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“Of course.” He offered her his arm like they were in some grand ballroom.
She took it, still smiling at him. Vasily couldn’t help but note she was a good three inches taller than Panu. Neither seemed to mind the height difference.
With their new queen leading the way, people fell into line, all helping each other out of the grotto. Vasily stopped the camera with a sigh.
The hard part, he had a feeling, was going to start now.
Amaru had all the conflicting emotions battling it out in his chest as they went ‘home.’ Or what used to be his home. He’d seen the pictures of the village, of course, and knew it wasn’t in the best shape. Knew that time had taken its toll on the place. Still, seeing it in such obvious disrepair was disheartening. Even that word didn’t adequately contain everything he felt about the situation.
But the pictures he’d seen were also inaccurate. Someone, at some point in time, had come in with a hell of a lot of supplies. From the air, he could see repair work underway, lights strung up, and a lot of people milling about working. Repair spells, too. Amaru had been told about a work crew coming in, but he had not followed up on it, too busy with his own project. This was the first he’d seen of it, and it looked like they had made amazing progress.
They landed just outside the main gate. Amaru threw a leg over Vasily’s neck, sliding down to the ground with the ease of practice. He gave Vasily’s shoulder a kiss in thanks for the ride before striding forward, impatient to get some answers. Who was here?
Luka caught up first, as Vasily had to shift and shed the saddle. He didn’t seem at all surprised by this. “Oh, they’ve made good progress.”
He shot his mate a look. There was much judgment in it. “You knew what was going on and you didn’t tell me?”
“We wanted to surprise you.” Luka tacked on, “Besides, we weren’t sure how much progress they’d make before we got here.”
Amaru suspected the second part was the main reason.
He had no room to question this further as Luka lifted a hand and called out a greeting. “Hey, Cam! You guys really did a lot.”
A stunningly good-looking man turned, hands still up as he channeled magic into a doorway. His black hair lay in a long frame around his face, almond shaped eyes lifting as he smiled. “Ah-ha, our favorite ice dragons have finally deigned to grace us with their presence.”
“Hey, we had hundreds of people to wake up and herd here,” Luka objected good-naturedly. “You know herding people is worse than herding cats.”
“All too well. Who’s this?” Cam regarded Amaru curiously.
Luka put a warm hand at the small of Amaru’s back as he did the introductions. “This is my mate Amaru, formerly of the Sousa Clan. Amaru, this is Cameron Burkhard, consort of the Fire Dragon Clan.”
Oh. Oh. Amaru had heard this story. This was the mage who’d started it all, the first one discovered after hundreds of years of a dearth of mages. He looked young, which made sense, and kind. He was also hella powerful to be able to work this kind of repair magic all while carrying on a conversation.
Amaru decided on the spot he absolutely had to make friends. Maybe Cameron would be like Nikki and they could blow things up together. No harm wishing for that, right?
“Nice to meet you,” he said, meaning every word. “And thanks for coming in and repairing the place. It makes it a little easier on all of us.”
“That was the goal.” Cameron finished the spell and stepped back, eyeing his handiwork for a moment. He’d apparently been repairing the doorframe and door to the building, and from what Amaru could see, it looked damn near pristine. Cameron apparently agreed as he gave a grunt of satisfaction before stepping back from it. “Amaru, we’ve done quite a bit coming in, but I’m not sure if we thought of everything.”
“We didn’t expect anything at all, so all of this is very welcome. Trust me.”
Cameron gave a buzzing sort of noise, like Amaru had just given the wrong answer. “No, no, that’s not how this works. I know in your age—”
“Stop saying it like that, you make me sound ancient!”
“—you look amazing for your age, don’t worry about it,” Cameron inserted smoothly with a cocky wink. “As I was saying, I know for you, clans were territorial and didn’t help each other much unless there was an alliance in place. But we don’t subscribe to that now. We can’t afford to. A lot of magical knowledge and history were lost. We’re recovering or rediscovering something on an almost daily basis, scrambling to get back to where our ancestors once were. You will have our help. We can’t afford, as a world, to not help you. To not make friends.”
