After what I’d seen in the dreamscape, and after what Mother had told us, it was a relief when the palace grounds of Malyon came into sight. Even more so when we landed.

  I had seen through various pairs of eyes that all was well, if not easy after Mother’s arrival and departure. Herald and Mak were sleeping more restfully; Mak had even had one short moment of delirious near-wakefulness, though it hadn’t lasted. But knowing and seeing through someone else’s eyes couldn’t compare to seeing them myself.

  Tam was not at all improved, which was, sadly, what I’d expected. I needed to have a very serious conversation with Val about that. One which was going to be made much more complicated if Instinct had to handle it due to Mother’s presence. It was bad enough that Instinct would be the one to tell them about the approaching—

  “There will be a lot more dragons here in the next few days,” Instinct announced bluntly. “You will need to be wary.”

  — and there it was.

  The entire small camp fell still and silent. The only sounds were the rustling of the leaves and the nervous shuffling of the mules outside, and the occasional restless groan from Tam.

  “You should be more gentle,” Mother rumbled in Draconic. “Humans are fragile.” At least that was what I thought she said — my Draconic was barely even beginner level.

  “They should know, so they can prepare themselves,” Instinct argued in Karakani.

  “So they should,” Mother agreed in the same language, while looking meaningfully at the stunned humans.

  Maybe try to explain a bit better? I suggested, keeping my frustration with her bluntness from spilling over too much.

  “Hmm. Yes,” Instinct said thoughtfully.

  Before she could say anything else, Ardek spoke up. “Excuse me, Great Ladies,” he said, “but when you say ‘a lot’, how many…?”

  “Six who have tried to encroach on my territory so far, but there may be more,” Instinct replied. “Mother has decided that it would be a waste to destroy so many of our kind, so we shall give them a chance to speak before settling the issue.”

  I could only be grateful that Mother, seeing that her daughter wasn’t doing much to calm anyone down, decided to step in. “Do not fear overmuch, little ones,” she rumbled. “You belong to my daughter, and thus you are under my protection. We shall make that clear, and no dragon would be fool enough to truly rouse my anger.”

  I was pretty sure that some members of the group didn’t exactly appreciate Mother casually declaring them to be my property, but no one argued. No surprise there; Mother was fifteen feet tall at the shoulder and breathed fire that cut stone like fairy floss. she didn’t exactly invite argument. And that being the case, with half a dozen and more entirely unknown dragons bearing down on the place none of the humans present were foolish enough to declare that no, they did not, in fact, want her protection.

  “Now,” Mother said, turning to us, “I shall get back in the air. I wish to know the moment an interloper is on the horizon. You are welcome to join me, but I imagine you will prefer to stay with your humans, especially the stricken ones.”

  “I will stay,” Instinct said, and that was that. Mother gave us a nuzzle, then took to the sky, climbing quickly.

  “Go on,” Instinct groused once she was gone. “Take over. I am sure you will wish to speak with Valmik about his mate yourself, rather than have me do it.”

  Oh, yeah, thanks, I said, surprised at the offer. She was right; I did want to talk to Val, and I did want to do it myself, while Mother was away. I just didn’t expect her to give up control so quickly. It’s not that I don’t trust you, just…

  “You have a lighter touch,” she stated. I thought she might have been embarrassed about how bluntly she’d handled her announcement. Then she stepped back, leaving me in control and Mother no doubt worried as our connection to her weakened again.

  “Right,” I said to the humans. “Now I can speak more freely… yeah. There are dragons coming, too many for Embers to keep away without hunting them down one at a time. Once they realize she’s no longer patrolling the coasts, they could be here within the day. Stay out of sight, and if for whatever reason both Mother and I are gone and one of them spots you and decides they want to talk, be unfailingly polite and deferential. I don’t know much more than that, but I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can. But first: Val, we need to talk. Privately.”

  “Oh,” Val said. He seemed distracted, and looked back down at Tam. “It cannot wait?”

  “It really can’t,” I said. “It’s important. Come, let’s step away a bit. Tam will be fine for a while, and Kira’s there.”

