they’d been broken off a larger piece, but the third side, the largest, was smooth as polished obsidian and gently curved. I’d never seen anything like it, but I knew exactly what it was.
A piece of the World Eater’s heart.
13
The next week passed excruciatingly slowly, worries gnawing on my mind and making it difficult to focus. It showed in my classes—I was falling behind again, barel
y able to concentrate with the thorn of knowledge constantly digging into my side.
“Miss Kenrook!” Professor Gainsley’s sharp voice cracked through the fog in my mind. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
I blinked, looking up at her. The entire class was staring, and the professor had a pinched look on her narrow, rawboned face. “Sorry,” I said, too fuddled to go with anything but blunt honesty. “I haven’t.”
Her lips thinned. “Since you can’t be bothered to pay attention in class, I think an hour of detention will do you good. I’ll set you up with an appointment with the stable master once you’re finished.”
Mucking out stalls. Great, I groaned silently, burying my hands in my hair.
“It could be worse,” Lessie told me later, craning her neck over the gate to watch as I ran a rake through the stall across from hers, dragging the giant dragon turds into a pile so I could scoop them up and put them in the wheelbarrow. “They could have had you scrubbing toilets instead. At least here you’ve got me for company.”
“Thanks,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my words. “You could help me, you know.” I turned to meet her gaze over my shoulder.
Lessie’s nostrils flared. “I refuse to touch Kacarie’s droppings. She told me I was high-strung and obnoxious yesterday.”
I bit back a laugh as Lessie tossed her head. Judging by the size of the droppings I was raking, Kacarie had to be twice Lessie’s size. Most of the dragons here were far larger than Lessie, but she bossed them around as if she were the alpha. I imagined that Kacarie, who was used to being the only female dragon around, was getting mighty tired of watching Lessie strut her stuff.
“Kacarie’s just jealous,” I told her. “But I don’t blame you for not wanting to touch her poop.” Hell, I wouldn’t do this job if I had to touch it directly with my hands. There were certain lines you just didn’t cross, and touching poop was one of them.
“You know,” I said after a minute, “you don’t have to stay in here with me. You can go frolic with your friends.” The few dragons that had not been called off to war had been put out to pasture for the afternoon so the stalls could be cleaned.
“Don’t be silly. You are the only person I want to spend time with right now,” Lessie said affectionately. “The rest of the dragons—”
Her words were cut off by a wave of excitement, and I nearly staggered into the wall from the intensity of her emotions. “They’re back!” she crowed. “They’re coming back!”
“Who?” I asked, but Lessie had already barreled out of her stall. I raced after her, and the two of us burst out of the stables just in time to see twenty-odd dragons coming in for a landing. They flew together in perfect formation, and my heart leapt at the sight of Jallis toward the front, his green dragon glittering in the afternoon light.
As the other dragons who had been left behind joined us, Lessie rose up on her hind legs and blew a torrent of fire from her mouth in welcome. The dragons in the sky returned her greeting in kind, and I shivered in awe as dozens of streams of fire lit the sky. The heat of their flames didn’t reach me from this distance, but they shimmered in the sky, the waves flirting with wisps of cloud. Lessie’s desire to join them in the sky sang in my blood, and we both watched with envy as they glided lower, coming in for the landing.
“Why do you think they’re back so early?” Rhia asked, coming to stand next to me. The other students had seen the dragons returning as well, and had raced out to welcome the riders. The dragons were getting closer, and the airship behind them ferried the other cadets. Aria would be among them, I mused. I wondered if she’d managed to get herself back in Jallis’s good graces. “Have they finished their training already?”
“Could be,” I lied, my heart pounding in my chest. Could it be that Tavarian had listened to my plea? That he managed to convince the council members to call off their attack?
The dragons landed smoothly in the field, a good fifty yards from where we stood. But even at that distance, the vibrations from so many gigantic beasts landing at once rumbled the earth beneath my feet.
The other cadets raced forward to greet their fellow students, excited chatter filling the air. Why were they back? What was the training like? Had the war been postponed? Questions swirled in the air around me, but I stood rooted to the ground, mired in confusion.
It seemed every time I thought I knew what path I walked, the ground fell out from beneath me and I found myself on a different road. When I’d found the piece of heart on Tavarian’s estate, I thought I’d finally resolved things. Salcombe was right—Tavarian had at least one piece, and it was entirely possible that he was collecting more, with the intention of resurrecting the World Eater.
