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But I didn’t fear the mortals; they were a weak, inferior race without pure light. I couldn’t see, and refused to acknowledge, the possibility of corruption from them, even though I was told that only the dragons had power to move between the worlds and remain untainted.
I considered my thoughts as I hungered for release from my disgrace.
I still couldn’t face Aneirin.
I’m removing my dragon stone. You should give it to another rider. I fumbled with the iridescent stone around my neck.
Seren lifted a claw to stop me. I refuse to accept that. I’ll have no other rider, Niawen.
My hands smoothed over the scales on her forearm. If I leave, you must move on.
Don’t ask me to do that.
“Niawen, stop!” a women shouted.
I whirled around. Aneirin’s petite sister pushed her way through the snow toward me. Catrin had difficulty lifting her thin dress—much too inadequate for the weather—as ice crystals clung to its hem. She just came from where summer reigned supreme in Gorlassar.
“Don’t leave,” Catrin said. “Please. Forget Aneirin. This grief will subside. Please, come home with me. Don’t forsake the emrys. I couldn’t bear it if you left. You’re my dearest friend. I know you’re hurt, but who’ll hold my hand when I have my first broken heart?” She paused and gave me a wide-eyed, entreating look with her almond-shaped eyes. “Let me hold yours now.”
Catrin reached me, and I fell into her arms, breathing in her honeyed scent. I murmured against her neck. “You know I’ve felt unrest for some time.”
“But you’d risk living with the humans!”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
Catrin searched my face. “What about Aneirin?”
“I knew a future with Aneirin was remote, yet I dared hope. I don’t understand how I locked so readily on to him.”
“He’s so young. Only a baby. We’ll go to a party and meet some eligible men our age,” Catrin replied.
I exhaled sharply and pulled away. Catrin didn’t understand. Age didn’t matter. Who cared if Aneirin was over six hundred years younger than I was? Once we matured in our lights’ abilities, age was insignificant. Besides, something about Aneirin had charmed me. My heart wouldn’t easily give him up.
Movement at the dragon realm’s portal made me lift my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut when the silver-blond-haired head emerged. His regret washed over me. I opened my eyes to Aneirin’s tight-lipped grimace.
I turned to Catrin. “You brought him with you? I told you, I didn’t want to see him again.” Catrin had found me as I hastily packed, and I blubbered what happened between Aneirin and me. Although I begged her to tell no one about my plan to leave, my pleas had meant nothing to her.
Catrin frowned. “Let him explain. You owe him that.”
My voice carried across the crisp air. “What do you have to say, Aneirin? Is my desperation not enough? Is my mortification? Why’d you let me look?”
Aneirin edged closer, his drooping brows beseeching me. “You had to see, Niawen. You had to know. I couldn’t hide my true feelings from you any longer. I labored to protect you ever since I knew you loved me. I concealed my emotions to spare you pain.”
I cursed. The transparency of the emrys—their ability to read each other’s unhindered emotions—wasn’t a blessing in my eyes. “You’re saying this was mercy. Allowing me to glimpse your soul was an act of mercy?”
Aneirin’s face couldn’t have been more wretched. “Yes. Is my friendship not enough? Isn’t that love worth fighting for—worth staying in Gorlassar for? You’re really leaving because I cannot give you my heart? Because I cannot give you the vows of love you so desperately seek?”
“Aneirin, you know me too well. You know everything about me. That’s why I thought you loved me. I had a vain hope those walls you cast up, the one’s masking your emotions, were hiding your affection for me.”
“I’m sorry that wasn’t true,” he said. “But this is one chink in the eternal scheme. You’ll move on. Your heart will heal, and you’ll fall in love with another.”
Catrin’s classically green emrys eyes shimmered at mine, and she grabbed my hand. “He’s right. This is but a cut in the tapestry of life. One nick that can be mended.”
I squeezed her slender hand. Closing my eyes, I searched within my heart. Seren didn’t move, although I felt her anxiety across the barrier of my mind. Could I do this to Seren? Take her from her mate? How could I be so headstrong, so obstinate? How could I defy my calling as a dragon guardian and endanger Seren’s life by fleeing to the mortal world? She gave me her stone. She trusted her life to me—bound her fate with mine. How could I even consider?
Catrin pushed wispy, golden blonde strands out of her eyes. She was as good as my sister and thirty-one years older. We were friends before Aneirin was born. I valued her opinion and always heeded her voice. Why didn’t I want to listen to her wisdom? I lapped up the hope swirling around her. She believed I’d stay. She believed I was strong enough to overcome my embarrassment.
Indeed, I was just upset over a silly broken heart. Aneirin had wounded my pride, and the insult festered like an embedded thorn constantly probing deeper into my very being. Could I pull the thorn? Catrin’s hope was that I’d grasp ahold and yank the offender out.
