“But you’re still alive. Obviously,” I add with a smirk at myself.
“I heard her surprise when she saw me. It washed through me, coated in love. All dragons know, though, what happens when they are called to someone other than the Dróttning’s choice. And she is a very smart creature,” he adds with so much delight, it nearly brings a tear to my eye. “She blinked her eyes once. And then she swung her head toward her rider, letting him feel the wash of emotion. She never looked at me again.”
“What did she look like?”
“The moon,” Joralf responds, his voice bright and simmering with adoration. “She is silver and black. Small but mighty. I wish I could know her better.”
“I wish that for you as well. In a different world, a different life, perhaps.”
“Or perhaps in this one. The Dróttning’s control is not absolute. Even in this hole, I have learned of the brave dragon who defies her. The one who refuses to accept the rider chosen for him.”
Pride rushes in, washing over me as I think aboutmydragon. Brave, determined Astarot. I wish I could see him again. “What could one dragon do? Even if he withstood her torture and survived somehow?”
“The Dróttning realized during the war with the elves that the dragons’ links to this world are tenuous. That they can be severed under the right circumstances.”
“The disappearance of the dragons and elves during the battle with the Far North?”
“Again, you know more than most. You are an enigma, Sifa.”
“I learned a lot on the trip that brought me here,” I explain dismissively.
“I should not know that story,” Joralf continues. “But I am descended from the elf who returned to this world. His secrets live within me.”
My stomach tightens and then expands as a hint of hope fills me. Perhaps the fates do have me in their hands.
“You know of the world he traveled to? Of the jötnar he discovered?”
“I do. But that is not why I tell you this.” He pauses, breathing in deeply once, and then again. “I’ve only found hints of the source of the Dróttning’s power over the dragons. I’ve wondered if it grows from an overwhelming fear the dragons hold that she can end their lives by cutting their links to this world. My grandfather’s dragon did not join him in the other world he discovered. He did not survive the journey from this one.”
“You think there’s some portal or path that elves can traverse but dragons can’t?”
“I’m certain of it. I also know something in this world—perhaps some substance—is the reason. Control of that would destroy her stranglehold on the dragons.”
“Because the dragons need it?”
“Exactly,” Joralf exclaims, a hint of pride in the word.
“What could possibly give the Dróttning such power?”
“That I cannot tell you,” Joralf tells me with a laugh. “The Dróttning suspects we’ve discovered her secret. She’s desperate to learn what we know. I have no doubt I’m still here, instead of in an elven prison, for that reason. She may be listening now, hoping I give you information I’ve never given her. Or the walls could have ears. I can’t risk her hearing anything I may say to you.”
“But you, maybe others, think you know what it is?”
“We do. We’ve yet to learn exactly where it rests, but we will. And when that time comes, we’ll bring the Dróttning’s tyranny to an end. We’ll restore this world to what it once was. When elves roamed free and dragons chose their mates.”
We both sit in silence after that. I’m too caught up in my own thoughts and hopes to speak further. It feels like an impossible dream, but I’ve lived long enough to know that all things are possible. Maybe this is, too.
Chapter twenty-six
Fhord
Now, She's Everything
Theyhaven’treleasedTinderayet—the Dróttning is probably using her to control me again—so I have no choice. Sigurd and I left without my dragon the morning after the Dróttning dismissed me.
Sifa will be okay, I assure myself as we race away from the Nest. The Dróttning told me she doesn’t plan to torture her right away. She doesn’t know about Sifa and me, has no reason to lie about something like this.
I wish I could cast out my thoughts to find my rabbit—make sure she’s not suffering. But if I let down my shield to search for her, the Dróttning would have a path into my mind. I can’t risk that. I have to trust that the Dróttning told me the truth. That she doesn’t plan to torture Sifa right away.
