What is the purpose of one’s life if one has no higher calling?
Sanna scowled and rolled onto her side. Trust a dragon to be contemplative in the middle of the night. A rock jabbed into her ribcage. She wriggled away.
How does one find a higher calling? Luteis insisted.
“Argh! Go to sleep!”
A serpentine hiss followed. Fine. Let Luteis be annoyed. She didn’t feel too happy with him either.
Silence followed, and it teemed with irritation.
Groaning, Sanna flopped onto her back. The air cooled around her, which could have been from the freezing rain, but also from fading sunshine. Night must be swooping in. She stayed dry under a gargantuan flake of bark the size of a house itself. Luteis’ seething dragon heat kept the enclosed space toasty warm.
She stifled a yawn.
“What time is it?”
You’re willing to speak when it serves your purposes, is that it?
She rolled her eyes, more metaphorically than physically. For being intelligent creatures, dragons had a hard time understanding body language.
“Luteis, you always choose to have philosophical discussions right before I fall asleep. Then it wakes me up, I don’t get any rest, and we’re both cranky.”
Another mumble—this one she couldn’t understand—issued through her mind. He shifted, the sound of clicking scales a soothing one. Outside, the rain continued to thrum. Soon, it would turn to snow. Rivulets splashed into puddles on the ground, releasing the scent of degrading leaves.
I don’t know what time it is. It’s past dark.
Right.
Dragons didn’t regard hours.
After losing her sight setting the mountain, desert, forest, and sea dragons free from a goddess magic system that kept them slaves, the struggle to adjust to living without sight had been . . .
. . . interesting.
A week had passed in a frustrating eternity. Luteis hadn’t left her side, but there was only so much a dragon could do. For example, he couldn’t carry a pocket watch or read time. When in the depths of the forest and unable to feel the sun, watch the passage of shadows on the forest floor, or track the light in the sky, Sanna felt lost in her own day.
Eternal night, but not really. Other witches saw daylight.
She didn’t.
Sanna exhaled a long breath. Past dark, she could have assumed just by the change in temperature, but with sleet present, one never knew. She tried to summon enough exhaustion to put her into a quick sleep, but she hovered on the edge. In the space between tired and sort of tired.
Closer to bored.
The plunk of falling rain echoed along the forest floor. The sound filled a world half-gone to shadow. A trickle of rain snaked down the trunk behind her, creeping onto the fabric at the back of her neck.
Your Mam is probably concerned for you in this weather. Your lacking scales and heat is a problem.
She fought back a smile. Mam and Luteis waged a hidden, secret war to be the one that worried over her the most.
“Mam knows I’m with you.”
As if summoned, a flutter graced the gentle skin on top of her nose. She reached up with a scowl. Paper crinkled in her fingers.
As expected, he drawled.
Since Sanna couldn’t see the words, and Luteis refused to learn witch scratchings, Mam had reluctantly agreed to use magic again and had developed a series of folds. If the paper resembled a heart, Mam wanted an update. If it was a rectangle, she needed Sanna to return. A square meant dinner was ready.
A square, then.
Sanna sighed. Mam couldn’t help hovering a bit. She had no reason to fear with Luteis so close, but Mam didn’t quite understand.
Another message followed. Sanna found it with the tips of her fingers and scowled as she felt the edges. A heart.
Dinner and an update.
A third.
A rectangle, too. Dinner, update, and a return. Clever, Mam. Sanna crumbled them, then pitched them over her shoulder. She clapped her hands together, ridding her palms of dirt. With one hand on the trunk behind her, she stood up.
“Luteis,” she muttered. “One thing is blatantly obvious: it’s time we find a place for us to live. A place that’s not with Mam.”