“That’s good.” He closed his eyes, letting out a long breath. “That’s really good.”
I wanted to move closer to him, or for him to move closer to me, but it all seemed like moving too fast. I didn’t want to risk breaking this tenuous truce. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
The one with the song.
He caught the shift in my tone, that we weren’t talking about our relationship now, but something far bigger.
Though our relationship felt very big to me.
“The dragons.” I hated talking to him about dragons. “I spoke to them.”
“I saw.” He was somewhen else for a moment. “I saw you on the wall. When I woke and found your note”—he tensed all over—“I saw that your things were gone, too. Your flute. Your SED. Your sleeping bag. Everything. I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“You were supposed to go home.”
He snorted and shook his head. “No, I would never leave you. No matter how afraid I am of dragons, losing you scares me more.” He shifted closer to me, just a little. Enough that our knees touched. “I woke the others and called out for you, hoping you hadn’t gone far. Hoping you would hear.”
“I left just after midnight. By the time the sun rose, I was already on top of the wall. I wouldn’t have heard you calling in the forest.” Maybe when he’d been on the cliff, though. I’d heard something I thought was forest animals, but now that I thought of it, the noises could have been voices.
Sam slid one hand forward and touched my ankle, all caution in his movements. “When we finally read your note again, it was obvious you meant to find the dragons, but not where you were going. So we kept searching and found the cliff, and when we looked north, we saw the dragon perched on the wall. And you were lying in front of it, sylph all around you.”
His voice had deepened, heavy with the things he wasn’t saying. I finished his thought. “You feared it had killed me.”
“Yes.” His voice was wretched. “Yes, I was certain. You were lying across your backpack. You looked broken. You weren’t moving. I couldn’t imagine how you were still alive.”
I rubbed my head, still sensitive after the falls and the shriek of dragons’ voices. If not for the sylph, I would have been dead.
“But then you got up, and I couldn’t understand what you were saying, but I could hear your voice. I wanted to fly across the valley to you, even if it meant I had to face the dragon, too.” He took a long breath. “Then you started playing your flute, and the sylph were singing with you. The sylph you’d left with us started singing, too. It was amazing. You were amazing.”
I ducked my face to hide my blush.
“What happened to you on that wall?”
I took a long breath. “This is probably something everyone needs to hear, but I think I know what the dragons’ weapon is. And why dragons always attack you.”
His expression darkened. “Why?”
Haltingly, I rested my fingertips on his knuckles. His hand was still on my ankle, just barely. “Because they don’t have the weapon. I mistranslated those lines in the book. You are the weapon.”
I didn’t feel well enough to explain everything twice, so Sam went to fetch the others. I ate another bowl of soup, a little more confident in my ability to keep it down. My muscles and bones still ached whenever I moved, but the movement did help.
While I ate and stretched, sylph came in, warming the air that had cooled in their absence. Cris trilled comfortingly as he dropped into the natural shadows with the other sylph, and I managed a smile.
“Did it hurt you?” I asked. “Absorbing the acid to protect me?”
Cris rippled, like a shrug. -Our powers seem limitless at first. We can absorb tremendous amounts of energy. But yes, like Menehem’s poison hurt the others, the acid hurt. The pain fades and we recover, but too much at once might do irreparable damage.-
I lowered my eyes. “I’ll try not to rush into danger from now on.”
He trilled, a laugh. -Sure.-
“I mean it.”
-We are your army. We’ll protect you, no matter the pain or cost. That is all you need to concern yourself with.-
He meant it, too. They would do anything for me. I wasn’t sure I liked the burden of their commitment and confidence. They believed I could help redeem them, but what if I couldn’t? The thought of disappointing them was unbearable.
When Sam returned with Stef and Whit, they each gave me a long, appraising look and didn’t comment when Sam sat near me. Not next to me. Not touching, as he had been. But near. It was enough for now.
“I’m glad you’re back, Ana.” Whit flashed a smile. “And unhurt.”