“Not exactly. It’s more like a sense.”
“What do you mean?”
I laughed. “If you’re going to ask me a million questions again, you’ll have to answer some of mine too.”
She tucked her arms under her chest, pulling the blanket tighter around her. “Fine.”
“When you’re bonded, a dragon can fully read the rider’s mind. All we have to do is think something and they’ll know, but it only works one way. Riders get a sense of what their dragon wants, but it’s more feelings than actual words. I can’t read Aura’s mind like she can mine, but I get an overall sense of her. If she’s happy, mad, not trusting something. The longer the bond, the better riders get at picking up on their dragon’s wants and needs.”
She nodded, her head giving way under the firelight, reflecting off a thin scar cut horizontally across her neck. “How did you get that?” I asked, gesturing to it.
Nollie’s hand instinctively went up to cover it. She swallowed, her throat bobbing across her palm. “I made the mistake of taking a piece of bread out by one of the bridges in Moriann once.”
I went deathly quiet as I listened to her. She never opened up about her life in Moriann, and most of the time, I was too scared to ask. I didn’t want to rip open wounds she wasn’t ready to face.
“You mentioned before that all riders have wells,” she said, changing the subject, and I knew I wasn’t going to get more information about what happened. “Do dragons have the same well?”
“For Nullus and Semis bonds, yes,” I answered. “Only Plenusbonds work differently. I still get to pull from my dragon’s well, but I have my own too.”
“And do you know when it’s gone?”
I nodded. It was mandatory training Elion made us all do, and I fucking hated it. Not that learning burnout wasn’t important, but his tactics for finding it were barbaric. He didn’t care that it hurt our dragons, that it left everyone in the camp vulnerable. “It’s called the burnout,” I said. “Every rider is trained to feel their own dragon’s bond when it’s gone.”
“And what happens when you reach burnout?”
“Dragons go back to their home. If their well is at zero, it makes them fragile. If they pull past their well, they can die. Fleeing is their instinct to protect themselves. They come back to their riders once it starts refilling.”
“And what about your well? Will you die if you go past yours?”
“No. I physically can’t go past it. There’s just nothing to pull from once it’s gone. The only thing a rider can do is pull from their dragon, but they don’t do it when the magic is gone because it kills them.”
“Can a rider repeat the Vargothi, can they rebond with another dragon if that happens?”
I shook my head. “No. A bond is for life. You only get one dragon. What do you love?” I asked, taking my turn. I had a million questions I wanted to ask her, but I knew I had to take it slow.
“What do I love?” she repeated the question. “What do you mean?”
“What are your hobbies? What brings you joy?”
“I—” She started, then stopped. “I don’t know anymore. I used to love the ocean and just watching the waves crash against the shore was my favorite thing,” she said, “but barely anything you do in Moriann is for enjoyment. Every move is calculated.”
My jaw ground against my teeth as I had to fight to school my features. Every time she mentioned Moriann, I hated it more and more. Whatever she went through, whatever was haunting her past, I was going to change it. I was going to make sure she could live for enjoyment, that she could figure out what makes her happy for no other reason than joy.
“Why did you try to get Jaxs to bring me here?”
I leaned back against the cushions, spreading my legs into a more comfortable position. “Two reasons,” I said, stifling a wince from the pressure on my back. “I wanted to get you out of there as soon as possible, and I couldn’t get to you until later.”
“And the second reason?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“This,” I answered honestly. “I was terrified of this, terrified of what would happen if I spent more time with you. I can’t—” I paused. “I can’t control myself around you.”
My lips parted as she stared at me. I knew I should tell her, tell her why I was feeling this connection, why I swore she was starting to feel it too.
We had theEclipsis Bond.They were so rare, supposedly extinct since the war, that I didn’t believe it at first. It wasn’t until Aura let Nollie ride on her back that I couldn’t deny it anymore.
Dragons only flew their rider and their mate—but mates weren’t a thing anymore.
Drakins and Wielders weren’t allowed to be together, not in any marital sense. Elion made sure of it, made laws that prohibited any sort of meaningful relationship between our two kinds by creating the Imassura.