  “Right,” he said. He sounded half out of it, and I wondered how much sleep he’d gotten the past two days. But he gently lifted Tam’s head off his lap and got up, laying it back down on a rolled-up blanket that he slid in. Then he followed me out into the overgrown courtyard.

  “You’ve noticed the girls doing better, I hope?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Their sleep is more peaceful.”

  “But Tam’s isn’t.”

  “No,” he replied. He sounded helpless; not hopeless, but like he knew there was nothing he could do but hope.

  “There may be something I can do,” I told him solemnly.

  Val stopped, his full, intense attention on me. “Why have you not already?” he asked, somewhere between accusing and perplexed. Then my own tone caught up with him, and his eyes widened. “What there is to be done, you’ve done it for the girls, but not for Tam,” he said, putting the pieces together. “Because…”

  “Their souls have come unstuck,” I told him, as gently as I could. “That’s the best way I can explain it. You know about my dreamwalking?”

  “Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

  “You know I can only affect those I’ve touched?”

  “I am aware.”

  “I could bind Herald and Mak’s souls to their bodies again. But not Tam’s. For me to help him…”

  “You would need to… claim him,” Val finished for me.

  “Maybe,” I rasped. I couldn’t meet Val’s eyes anymore. There was no accusation there, but I still felt like I was trying to manipulate him into agreeing to something awful.

  “Why haven’t you done it already?” he asked. “You are his sister. The decision is yours.”

  “We both know that’s not right,” I said. “I may have been adopted into his family, but even if Herald and Mak were awake, they’d still defer to you. And they…”

  “They’re yours already,” he said heavily.

  “They’re biased, yeah,” I agreed. “I know they love him, but they consider being bound to me to be a wonderful thing. They’d want that for him, no matter what he might want himself.” And they’d want me to have another powerful servant, I added to myself. I couldn’t tell him that, though. It felt shameful to admit, like they’d be betraying Tam for me. Maybe they would be. I still wasn’t sold on enthrallment being such a wonderful thing as my humans seemed to think it was. “I’m sorry, Val,” I told him with all the sincerity I could muster. “I really am. And I promise I will try to make my touch as light as I possibly can. If I can leave him free, I will. But I have to put this decision on you.”’

  Val stood there, still as the trees around us, looking at me as he thought. Finally he asked, with pleading in his eyes, “Would it hurt him?”

  “I won’t pretend it’s less unpleasant than it is. I would need to cause him some very powerful emotion to put my mark on him. And fear is the one I have to work with.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Understood. But it is your oath that you will try to leave him free, if possible? That you might be able to… bind his soul back in his body, despite not…”

  “Despite not turning him into another Ardek or Mak, or Mercies forbid, Tammy. Yes. I swear I’ll try.”

  “Alright,” he said, with the resoluteness of a soldier going into battle. “Then I think he will understand, and forgive. When do we leave?”

  “Leave?”

  “You need to be at your hoard, do you not? I imagine you will wish to take him with you, in case the— the light touch is not enough. And I will not be left behind.”

  “Right,” I said, as noncommittal as I could be. Of course he had, in the few minutes since I brought up the idea, put more thought into this than I had. No doubt his entire, considerable intelligence was focused entirely on how to get Tam the greatest amount of help at the smallest possible risk. I absolutely didn’t fault him for it.

  Nor was he wrong. I needed to go to my hoard to do anything, and I really should take Tam with me in case merely touching him wasn’t enough. It was a long flight from Malyon to my lair, and I’d rather not have to add an extra return trip unnecessarily. And I couldn’t fault him for wanting to stay with Tam the whole time. The problem was that… I’d have to take them to my hoard. My hoard. Only two people of any species had enjoyed that privilege, and they were my two closest confidantes in the world. More importantly, I didn’t just trust them; they were both entirely unable to do anything that might harm me or mine. Tam and Val, for all the faith I had in them, were not.

  Well, Tam might be soon, but I had no intentions of doing anything to Val. I liked and respected him far too much to do anything to him, at least intentionally.

