Page 22 of Dragon Valley
She held my gaze for a long moment before snapping it over to the fire again.
“I’ve been an outsider among my own people my whole life,” she said in such a small voice I could barely hear. “I wasn’t raised in a family unit. I look different. I want different things than my clan does. The more I try to prove myself, the more my own people push back against me. I’ve never really felt understood here.”
“Not even by Azel?” I asked. “You two seem pretty close.”
“He’s gone.” She said it with a sigh that sounded like one of longing. “He left for his trials this morning. If he survives, he’ll be gone for weeks.”
“That long?” I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. “When will he come back?”
“When the Dragon God tells him he’s ready,” she replied.
I sat back for a moment to think. Wasthatwhy she was here with me?
“I’m sorry, Nadiyah. I hope he comes back to you.” The words seemed to fight their way out of me. The moment he did come back, she’d probably forget all about my existence. We certainly wouldn’t be eating and drinking together under a star-filled sky.
Her large, green eyes flickered up at me and my heart skipped a beat. “I miss him of course, but when he does get back, things will be expected to change.”
“You’ll be expected to marry him,” I stated.
She nodded.
“And you don’t want to?”
“I don’t know,” she said, frustration creeping into her voice. “I love him, but I don’t like the way we do things.”
“Being one of multiple wives?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it sounded like he’d be willing to marry only you the other night,” I said. “I barely know him but it seems to me that he likes everything about you, and wouldn’t want you to change.”
I fought to keep the longing and jealousy out of my own voice. If only we had met at another point in time. She looked so much like she would be from my own village. If only we weren’t from vastly different worlds.
“I believe he would if he wasn’t a chief’s son,” she answered softly. “But as a future chief, there’s been a precedent set before him. The more wives he has, the more powerful he is perceived to be. If I’m his only wife, his prowess will be questioned. It’s important for him to not be seen as a weak ruler.”
What an awful position for her to be in. I couldn’t blame her for feeling like she had no place among her own people. My heart tugged in multiple directions with the desire to help in some way.
“If you could do whatever you wanted without consequence, what would that be?” I asked.
She looked down at the dragon in her lap, Dusa’s eyes now halfway closed with sleep.
“Dusa and I would just travel wherever the wind took us,” she said. “We’d explore the regions to the north and south, meet the people there and learn about them. I love the valley but I don’t want to be stuck here for the rest of my life.”
“Then you should do that,” I said. “Although it might be safer when the war is over.”
“I’ve been safe here since I was born,” she grumbled. “Safety is a cage. It’s restrictive and boring. Now is the best time to provide safety for those who actually need it.”
“You make it hard to argue with you, Nadiyah,” I chuckled.
“You’re smarter than Azel, then.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “And you can call me Nadi.”
I smiled. “Okay, Nadi.”
Dusa let out a long, whistling snore, eliciting chuckles from both of us.
“How did your people start living with dragons in the first place?” I asked. “I can’t imagine any of us taming them to the point of being able to ride.”
“According to legend, there was once a massive lake inside of Dragon Valley,” she began softly. “When the first humans landed ashore at what is now Siren’s Bay, one man went off on his own. He scaled the mountains and came right down to the lake for his first real drink of water in days. There he saw a dragon hatchling, no bigger than a sheep. Its wings hadn’t unstuck yet and it was drowning. He rescued it despite his weariness and brought it ashore to safety.”