And yet, Tavarian didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would risk the annihilation of our world simply for the sake of power. He had shown me kindness several times and had taken my advice seriously. Why else would the cadets be back, when just last week we’d been told they’d be training for three weeks and then immediately deployed?
“Zara!” The sound of Jallis’s voice tore me from my conflicted thoughts. He raced toward me, a grin on his handsome face that penetrated the fog in my brain and lightened my heart.
“Jallis—” I began, but before I could finish, his hands were around my waist, and he was spinning me through the air. A giddy rush went through me as his lips met mine, and, throwing caution to the winds, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. His grip on me tightened, and we clung to each other for a moment, simply savoring that human connection, that warmth that hummed in my blood and awakened desires in my heart.
Eventually, Jallis pulled back, a dazed look in his eyes. “Does this mean that you missed me?” he asked, running his thumb along the edge of my cheek.
“Maybe.” I gave him a playful smile as I stepped out of his embrace. “Is that why you’re back early? Because you couldn’t stand to be away from me?”
Jallis laughed. “Nothing quite so romantic. The attack on Zallabar has been postponed. Something about needing time to gather more intelligence.”
“That seems smart,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral. There was no doubt in my mind—Tavarian had definitely called off the attack.
“Agreed,” Jallis said. “As a soldier, I know I’m supposed to just follow orders, but something about this whole thing made me uneasy. The Zallabarians aren’t suicidal—if they’re choosing to engage with us now, they must have something up their sleeve.”
“I knew I liked you for a reason,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. But I couldn’t muster up a smile for him, not when my worries were crowding my thoughts again.
“Hey.” Jallis took me by the shoulders. “Is everything all right? You seem…down.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “It’s been a long week. And I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” Jallis asked carefully.
I bit my lip. What could I possibly tell him? That I was worried my new benefactor, the man I’d pledged my fealty to, was possibly trying to end the world? Or that I was worried that my mentor, the man who’d raised me up from the slums and given me a better life, was lying to me? Even though Salcombe was right to be concerned about the piece of heart, he wasn’t exactly the best person to hand it over to. What if he decided to use it for nefarious purposes himself? I didn’t think Salcombe, who worshipped at the altar of logic, would risk ending the world, but just what could someone do with a piece of the dragon god’s heart? Was there a way to harness its power? If anyone knew, it was Salcombe.
And yet, I couldn’t ask him about it. If I did, it would tip him off about my suspicions, and he would shut me out completely.
“That bad, huh?” Jallis quirked an eyebrow.
I blushed, realizing that several seconds had passed without giving him an answer. “Sorry, I just—”
“It’s okay.” Jallis smiled. “You don’t have to explain. Everyone has bad days, or bad weeks, judgi
ng by what you said. It sounds like you just need a bit of downtime, to get away from what’s been bothering you. Why don’t you come with me? We can hang out at my place for a bit.”
“Your place?” I echoed. “Do you mean your family estate?” My heart leapt with both fear and excitement.
“Yeah, but it’ll just be the two of us,” Jallis said. “My parents are away on a trip and won’t be back until next weekend. We’ll have the entire place to ourselves.” He waggled his eyebrows.
I laughed. Spending the entire weekend away with Jallis was tempting, and yet… “I don’t think I can get away with taking the entire weekend off. I have to go back down to the city tomorrow and help out with the shop.”
“Just for tonight, then.” He held out his hand. “Come on, Zara. It’ll be fun.”
I glanced over at Lessie, who was play-wrestling with Kadryn off to the side. “Are you okay with me riding Kadryn again?” I asked her.
She didn’t even pause in her play. “If spending the night with Jallis gets you out of your melancholic funk, I am all for it.”
I snorted. “Lessie says I can go,” I told him.
“Excellent.” He pulled me in for another kiss, and this one had an edge of hunger to it that made my nipples tighten in response. “Pack your bag,” he said huskily. “I’ll be waiting right here.”
I hurried off to the dormitories and packed a change of clothes and my toothbrush. Suddenly, I wished that I’d brought something a little nicer than the ratty pair of pajamas I wore to bed every night. They were incredibly comfortable, but not at all sexy.
Oh well, I thought as I tugged the drawstring on my pack closed. If Jallis really wanted me, he’d care less about what I was wearing and more about getting me out of it.
I locked up my room and took two steps down the hallway before someone slammed their hand into my chest. My head cracked against the wall, and I stared into Aria’s face, her eyes wild, her teeth bared in a furious snarl.
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