  But… I’d brought Rib and Pot within a short walking distance. I hadn’t told them that was where my hoard was in so many words, but I was sure that they’d guessed. If I’d trusted them, surely I could trust Tam and Val? I didn’t even need to bring them to the hoard itself — it would probably be better if I didn’t, in all honesty. I could just take them as far as I had the Terriallons — to the crevice outside the pit — and leave them there.

  And yet, I couldn’t convince myself. That had been out of necessity. And here I had an alternative; close enough that the difference was practically symbolic, so close to my hoard that Val could guess in a second, but far enough that my violent urge to defend what was essentially the center of my universe would be mollified.

  Now I just had to be sure that we were on the same page.

  “I don’t think it would be responsible of me to bring you to my hoard itself,” I said carefully, hoping that my apologetic tone would be enough for the lack of trust I might appear to be showing. “I have instincts that I can’t always control,” I went on. “But I will bring you close enough that I could come to you if necessary. I’ll take you to Lady’s Rest. Is that acceptable to you?”

  “For Tam’s sake I would let you take me anywhere. If I must endure nothing worse than the good people of Lady’s Rest, then no complaint of mine is forthcoming.”

  “Good. Alright. If we understand each other, then… I suppose we just have to convince Mother that it’s terribly important that I leave again.” I rustled my wings, feeling the deep burn in my flight muscles. I did not relish another flight of several hours quite so soon. “After a short nap, perhaps.”

  Instinct had to handle convincing Mother. She did so with ruthless efficiency.

  “Tamor is dying,” she stated. “If he does it will kill my sisters, and I will go mad.”

  Mother, bless her, didn’t even question the claim. I wasn’t sure she believed it, but Instinct said it with such conviction that no one could have doubted that Tam dying would cause her immense pain.

  Then Instinct stated, with the same confidence, “I can help him. But I must take him south.”

  “That is risky,” Mother said. It wasn’t quite a veto, but the way she said it made her opinion clear.

  “Not if you come with me,” Instinct countered. “I will be as safe there as here if you come with me.”

  “And what of your other humans?” Mother asked, looking around the open building.

  “They will be safe in the shrine. Kira can close the door and open it again if needed, and they have everything they need for a day at least. They will be safe, even if the interlopers arrive.”

  I was only almost entirely sure that Instinct was right about Kira being able to open the shrine. With the amount of magic she’d absorbed it seemed likely. And I wondered about Avjilan, too. He might not have actually taken in an entire Rift, but as far as I knew he hadn’t used any significant amount of magic since the magical explosion. Not that their ability or lack thereof to open the shrine mattered for convincing Mother.

  When Mother didn’t argue back for a few seconds, Instinct said, in a tone that wasn’t quite pleading but which was probably as close as she could get, “Mother, I cannot allow Tamor to die. I am going. Please keep us safe.”

  And that clinched it. Mother gave an indulgent huff, and said, “I suppose that you are right. You are no less safe anywhere on the island, as long as I am with you. And they are your humans. If you wish to risk them… well, in the worst case, I suppose it shall be a lesson in responsibility. Are you sufficiently rested from the flight here?”

  “I am,” Instinct said confidently. I, myself, was pretty sure that it would be a miserable late afternoon and evening of flying, and then an equally miserable morning getting back, but my worse half seemed convinced that our two-hour nap would be more than enough. And who was I to scold her when she’d handled getting permission so smoothly?

  It took another little while to get Tam bundled up in clothes and blankets, and to get the two men’s most essential equipment packed in case I had to leave them at Lady’s Rest — another thing that I hadn’t even considered, but which pretty much all of the humans seemed to have planned for. Sometimes I really wondered what I’d do without them.

  When everything was ready, we did as planned. The mules were brought inside the rotunda, everyone did what they could and had to in the bushes, and then Instinct bid them goodbye for now and closed the door on them.

  “You are certain?” Mother asked before we left.

  “Absolutely,” Instinct said.

