The next day when Avik arrived, Zedane was ready. He hadn’t slept but with time to think, he’d come up with a plan. Avik held open the door and waited for Zedane to walk past, then followed behind.
This is your fault, Zedane thought at her.
Fault, came the return thought. This means what?
Zedane knew better than to try and explain. If yosun didn’t understand a word, it meant that concept was something alien to their way of thinking. Since things were neither bad nor good, they just were, so how could there be fault? How could there be blame?
I see my upcoming death as a bad thing and wish you had tried to prevent it.
Death is inevitable for everyone. How can it be bad?
Zedane shrugged, deciding to give up. No one in history had won an argument with a yosun. He had more important things to win, namely, a duel. The High Lord had been accepted as the most powerful man for centuries, but when had he last been tested? Zedane had taken part in many duels over the last few years, and he sometimes won against the odds.
The odds were certainly against him today, but winning first required belief. That had been one of his dueling instructors' maxims. In the Crystal Towers, they liked maxims. Taking wisdom and distilling it to its simplest form.
At the entrance to the Diamond courtyard, Zedane’s step faltered. A dragon lay before him, its golden scales glittering in the sunlight.
Fear choked at his throat. He had rarely seen a dragon and certainly never one as big. He glanced back at Avik. She raised a wing, gesturing for him to continue around the dragon.
Perhaps it is sleeping. Zedane stayed as far to the edge of the courtyard as he could. The dragon’s tail was wrapped around itself and its head lay on top of the end of it with its eyes closed. Zedane’s legs sped up involuntarily, wanting to get far away from the dragon as quickly as possible.
Its eyes opened and the dragon’s head snaked upward. Zedane froze as the head stopped in front of him, turning it so its eye, the size of a wagon wheel, stared straight into Zedane’s face. The pupils of those eyes slitted, the golden irises elongating into ovals. Zedane had earlier seen death in the shadowed wings and he now saw death in those golden eyes. He wasn’t powerful enough in energy or shield magic to prevent the dragon’s flame from burning him to a crisp.
A pain stabbed into Zedane’s head, and he fell to the ground, screaming.
Then the pain was gone, but his thoughts were not his own. He saw a young girl standing in front of him. It was Kae, the High Lord’s daughter, and she was a child, maybe eight years old. Other than the High Lord, no other human had ever dared approach the dragon so closely uninvited. Kae came nearer. She climbed up on its leg and attempted to scale its back. The dragon shook her off, and she tumbled to the ground. She dusted herself off, grinned up at it. “I will ride you one day,” she said.
I planned to let her. Now she never will. The thoughts blasted across Zedane’s mind.
The remembrances in Zedane’s head shifted, and his own memory rose to the forefront of his mind. The dragon was still in his head though.
Zedane saw the fierce glare in Kae's eyes as he held her aloft in his fist. Even knowing she was powerless before him, she refused to submit even the slightest. Then Zedane watched Kae’s arms spiraling backward as she fell away from his outstretched hand, her brown cloak billowing in the wind.
The dragon pulled away, settling its head on its front feet, and the vivid memories faded. Zedane took a few calming breaths, then looked behind at Avik. Aren’t you supposed to be guiding me to the throne room?
I am. Avik pointed with her wing. The doors are over there.
Shouldn’t that include protecting me?
You are still alive.
Zedane grunted and got back to his feet. Some good you are. He continued past the dragon, who this time didn’t move to stop him.
Zedane knew that dragons communicated via thoughts, but he hadn’t realized that they could break into a mind so brutally. Though, he guessed, considering a dragon could brutalize him in much more permanent ways, perhaps he was getting off lightly. It was clear the dragon was another who had loved the notan.
Zedane still didn’t know Kae, would never know her, but he was beginning to understand how she had gained the love of Halcone in such a short time. And why her father came so swiftly avenge her. Perhaps she was someone who could have become a friend to him, as his father had wanted, if he hadn’t been so stupid. He could only hope he met his own death with the same fierce glare of defiance in his eyes.
He shook his head. Not today. He wasn’t going to die—he was going to win.