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“You mean my physical eyesight?” Heath asked, baffled. “How would you help me work on that?”
Reka shook his head in an unhurried fashion. “No, I mean your ability to see things in people that others do not see. Similar to the way your father senses deception.”
“Oh.” Heath considered it. “I do want to develop that, I suppose. But for the moment, I’m more interested in the farsight. Maybe I can only focus on one skill at a time.”
“Highly likely,” Reka agreed unflatteringly. “Close your eyes.”
Resisting the urge to roll them first, Heath obeyed.
“What is foremost in your thoughts?” the dragon asked.
“Uh…”
Heath’s mind flew to the conversation he’d had with Brody, Bianca, and Percival. Without him speaking aloud, his brother’s image flashed before his sight, still reclined in Brody’s sitting room. Heath scowled. He was sick of Percival being his first concern. He didn’t want responsibility for keeping his brother from disaster.
“Reka,” he said, opening his eyes and looking up at the dragon. “Are you watching me all the time?”
The dragon sighed. “I see your problem with focus. It is more acute than I had realized.”
“No, seriously, Reka,” Heath pressed. “Do you always watch me?”
“Far from it,” the dragon said. “I occasionally check in on you. But I have other things to do with my time than watch your every move.”
“Then how is it that you always hear me when I call for you?” Heath asked. “If you’re not watching at the time, how do you know that I’m saying your name?”
Reka’s eyes narrowed in thought, apparently searching for the best way to explain the matter to his human friend.
“I follow you with my thoughts,” he said eventually. “Not all the time, but regularly. A connection has been forged between us, and it is always there, even if it is not always in use. When you call my name, it is as though you send something down that connection. It pulls my attention from whatever I am doing at the time, and redirects it to you.”
“But how can I use the connection to send you a message if it’s not in my control—if I’m not even aware of it?” Heath asked.
Reka shook his head slowly. “It is not about what you can do. It is about what I can do. And I can hear you over the connection I have created between us through targeted use of my farsight.”
Heath thought this over. “So I could set up a connection like that if I chose?”
“Theoretically,” Reka agreed. “Although of course we have no idea where the limits of your human version of farsight will fall.”
Heath nodded.
“With whom do you wish to set up a connection?”
“Not Percival,” Heath muttered, still disgruntled.
Reka tilted his head the other way. “If we are to list everyone you do not wish to forge a connection with, the exercise may be time consuming.”
Heath let out a reluctant laugh, although he knew Reka wasn’t actually trying to be funny. It was just in a dragon’s nature to respond to things literally.
“We don’t need to do that,” he said gravely. “I have someone specific in mind.”
“Well, start by attempting to watch this someone with your farsight,” Reka urged.
Heath closed his eyes to increase his dubious focus. It was Merletta, of course. It was always Merletta. The weeks since they’d seen each other had been far too long. For a moment Heath forgot his task, lost not in visions of her current activity, but in the memory of their last meeting. She’d been about to undertake her dangerous second year test, and he’d been forced to leave her in haste in order to save Percival from his mysterious attackers.
But not before he’d done what he’d fantasized about for the better part of two years, when he took her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss had been tantalizingly short, with too much of the flavor of an interrupted goodbye.
Not goodbye, he reminded himself. Merletta had survived her test—he’d caught more than one glimpse of her since then. And although Reka hadn’t yet shown any inclination to take Heath back to Vazula to meet her, there was no reason the two of them couldn’t be reunited soon.
Wrenching his mind from the memory of Merletta’s arms snaking around his back, Heath tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing.
