Zenevieve
The first and likely only Dragon Games of my lifetime, and I am dragonless.
There’s a painful lump in my throat as I watch the other dragonriders making their preparations and excitedly choosing which events to enter. There are several ones for swift, agile dragons, and Minta and I would have been in with a strong chance of winning all of them. We should be training together. Planning together. I should be grinning with happiness as I feel the giddy excitement bubbling up inside her.
A well of loneliness and despair lives inside me now. I will never again know the joy of flying on a dragon. I will never belong to a mate.
I will only ever ache.
I lie awake at night, and blankets irritate my skin, and my formerly cozy bedroom feels cavernous and terrifying. I have strange urges to get off the mattress and squash myself beneath the wooden bed frame. The summer heat is bothering me like itnever has before, and I always feel feverish and uncomfortable. I wonder if the climate has changed in five hundred years. It never used to be this hot and sticky.
One afternoon, as I’m wandering listlessly across the dragongrounds, sweating and missing Minta, I come face to face with Stesha, who’s lovingly tending to Nilak. I think about turning around and walking back the way I came, but it’s not Stesha’s fault that I feel so terrible. He tried his hardest for me and Shar.
“Are you excited for the Dragon Games, dragonmaster?”
He’s smoothing a polishing cloth over Nilak’s pristine scales, and he pauses to look at me. “Nilak is looking forward to proving her skills.”
“But what about you?”
He hesitates, and for a very rare moment, he looks uncertain.
I make myself smile through the agony in my chest. “You don’t wish to seem excited for the games because I am dragonless. But I am happy for all of you. I mean it. I want to catch your excitement, so please, tell me how you feel.”
After a moment, he admits, “Nilak would like to win.”
I glance up at the majestic white dragon with her fierce eyes. “I have no doubt she will.”
He smiles briefly, revealing a hint of his dragines, and a jolt goes through me. The sight of his teeth has always thrilled me, but now I feel a near-irresistible impulse to twine my arms around his neck and beg for him to sink his teeth into my lower lip. The world disappears in a pink haze, and I don’t hear a word he says.
“Zen?”
Stesha has stepped toward me, and he’s reaching for my arm. I blink and shake myself. “Sorry, what? I mean, I beg your pardon, dragonmaster?”
He gives me a pained look. “You don’t have to do that.”
“What?”
“Call me dragonmaster.”
“But we’re on the dragongrounds. All the riders are supposed to call you…” I feel like I’ve been punched in the guts. I’m not a rider. I have no right to be here. In a choked voice, I manage to say, “I’ll stop coming here. Of course. I’m sorry. There’s no need for me to address you at all.”
His eyes widen in shock, and he seizes my hands. “No, no, no. You are arider, Zen. These are your dragongrounds, always and forever. I meant that you don’t have to call me dragonmaster. Call me Stesha, please, because we are friends. Aren’t we?”
I look at his large, callused hands holding mine, a storm of emotions swirling in my chest and making it impossible to breathe.
“Aren’t we, after all this time?” he implores, squeezing my hands.
It was not that long ago, for us at least, that we were up in that mountain cave together. We weren’t friends then. I thought we were lovers. Mates. But then he told me he’s waiting for someone else, and I nearly died. I went through hell while I suffered from lavish sickness. I’ve never been anything so distant as his friend. I’m not his godsdamnedfriend.
I think I hate the word.
“No, we are not friends,” I say fiercely, yanking my hands from his. He’s no longer my guardian, and if he’s not my mate, then he’s just the dragonmaster. Yet I have no dragon, so he is nothing to me, and I am nothing to him.
I can’t accept anything less than Stesha’s whole, adoring heart, which he will never give me.
“Good luck in the games,” I mutter, walking away. The hollow ache in my chest is worse than ever.
I want to make friends with Ravenna, but every time I see the red-haired witch, I remember Stesha holding her in his arms,her Omega perfume thick around them both. I wonder if he longed for her to be his, even for a moment. It’s impossible for me to be at ease in her presence, and so I keep out of her way as much as I can.