  “You should not allow yourself to be seen like… this by another dragon,” she said, looking pointedly at Val on our back. “They will never respect you if they see you allowing a human to… if they see you carrying a human on your back. They will not understand. If we spot one of our kind on the horizon, we land, and your little human dismounts. That, or I pluck him from your back.”

  Val wisely didn’t comment on either the threat or the fact that Mother was speaking entirely past him.

  The flight south was mostly silent. On my insistence Instinct kept us low to keep our passengers from getting too cold, but Mother stayed miles above us to be able to spot any interlopers as early as possible. And Val, for all that he could be a good conversationalist, had mastered the easy silence. For the first hour I assumed that he was just enjoying the view. That turned out not to be the case.

  Well, I’m sure that he was enjoying the view, but what he was mostly doing was psyching himself up. I realized this somewhere around the beginning of the second hour, when he shouted without warning, “You are not Draka, are you?”

  My first instinct was to scream, Deny, deflect, distract! But Instinct either wasn’t listening or just didn’t care. She instead slowed to a more conversation-friendly speed, looked back, and said, “You are brave, to suggest that while so high above the forest and with your mate in my arms.”

  “Perhaps,” Val said, “but this is evidence for my claim. Draka would never threaten me so openly. And there is no bravery in this, only trust. I have faith that you care for us. There was little reason for you to convince your mother to allow this journey otherwise.”

  “What gave it away?” Instinct asked curiously, not at all caring about keeping our plurality a secret, and ruining any chance of gaslighting Val before I could even think of a response.

  “What did not?” Val answered. “Your speech and mannerisms are almost completely different, as is your disposition. You are far more like your mother than Draka is.”

  Instinct didn’t reply, but I could feel that she was quite pleased by that. Meanwhile, I despaired at the embarrassment and possible repercussions of Val knowing that I’d… not lied, as such, but hid something quite important from him.

  After a while, Val continued. “It was my thought at first, back at Lady’s Rest, that it was an act. But having seen you together in Old Mallin, and how you change when your mother leaves, I got a feeling. I suspect I’m not the only one.”

  “So why bring it up at all?” Instinct asked. She was still much more curious than she was concerned. And why not, I figured. What threat was Val to her? She didn’t have quite the same scruples as I did; the fact that she hadn’t enthralled Val, Tam and Maglan yet was entirely down to the threats Conscience and I had made about making her life unbearable if she did.

  Well, that, and her actually having some basic consideration for our feelings on the matter. But I was pretty sure that the threats had more weight.

  “We are alone here, and I felt it necessary,” Val answered simply. “I have known men with split souls before; I had a friend — or two friends in one body, perhaps — when I was still a soldier. One half could not stomach battle, so he left that to his other, much like how you only come out when Sower of Embers is near. I suppose… I wanted you to know that there is no need to hide this. Not from me, at least. I love and respect Draka, but I would like to know you, as well. You deserve the same chance we gave her.”

  Instinct laughed. Laughing was not an easy thing to pull off while flying, both because of the wind and the way our flight muscles expanded and compressed our chest with every beat. Nor was it something she did often; it was far too human an expression for her. But she managed it. “I will think on it,” she said once she’d finished. “Though you should not hope for too much. I do not have the same need for approval as the little ghost.”

  “Alright,” Val said, not pressing the issue. “I should like to thank you for not pretending, at least. Do you have a separate name that you prefer? I suspect Draka will want to talk to me about this, if she hears and remembers what you do.”

  “Oh, she does. She hears every word,” Instinct said, and the glee she directed my way was infuriating. Not because there was anything malicious behind it, but because of how entirely unbothered she was. How could she not think that this was a big deal?! “As for names, I am Draka no less than she is. But the little ghost likes to call me Instinct. You may do the same, if you must address me directly.”

  “Then, Instinct, I am pleased to have spoken with you, and I will keep your secret. But I hope you’ll soon feel comfortable with properly introducing yourself to everyone.”

  “One day,” Instinct said indulgently. “When the little ghost stops fearing the truth.”

  One day. Yeah. It’d have to come out one day.

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