Gods help me. I’m so fucking feeble. The words came out before I could stop them. I have to resist the urge to stroke Sifa’s cheek. My savage fights to take over when she looks at me like that. But being this close to Tindera will bolster my resolve. The cost of giving in to my savage, of claiming Sifa as my own, would be too high.
“At your service,” Sifa responds as she stands and gives me a playful bow. “We should go.”
I’m grateful for the shift, reaching out again to Tindera to remind myself where my loyalties lie as I stand and follow Sifa to the horses. We ride in silence for a few hours, but we both know that won’t last. We’ll run into sentries soon. And as expected, we’re eating a quick midday meal, hidden in some bushes near a creek, when we hear hints of danger.
“There’s nothing out here,” one of them complains, his voice bordering on a whine. “It was a trick of the light. Nobody comes this close to the Nest.”
“I know what I saw,” another mutters, angry. “You may not want to be here, but here you are. We will do our job, find any who would enter these grounds unbidden.”
“But nobody does that. It’s suicide. I’ve been here more than a year, and not a single soul has tried to come here without the Dróttning’s consent.”
Their voices are getting closer. If they’re searching for us, we may have no choice but to kill them. Which I don’t want to do.
“Because we do our job well. All know what they risk.”
The males go silent, the only sound their horses’ hooves crunching over the pebble-strewn ground. It seems that even Sigurd and Hilde hold their breath, waiting for this threat to pass. I chose these mounts for a reason. Even as slow as Hilde has become, she still outsmarts most of the others in the stables. Except Sigurd.
Perhaps the gods are smiling on them, because the males don’t approach the bushes that protect us. We wait long enough to ensure they’re gone and then start to pick our way toward the cave entrance. Four more times we hide to evade patrols—the Dróttning has pulled her forces closer to the Nest for some reason—but we make it by the end of the day.
I hear Sifa’s long inhale as we break through the trees, giving us our first view of the range that harbors the Nest. Even from the side, our only safe approach, it’s equal measures intimidating and awe-inspiring, Vanatia’s largest array of mountains with its highest peak. The crags that shoot into the sky look like bursts of lava frozen in place, their shapes random and unpredictable. Black sand and rock have been covered over the millennia by trees and bushes but haven’t disappeared fully beneath nature’s blanket.
The dragons chose this place at the dawn of time, expanding to the southern Nest only when their numbers had grown so large they had no choice. Tindera has told me of the dragons’ love for its untamed and savage landscape. Although dragon myth does not acknowledge it, I suspect their choice was more practical. A vast cave system winds beneath the entire chain, a river connecting each spike to the others, creating abundant pools along the way.
Greens and golds spread out to our right, a feigned invitation to any who might make it this far. The paths created by grass and bush lead to the front, where those who are welcome enter. We take the rocky trail, going left and toward the back. After a tedious trip picking our way across the slopes, hiding in shadows when we must, we finally make it to the outer cave.
“We’ll wait here until Tindera comes. She knows when to meet us. It won’t be long.”
Sifa’s eyes widen, delight glimmering in them for a moment before she blinks and quells her response. Still, I can’t suppress my own pleasure. The rational side of me doesn’t want them to like each other—no good would come of it—but I can’t deny desperately hoping they do.
“She’s here,” I tell Sifa after a few minutes. And then she is.
I’m always awed when I see Tindera after a long separation. She’s the most majestic dragon in the Nest, bar none. The gold and black feathers that cover her sparkle in the late sun, as if the dwarfs themselves wrought each on their forge. They create a shifting pattern over most of her body, enough of the black mixed in to highlight and contrast with the glittering plumes that dominate. As they lead to her legs the blacks take over, the massive claws hidden under feathers as dark as a cloudy night.
It's her eyes, though, that I love the most. They’re the blue of the sea in my favorite lagoon, warm like the water there and every bit as fluid. Deeper and darker if Tindera’s emotions ride high, they shift to a relaxed, crystalline azul when she’s comfortable and happy.
I watch as they do just that after she rolls a massive boulder away from the cave and pops her head out of the opening she’s created. And then I walk over and rest my forehead on her snout for a moment, letting go of the tension that’s been building in me since this trip began. Tindera will settle me. She’ll help me stay focused on what matters. And what I cannot allow to matter.
Home, Tindera tells me, using the shorthand of her species, which always relays more information than that single word. Like me, she’s empty when I’m gone. Only when we’re together does she feel like she’s at home.
I’m not as concerned as I was about speaking with Tindera. Now that I’m in the caves, I’m positive the Dróttning’s not here, so she can’t overhear our words. Still, I talk out loud for Sifa’s benefit. I remember how frustrating it was, before Tindera and I bonded, to watch a dragon and rider converse without including me. I’ve made it a habit to not do that with Tindera unless I must.
“It’s been too long,” I tell her, my heart in my throat. “Are you healing well?”
Strong, she assures me, heaving a breath to emphasize her point. The damage had been to a lung, and she wouldn’t have been able to do even that a few weeks ago.Soon.
Relief washes over me, worries I didn’t realize I’d been harboring lifting away and leaving me feeling light and free. I stroke her nose for a minute, savoring this reunion, and then stand.
“We should get inside before I introduce you.”
Tindera nods and steps back, making space for us and the horses to enter. She pauses while I light a torch, then rolls the rock nearly back into place. She won’t be with us when we return, so she allows enough room for us to leave without her. She’ll come back later—when she can be sure she won’t be found and possibly suspected—and close it completely.
As soon as she’s done, Tindera drops her chin onto the ground, taking the least aggressive stance possible for a beast this large. Her eyes find my little rabbit and gaze at her for a long time, measuring this female she knows is my unwanted mate.
Kind, Tindera tells me. Dragons can sense character, a necessary part of their bonds with riders in the early days, when they were given a choice about who would ride them.
I huff out a laugh as I nod. She’s right. I hate to admit anything about Sifa that might draw us closer, but I can’t deny she’s kind.
Elf, Tindera says, a deep despair embedded in that single word. I’ve been too far away to tell her, but now she realizes why this bond is so utterly fucked up. She knows how much danger we’d all be in—especially her—if I took this elf into my bed or my home.
