41. Arianna

The bed was cold and the room, though nicely sized, felt a million veca wide. There was no rumbling of Cvareh’s deep breaths while he slept. Florence’s heat wasn’t warming her sheets. Arianna was left alone—as she had been for a week now—with her thoughts.

She had almost worked up the resolve to leave the Alchemists’ Guild without Florence, when Cvareh had visited her that afternoon. He’d come bearing himself to her in ways she hadn’t expected, and didn’t want to believe were true.

Because believing would mean trusting a Dragon again.

And then there were all the claims Florence had made against her. Arianna stared listlessly at the ceiling. The girl had seen vision in her, when there had only ever been vengeance. Both drove, both were pursued with all the passion of the soul.

But a soul driven by vengeance was a selfish soul. A soul driven by vision was a generous one—one that bore itself before others and put the needs of the many before the needs of the few.

There was a time that she had actually possessed those traits. A time when they weren’t just vacant, labeled pegs on the walls of her personality. She had written them off when the rebellion died. Eva, Master Oliver, and the Arianna they had known died alongside them.

She was nothing now, and that had enabled her to be an extension of her benefactors’ will as the White Wraith. What Florence had seen in her was nothing more than a mirror of the potential that lived in the girl herself. Potential Ari eagerly reflected and wanted to grow—as if its vines and roots could curl around the fragments of her heart and pull them back together.

Arianna sat up, rubbing her eyes tiredly. Even Sophie’s words about Eva had stuck with her. What would Eva think if they met now? Was Arianna still someone she’d want to love?

Chasing ghosts down empty halls, she stood, padding on silent feet through the Master’s passages of the Alchemists’ Guild. Eva was dead. Whatever she would or wouldn’t love no longer mattered. Now, Arianna had to live for the living—for herself.

Arianna turned the knob of Cvareh’s door, letting herself quietly into his room.

Even amid her virtual silence, the Dragon woke. Talons jutted from his hands, ready to ward off a shadowed attacker. She leaned against the door, waiting for him to calm himself, to realize who was there. It only took a moment.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered.

She could hear his quickening heartbeat, feel his magic responding to hers. Arianna crossed over to his bed with purpose. He sat straighter as she made herself at home without his permission, drawing up her legs to sit atop his sheets.

His words about her played relentlessly in harmony with everything else she’d been coming to terms with. Arianna had heard them clearly, but they were so difficult for her to process. This Dragon and she had embarked on an odd journey with each other. It was a winding path that had taken them across Loom, and what she thought was to be their final destination had turned out to be a resting point before the next, greater trek.

“I want proof,” she announced.

“Proof of what?” Cvareh asked skeptically.

“Proof that your sister is who she says she is. That if I help this resistance—and her—get their footing, I will not just be replacing one tyrant with another.”

The fact was that Loom was headed toward another war no matter what she did. If it was in one year, or twenty, eventually the rebels here would grow enough, become reckless enough, that they would attack. Loom wasn’t meant to sustain itself as it was. That Ari believed above all else. Tensions would be omnipresent until things with the Dragons were settled in a far better manner than their current arrangement.

“Whatever proof you want, I’ll get,” Cvareh said hastily.

“I don’t want it from you.”

“What then?”

“I want it from her.”

“Her?” It took him a second to put it together. “Petra? My sister will never come to Loom. She can’t. There are too many eyes on her.”

“I never said anything about her coming here.”

“You want to go to Nova?” Cvareh couldn’t process what he was hearing. The idea of Arianna on Nova was preposterous—she could agree with him on that.

“Want may be a strong word, yet…” Arianna sighed softly. “I’ve been standing still for far too long, hiding behind excuses and poor attempts at belief in something, anything.”

“Is this because of Florence?”

“Among other things.” He may have been ready to bare his soul to her, but Arianna wasn’t there yet. They were still too much of nothing and not enough of everything for her to expose herself emotionally.

“So you patched things up with her?” he asked.

“I’m on the way to doing so.” Arianna was pointedly ambiguous, and he fell down the rabbit hole of drawing his own conclusions. The Dragon no doubt presumed she’d spoken to Florence about her plans. But Arianna would face Florence again when she could be the woman the girl had seen in her all along. She would apologize with her actions before her words.

“I’m glad.” The Dragon genuinely sounded it. Sincerity, from a Dragon. The idea was far-fetched in her mind, but Cvareh continued to make a strong case. “I’ll speak to my sister, and figure out a way back to Nova for both of us.”

Arianna shook her head. “We should go now. The more time you take, the more opportunity I have to back out of this.”

“But we have no way of breaking through the Gods’ Line…”

“The what?”

“The clouds,” he corrected hastily.

“Yes we do,” she declared triumphantly. “You didn’t think the Alchemists would let a Rider’s glider sit in the forest to be picked apart or rusted to dust, did you?”

“Leona’s glider is here?” He’d heard nothing of it.

“I found it when I was nipping through storerooms for parts.” She stood.

“The nipping around bit I believe. The rest seems suspect.”

Arianna grinned and extended her hand to the Dragon. “I like this newfound sass of yours, Cvareh. Don’t give up on it.”

“As you ask.” He took her right hand with his left. It was awkward, but it suited them. She went right, he went left: two halves of the same whole.