My eyebrows flickered up at that. I’d grown the beard to cover the scar my failure to heal myself had left. “It covers the scar.”
“That scar is nothing to be ashamed of,” Shi said quietly. “It is a mark of your fatherhood.”
So apparently he had anegativeopinion on my beard. Not what I wanted to hear. “And your opinion of allowing Fin to fly?” Which I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to hear either.
“I am not the boy’s father. The choice is yours. However, of the two young people living in Unkea—” Only two now the eldest had left for the sake of his education. “—he is the only one I would even consider it for. But not until tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Dora needs her sleep.”
“Salvadora is a dragon. She can go three days without sleep if necessary. You, however, cannot. Tomorrow is also likely to be a better day weather-wise for a first solo flight.” He stepped away, paused and moved back. “Ashortfirst solo flight. The boy is not tall for his age.”
And in dragon riding, height did matter. The neck of a dragon is wide, and the seat bone is close to the juncture of neck and shoulders. Anyone under two paces tall would struggle to seat well or get a good thigh grip. Fin wasn’t that tall yet. However, his communication skills should see him through.
Shi now gone, I walked back to Fin. His lips were pressed together, and a frown furrowed his brow. My footsteps faltered. He looked oddly like his mother when she would not take no for an answer. Pain sliced into every nerve ending. Six years, and still I missed her, my Sasha, and when those matching brown eyes glowered in my direction it was impossible not to think of her.
“Come on, Fin, let Dora sleep.”
That little chin wobbled up, turning his mouth down. His hold on her tail feathers was white-knuckled.
“What’s always a rider’s first concern, Fin?”
“Their dragon,” came back the tutted response.
“Look at Dora. She wants to sleep. So we need to let her sleep. And you need to get to school.”
With a huff, Fin laid her tail on the ground and stroked down the feathers he’d been holding. Then stomped straight past me and up the stairs.
He’s not happy,Salvadora said without lifting her head.
“Well aware,”I told her silently.“Get some sleep. I want you on full alert when you take him out for his first solo tomorrow.”
Her head popped up at that, and I was paused from following my son when her tail wrapped around me for a quick hug.
* * *
Fin stomped all the way back to our rooms. Slammed his bedroom door.
I shouted at that. Not something I’m proud of, but I did it. My shoulders slumped. The urge to go apologise was huge, but that was the weight of parenthood. Single parenthood, especially. Ang Shi might have offered to be the bad guy and let me be the good, but when raising a kid alone, you had to be both.
At my bedroom door, I paused to consider if I should speak to Fin first.
“Sorry.”
My spine straightened. I turned around to see Fin hanging out of his bedroom doorway. I should ask him what for and why and do all that clever parenting stuff, but honestly, the night shift was hard, and I just didn’t have the energy. I turned toward him and leant against the doorjamb.
“Would you like to spend more time in the stables?”
He frowned. “What, like you want me to live down there?”
That brought a small smile to my lips. “No, but Stable Master Fenwick will let you work down there as a stable hand. You’ll get to spend time with the dragons and learn the job of a stable hand and all those things that you kind of know, but this way you’ll learn properly. You have to understand that this is a job, not just playtime with the dragons.”
His little eyes lit up. Not just his eyes. “I’ll need to think about it.”
Yeah, for about a nanosecond. He’d already decided to do it, I could tell. “Good. You do that. You also need to get to school, and we’ll talk about it after. When I’m awake. When you’re notall shiny. Gods, boy, that can hurt the eyes, tone it down before you get to school.”
The impact of his run and hug would have knocked me off my feet were it not for the doorjamb. I folded my arms around him and hugged him just as tight.
“Love you, Fin.”
