Page 10 of Smoke

Putting things back in their proper place could wait. I had other things on my mind.

I opened the windows to let fresh air inside, then leaned my elbows on the sill and looked out over the grounds and even further. Out to the mountains. Which one was Jasmine’s home? Smoke’s home?

I could think of him now.

With my stories told and accepted—I hoped—there was time to let my heart wonder about him again. How could I have been so wrong about him? How could I have deluded myself into believing he cared about me? Was I that lonely? That desperate? I had never thought of myself as a desperate person before. I wasn’t like the girls who came to me for love potions, and there were many of those.

Girls whose faces fell when I told them there was no such thing as a love potion. Love wasn’t the sort of thing that could be forced. It had to happen on its own.

I was smarter than them. I was above it all. Or so I’d always thought.

Mama used to tell us stories about a girl who lived in the top of a tower. She would look out the window all day and night, hoping for the day when her prince would come and save her. I used to wonder what that girl did with the rest of her time. Wasn’t she bored? What sense was there in sitting and looking out a window day in and day out? I’d always kept my questions to myself, since I knew Mama would laugh in that gentle way of hers and Jasmine would tell me to shut up and just enjoy the story. Even then, when we were little girls, she was always the vocal one.

I thought about that girl in the tower as I sat in a tower of my own, pining away for a man I could never be with. No, not just a man. A dragon. I had to keep thinking of him that way, otherwise I’d romanticize him and make it that much harder to live without him. It was already hard enough.

Even so, even though common sense told me to stop wasting my time, I still thought about him.

I wondered; did he miss me? Would he think of me? What went through his head whenever our eyes met, and a shiver ran down my spine? What was he feeling in those moments? When we’d find our way to each other’s sides without saying a word? What was he thinking then?

Stop this.

I shook my head when my practical side took over.

You have work to do.

And I did.

I got up with a determined sigh and turned my back to the window.

By the time the sun rose, I had put away the supplies I had taken to the cave and had already started making more salve to replace what I’d used on Jasmine.

But still, the window was open.

And every so often, my eyes drifted out toward the distant mountains.

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