Page 137 of I Dream of Dragons
What is anyone made for? Why did we leave our world, what were we seeking?
“Phaethon,” she says, and I frown.
“Go,” I tell her.
“You need me to numb the pain,” she reminds me.
“I don’t need you. Leave.”
But she doesn’t.
I never had anyone or anything to numb the pain before. Any damage to this body has always sent me away into the dark, but this constant pain is different. Now I understand the process better. It’s not the pain that sends me away, but the shock, the suddenness, the way it pierces me, a sensation so real it shreds me.
She stays.
Time rolls by. I drift off and jerk awake. Unimaginable that I should let my guard down with only this girl to have my back. Why do I trust her?
Maybe Iamcrazy.
A commotion outside the room rouses me. I focus on the guards pushing the doors open, admitting the king inside with the telchin in tow.
The telchin. I hadn’t spoken to the old fleabag in a while.
“Astar,” he says, calling me by my old name, calling to one of the parts that make me who I am.
I was Astar once, but since Phaethon joined us I don’t answer to that name. I don’t even know why. Astar was a powerful Eosphor, the one who led my people, but Phaethon, the human king whose body and mind I possessed in the previous world stamped my existence inescapably.
Is that why I find myself acting in unpredictable ways?
Like now, when the king lifts a beringed hand and says, “Guards, remove her from the room. She has stayed alone with him long enough.”
The guards move as one to do his bidding and something snaps in me.
With a major effort, the pain worse than I thought it would be, I push myself up on my elbows and snag her arm. “You don’t touch her,” I snarl. “Nobody lays a finger on her.”
The king steps back and two of his guards lift their spears, pointing at me. “We need privacy,” he says.
“She stays. She goes nowhere. I don’t trust you with her.”
She stares at me, her gray eyes round in her small, white face.
The king’s brow creases. “I wouldn’t harm her.”
“You already have, and…” I release her arm. “I don’t trust anyone with her.”
Why did I do that? Why do I feel the need to keep her safe? Is that Jai’s infatuation bleeding into me? This irritating human body is reacting so oddly to her. Her touch calms me, like I told her, the pain fades. A heat fills me when she is near, and my heart must be faulty because it bangs inside my chest when she smiles at me.
It had almost escaped the confines of my chest earlier when she had placed herself between me and the healers, as if to hide me. Protect me.
Which is ridiculous. Why would she?
Because she wants to save Jai. Not me. I know that, too.
It makes no difference. The urge to be with her, fling her behind me and bare my teeth at anyone who might harm her is taking my breath away.
How… pathetic. Eosphors are creatures of war. Created for war, we are… Wait,created? Where did that memory come from? Created by whom? What are we, why?—?
“Phaethon.” The king shoves his guards aside and stands once more before me. “We are allies, you and I.”
