spoiler visualizarMaelle 07/04/2024
Gosto ainda mais da Andarna
?Andarna?s scales are so deeply black they glimmer almost purple?iridescent, really?in the flickering sunlight that filters through the leaves above.?
??You?re alive! We?d heard?? Dain reaches for me, and I recoil.
?Touch me and I swear to the gods, I?ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.? My words earn more than a couple of gasps, but I don?t give a shit who hears me.
?Violence, indeed.? The hint of amusement in Xaden?s tone doesn?t reach his face.?
?Quite the necklace you have there.? He points to the greenish bruises on my throat.
?Thank you. It was expensive.? I lift my chin. ?Cost someone their life.?
?Something? shimmers, curling around the Archives I keep in my head.
?Violet.? Her soft voice rattles me to my very core, and I grasp Xaden?s arm to stay upright. Relief, joy, wonder?it all weakens my knees and stings my eyes.
For the first time in months, I feel whole.
A smile spreads across my face. ?Andarna.?
?She makes a good point,? Andarna agrees. ?Can you carry a luminary??
?That question insults me.?
?Can you carry a luminary while insulted?? she prods.
Tairn growls.?
?Aren?t you going to tell me how brilliant that idea was??
Tairn scoffs. ?I chose you last year for that brilliance, and now you?d like to be congratulated like it?s something new? How odd.?
?You?re impossible to impress.?
?I?m a dragon, a Black Morningstartail. The descendent of??
?Yeah, yeah.? I cut him off before he makes me recite his entire lineage.?
?My house. My chair. My woman.? He punctuates each claim with a flick of his thumb, popping button by button free.?
?Sorry to inconvenience you, but this year the role of Violet Sorrengail??he points to me??will be played by Xaden Riorson??he taps his chest??who will drag her, kicking and screaming if he has to, into a real relationship with real discussions, because he refuses to lose her again. If I have to evolve, you do, too.?
?Good idea. I could use a snack.? Andarna?s tone is indecently excited.
?We do not eat our allies,? Tairn lectures.
?You never let me have any fun.?
?I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.? Leaning down, he rests his forehead against mine. ?I couldn?t tell you that the last time we flew into a fight, and I should have.?
?I love you, too.? I grasp his waist and force a smile. ?Do me a favor and don?t die. I don?t want to live without you.? There are so many of them and so few of us.
?We don?t die today.?
?Even a slow breath won?t calm my racing heart. ?Your scales aren?t really black.?
?No.? Even now, her scales are changing, taking on the grayish hue of the stone around us. ?But he is, and I so badly want to be just like him.?
?Tairn.? It?s not hard to guess.
?He doesn?t know. Only the elders do.? She lowers her head, resting it on the ground in front of me. ?They revere him. He is strong, and loyal, and fierce.?
?You are all those things, too.? I wobble under the strain of wielding but keep my balance, keep the power flowing into the stone. ?You didn?t have to hide. You could have told me.?
?If you didn?t figure it out, you weren?t worthy of knowing.? She huffs. ?I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of the weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine.? She leans into my hand. ?You are as unique as I am. We want the same things.?