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A dozen more stand.
Coral’s counting, too. “Forty-one,” she says.
“That can’t be all of you,” I say. “Almost eighty of you would choose to be bonded to your blessed?”
“What about you?” I notice that Penelope isn’t standing. She is, however, staring at me with clear eyes. “You’re entwined, but would you walk away if given that chance?”
I open my mouth to say that if I had a choice, I’d never be bonded to a dragon. But is that true? If Azar gave me that choice today, what would I do?
It’s complicated.
Flying with him, fighting with him, they’re exhilarating. They’re different than anything else I’ve ever experienced. I think about how, without thought, he shifted and hugged me. He doesn’t have emotions like we do, or at least, he didn’t. But he’s learning, and he cares. Part of me thinks that I can do more good for humanity right here, bonded to him, than I could anywhere else.
Is that an excuse?
Maybe.
But it’s a plain truth that. . . “If I were given the chance to walk away right now, I don’t think I’d take it.” I turn around and face Azar. “Maybe that’s the key to the reason we entwined. My blessed, he listens to me. We’re not a partnership, maybe, and I wasn’t given a choice at the start, but he never forces me to do anything now. He asks. And I believe that, if we knew how, he’d give me the choice today. He’d let me choose to be bonded to him.” I inhale slowly, and then I say, “That’s the reason, I suppose, that I would choose to bond him today. Because I firmly believe he would give me the chance to say no.”
11
Axel
The blessed don’t feel love. We don’t feel longing. We don’t care about things that humans care desperately about, but maybe Liz has infected me, because in this moment, I do care.
I wish I had the capacity to offer her a choice. I wish I could undo our bond. . .and let her choose it.
I was never given a choice, not for anything important in my life, and I haven’t given much thought to it. Blessed take what they need. They force their will on the world around them, if they’re powerful enough to do it, and if they aren’t, well, the world forces on them.
It’s the way things are.
It’s how they’ll always be.
But watching her, asking the tiny humans what they would choose, I long to give her that choice. I want to make a different kind of world for her—the one she deserves instead of the one we have.
Hearing that she would choose me if she could, well. It’s a sharp plunge toward the ocean on a crisp, cool day. It’s the windiest lift under my wings, sending me soaring. It’s the bright rays of light from the ball of fire that powers this world suffusing all my limbs with a warm and steady strength. It’s everything to me, and I burn to give her a gift even half as good as telling me that she would choose me if she had the chance.
Hyperion has been watching the proceedings with a curious look. Asteria, beside him, looks almost angry. The other blessed are watching with curious looks on their faces, mostly, but some of them look agitated.
And, of course, a few are furious.
I’m guessing their humans are standing in front of the table right now. I made those soft little creatures a promise, a promise that Liz expects me to keep.
Two more humans stand, their eyes downcast, clearly still afraid of a reprisal.
Liz sees it too. “I was, frankly, surprised to hear that a few of you would, like me, choose to stay with your blessed. I’m not very shocked to see that many of you would not make that choice.”
“I think the behavior and temperament of my blessed has improved,” Penelope says, standing, “but not by enough. I too, if given the chance, would leave.”
Sixty-eight humans, in the end, stand. It’s a small thing, standing up, but it’s an impressive act of defiance in and of itself. Even though they chose differently than she, they may actually be the humans who are most like my Liz. They’ve chosen to hurl their broken, discarded umbrellas at their blesseds’ throat, consequences bedamned. Like Liz, they’re brave enough to fight in spite of overwhelming odds stacked against them.
In light of my promise, I say loudly, so that all the gathered blessed can hear, the sixty-eight humans who have stood will remain here when we leave. They are hereby freed.
The murmurs among the blessed are explosive and immediate.
You can’t dissolve their bond, Asteria says. You’ll leave the bonded blessed at risk. They can’t keep their bonded in line or safe.
I shake my head. They bonded humans without first gaining permission. They did it without thinking about the fact that the humans are living, sentient beings—they shouldn’t have done it, nor should I. We can’t fix what we did, but we can pay the penalty for our actions. I spread my wings, and raise the force of my words. No more humans will be bonded without first gaining their acquiescence.
