When I’m close to the edge of the water on the other side of the pond, I pause. The dragon cocks her large head to the side and sniffs the air between us.
“Hi,” I say. Then curse myself internally. So, I clear my throat, and try again. “Remember me? Our paths collided once during the Trial of Wisdom.”
Do dragons speak the fae tongue? Any tongue?
During our fight, I spoke to it with words and my mind. I thought it understood me. But maybe…
The dragon huffs.
I remain rooted in my place. The dragon remains in her place.
I frown.
Maybe—
Every instinct screams at me to stop.
I don’t.
Slowly, I inch a step closer to the dragon.
The moment I do, the groundvibrates.
A low, thunderous growl rips from her chest, deep enough to rattle my bones.
I halt and raise my palms in the air. “I’m not here to harm you,” I say quickly. “I came here to bond you.”
For a heartbeat, she holds my gaze.
And I swear, I feel something.
Recognition.
She remembers. The connection I felt during the Trial of Wisdom wasn’t a hallucination.
But the sensation vanishes just as fast as it appeared.
My head goes fuzzy.
I sway a little on my feet.
The dragon huffs again, spreads her wings, and takes off.
I remain frozen in place, watching the dragon get farther and farther away until it’s nothing but a small dot in the sky.
She didn’t choose me.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PHOENIX
Idon’t know how long I just stand there, still as a statue. My eyes are trained on the sky, right where the dragon disappeared behind a mountaintop.
She didn’t choose me.
The dragon I came here for, the one I trained for, and prepared for, the one I tracked for a week…just refused me.
No.
