Page 143 of I Dream of Dragons
“Mera?” I gasp.
“Come in,” she says with a grin. “Make yourself at home. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m not here to kill you.”
Cautiously, eyeing her for weapons, I step all the way inside the room and close the door behind me. “Are you sure about that?”
She hums and smooths her hand over my coverlet. “Yes. Relax.” She’s dressed in a long, dark green dress and with her dark hair bound back, she looks quite pretty. “Today I’m taking it easy. A day off, if you like.”
“Funny,” I mutter.
“I’m not that bad, am I?” She leans back on her hands and lifts a brow.
“Well, forgive me for not keeping up with your change of moods,” I say, annoyed at how unnerved I am at finding her here. But of course I have no key for the lock and the idea that anyone could come in here, even when I’m asleep at night, is frankly terrifying.
“Ooh, angry, are we?”
“Just tired,” I confess.
“It’s hard to know who to trust.” She says it as if we’re agreeing on something. As if we’ve become bosom friends. Confidants.
Maybe we are in agreement. I don’t know. I can’t deny she’s right.
“I figured, us humans should stick together,” she says now.
“I thought you hated my guts.”
“Psht. So dramatic.”
I walk over to the window, reluctant to sit down. I don’t trust her smile and words, and no, it’s not a thing of beauty. It’s a thing of lessons learned.
“Is that why you’re here? To tell me this?”
“Or because I distrust the others?” She gives a little laugh. “Well, not many of us left, are there? Even if you’re in league with the finnfolk and the fae and, well… if you’re human. I mean, you did command a drak. How did you do that if you aren’t fae?”
“Am I your last resort, then?” I ask to avoid replying to her questions, to which I don’t even have all the answers. “What about Amaryll? She isn’t in league with the finnfolk and the fae. A better bet, surely.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“My luck?” I snort, turning around. “Yes, I’ve been so lucky.”
“Those of us who made it through the trials have a lucky star.” She observes me from under her lashes, enigmatic like a cat.
It’s a sobering thought. “A guardian Eosphor?”
“Something like that. My mother always said…” She trails off, toying with a thread in her bodice. “She said we all have a guardian spirit somewhere.”
“Maybe not in this world,” I say softly.
She glances up. “You don’t believe it?”
I shrug. “I don’t know the will of the divine. The Gods have been asleep for too long. We don’t speak their language anymore.”
“Yet you keep fighting. You don’t give up. That means you believe in something.”
I shrug. I believe in revenge, and now… now Mars is back, I believe that fate has a twisted sense of humor. I may be ready to hope, to put my faith in fate again, but I’m scared.
Scared it’s all a lie. That everything will come crashing back down.
“Remember that he caused your family’s demise.”
