“I thought you said she was awake?” I whisper at Tairn as if my voice might wake her, like there isn’t a giant brown stomping his way past the copse of trees where Andarna is napping, her body curved into an S-shape. Grass moves in front of her snout with every gust of her exhale, and she looks quite content with her scorpion tail curled around her. And kind of… green?
No, her scales are still black. It must be an adolescent thing that they’re so shiny she reflects some of the color around her.
“An hour ago.” Tairn chuffs and I’m pretty sure Sgaeyl just rolled her eyes.
“It took me an hour to get out of that meeting, and then I had to hike that cliff of a trail.” I shouldn’t wake her. The responsible action would be none, to let her sleep off the remnants of her nearly three-month-long dragon coma. But I’ve missed her so damn—
Gold eyes flash open.
Relief nearly brings me to my knees. She’s awake.
I grin and feel my world right itself. “Hi.”
“Violet.” Andarna lifts her head, and a puff of steam blows back the loosened strands of my long braid. “I meant to stay awake.”
“That’s all right. Tairn says you’ll be nodding off for the next week or so.” Stepping forward, I reach up to scratch her scaly jawline. “You were out a long time.”
“It felt like nothing.” She arches her neck so I can get the area beneath her chin.
“Trust me, it wasn’t.” I step back and really look at her. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s almost two-thirds the size of Sgaeyl. “I think you’re bigger.”
“Naturally.” She huffs, digging her claws into the ground as she stands upright.
I retreat another couple of steps, looking higher and higher as she shakes off the sleep, her wings rustling as she swivels her head, taking in the valley. “What do you want to do? Fly? Take a walk?” There’s so much I need to tell her.
“Food. We should seek sheep.” She flares her wings out and then stumbles forward just like she did in the height of summer.
Shit.
I scramble backward through the cumbersome grass, rushing to keep from being sliced by Andarna’s claws as she finds her balance.
“Could you not crush our human?” Tairn barks.
“I wasn’t even close,” Andarna snaps in return with a quick glare his direction as she flares her wings with the same result.
“I told you to be patient,” Tairn chides.
The look she levels on him makes Sgaeyl huff in what I think is appreciation, and Andarna rolls her shoulders, digs her claws in, and tries again to raise her wings.
My stomach drops, my mind spinning so quickly I can barely catch a whirring thought as my gaze flicks between the two wings. Her left one doesn’t fully extend. It makes it halfway, but the remainder of the black webbing never pulls taut.
She attempts once, twice, then bares her sharp teeth and hisses steam when it doesn’t snap into place on the third attempt.
Oh gods. Something’s wrong.
I have no fucking clue what to say or do. I’m… speechless. Powerless to help. Fuck. Am I supposed to ask her if she’s all right? Or do I ignore it as I would a battle wound on an adult? Is the wing broken? In need of mending? Or is it part of the growth process?
Andarna’s head whips back toward mine and her eyes narrow. “I am not broken.”
My heart sinks.
“I never said you were,” I whisper.
Shit, shit, shit. I hurt her feelings.
“Speech isn’t necessary when I can hear your thoughts. I am no more broken than you are.” Her lip curls and her teeth flash.
Ouch. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant to imply.” The thought is barely a whisper.
“Enough.” Tairn lowers his head to her level. “She is allowed to be concerned for you, as you are for her. Now go eat before hunger overpowers common sense.”
Sgaeyl stalks past me on the right, the ground lightly shuddering beneath my feet as she heads for the meadow to the east. Feirge gets out of her way.
“There is a herd that is far better hunted on foot,” Tairn says, a soft growl vibrating in his throat. “Follow Sgaeyl.”
Andarna tucks her wings, flexes her claws, then walks around me wordlessly, heading for Sgaeyl. I turn to watch them walk away.
“Adolescents,” Tairn grumbles. “They’re insufferable when hungry.”
“Her wing,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around my stomach.
His sigh ripples the grass around me. “The elders and I will work with her to strengthen the muscles, but there are complications.”
“Like?” My chest tightens, and I glance up at him.
“Put your shields up and block her out as much as possible.”
I focus, shielding out that pearlescent bond I now recognize as Andarna. “Done.”
“There are many reasons younglings do not leave the Vale. The mass expenditure of energy in Resson forced her into a rapid rate of growth. You know that. But if it had happened here, or at Basgiath where she could have been quickly, safely sheltered for the Dreamless Sleep, perhaps she would have grown as usual.” His tone is enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. He’s never this careful with his words, never this careful with my feelings. “But we flew that critical day between Resson and Aretia,” he continues. “And then we waited again to fly to Basgiath, and even then she woke several times. The elders have never seen a dragon remain Dreamless that long. And now her growth is unpredictable. There is a second set of muscles along the fronts of our wings that forms during our growth. Hers did not. The elders believe she’ll still fly… in time. Once she’s strengthened the existing muscle to compensate.”
“Can Brennan mend her?” It’s my fault because I used her power in Resson. Because we’d flown that day. Because we’d had to return to Basgiath. Because she bonded when she was a juvenile and I interrupted her Dreamless Sleep. I could list reasons all day.
“You cannot mend what does not exist.”
I watch her quicken her pace to catch up to Sgaeyl, snapping her teeth at a bird that immediately regrets flying too close with a squawk.
“But she’ll fly?” I’ve learned enough about dragons to know that a life without flight is more than a tragedy.
“We believe she can eventually train the existing muscle to bear the weight of her wing,” he assures me, but there’s a note of something else in his tone that has me bracing.
“You believe.” I turn slowly to glare up at the second-biggest dragon on the Continent. “Which means you’ve had time to discuss. How long have you known?”
“Since she woke here in the high summer.”
My heart stops sinking and flat-out plummets to the grass. She hadn’t fully extended her wing then, either, but I’d thought nothing of it, since she seemed generally… clumsy.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” There’s no way he’d have cut her out of the conversation unless he was worried about my reaction to the information— or hers.
“What she herself has not recognized.” He lowers his head, his great golden eyes locking with mine. “She’ll fly, but she’ll never bear a rider.”