At first, I’m surprised how good it feels to be outside and alone. I hadn’t realized how much I needed time to myself, to think through everything that’s happened in just a couple of weeks. How much I’ve changed. How much Fhord—and now Astarot—have changed me.
My thoughts drift back to Halla’s fateful words—that I should take a risk to save us all, and the warning that I’d soon be starting an unexpected journey. Maybe she really did see the future, predict this trip. If she did, was I destined to save Astarot? Was that the risk I was supposed to take? Or is something else coming?
Who knows? I wrest my thoughts away from those worries to focus on what I can do. I can find the herd and take food back to Astarot. I can help my dragon—mydragon, my brain reminds me with a wash of gratitude and pride—regain his strength. And then I can help him hide. Somewhere.
That last part is fuzzy, but we’ll work on that together. With Toffer. He’ll be ecstatic when he learns I’ve bonded with a dragon. I can’t hold back the smile that emerges at the thought. I wonder if Astarot will give him a ride. I’ll never hear the end of it if he does.
My good mood, buoyed by the morning sun and the beauty around me, carries me through my search. Twice I have to hide from a dragon flying overhead, but nobody gets close enough to find me. Barely an hour after leaving the cave, I find the massive herd Fhord mentioned. So far, so good.
I lay in the grass to watch the area around me, breathing in and out slowly to calm the heart that has started to beat more quickly. This could go awry at a moment’s notice.
It doesn’t, though. I wait until a dragon patrol flies overhead, giving it a chance to get far away as I cast my mind out, searching for anyone else in the area. When I find no mortal thoughts, I stand and approach the sheep, choosing an enormous male who stares at me for a moment. The carrot draws him close enough to rope his neck and I trap another. We’re all trotting back to the cave in a few minutes.
Astarot’s reaction when I return with two large sheep is everything. He hasn’t had fresh meat in weeks. His gratitude fills me with peace and, somehow, even more love. I tug the beasts farther into the cave and remove the rope from the larger one, stepping to the side to give Astarot more room.
Before I reach the entrance, though, I hear a short squeal and turn around to see an enormous lump sliding down the dragon’s throat.
“Did you swallow him whole?” I’d expected him to at least taste the meal he’s been waiting so long to enjoy.
Delicious, Astarot responds, his eyes sparkling at me. This is how dragons eat when they’re hungry. Every part of the prey provides some nourishment, fur, bones and all. He needs any food he can get right now.
“Do you want the other?” I have no idea how long it will take to digest his meal.
Later. Astarot tells me he should eat two each day, as Fhord said. In this weakened state, desperate for nutrition, his body will digest his meals quickly.
“Okay,” I agree. He settles down and I walk over to scratch him behind his horn. “Do you need to sleep again?” I’m hoping he’s awake and we can get to know each other. I want to learn everything about him, good and bad.
Later, he repeats. Astarot wants the same thing as me—to talk and explore our lives from before. He can sense some things about me, but we both have much to share with the other.
And so we do. We spend the next three days learning about our lives. He’s young by dragon standards, barely a hundred years old. He was connected to a rider earlier in his life, a cruel male whose death he celebrated. He’d expected a similar connection with his next rider. But then he sensed me and knew he had to wait, no matter what it cost him.
He was in this Nest when I landed in this world. He felt me appear, knew what I would mean to him. But he couldn’t do anything to help me. Dragons have no such power in this place.
Pain, he tells me when we talk about those days. Dragons are more sensitive than elves, even before a bonding. He felt my pain and suffered with me, although I never felt him. Some of the wails I heard were his, as he lived through my torture with me.
“I’m so sorry to have put you through that.” I stroke his nose as I watch his eyes reflect the agony we both felt. “But it helps to know I wasn’t alone, that you were with me even then.” Part of the weight I’ve been carrying for a decade lifts away, helping me find a bit more peace with what I experienced.
Sympathy. He’s grateful for the pain and the connection to me it created. It gave him the strength he needed to withstand his own torture when they tried to offer him to a different rider.
“Tell me about that,” I ask when his thoughts shift to the unworthy human they’d chosen for him.
Wicked. The Dróttning demanded that he bond with an evil man, unworthy of Astarot. The dragons share stories about the humans in this world. They all know who’s looking for a beast to bond and what to expect from that rider. They’d warned each other about this human’s request for a mount and what it would mean.
“You refused. And they tortured you.”
Yes. It’s been two months since he rejected the rider, he relays to me with that simple word. Two months of agony, growing more extreme every week. Three different trainers tried to break him, the last one the most cruel. He’d spent only a few days with this male and had already come close to giving in.
“When did you realize you were connected to Tindera?”
I sense his joy and a love so intense, it’s hard to believe it could exist. It’s my first experience with the bond between mated dragons, and it renders me breathless. We both sit in silence for a moment as he lets that emotion settle within me, now a permanent part of my being.
Draikana, he tells me, wonder in his voice. For whatever reason, their paths never crossed until Tindera was brought to this Nest for her injury. He first sensed her the next morning as she said goodbye to Fhord. Her grief at his departure, combined with the pain of her damaged lung, overwhelmed him even as he suffered his own abuse. He suspected they were bonded, but wasn’t sure of their connection until she found him.
She tracked him down as he rested after a particularly grueling torture session, arriving just when he needed her most. It had been so long since he sensed my presence—the ten years I’d been in the southern part of this world—and he’d struggled to hold on to hope. Tindera renewed his resolve, gave him something to live for. Since she got here, she’s spent as much time with him as she could without getting caught.
Tindera helped him hold on long enough. And then forced Fhord to accept her choice. And mine.
When Fhord returns, I’m snuggled next to Astarot as he sleeps, luxuriating in the peace of his presence. I’m so focused on my dragon that I don’t notice his approach, looking up to find him staring at me, eyes wide and full of some emotion I can’t let myself acknowledge. And my heart twists. He’s so fucking beautiful. I wish to all the gods he could be mine.
