“Maravel Hall,” I said. “So, we’re at the western border?”

"Indeed." Tavarian spooned up a hearty bite of beef stew. "You should eat that before you pepper me with more questions. Beef stew isn't meant to be eaten cold."

I frowned, but did as he said. We sat in a tastefully appointed dining hall that would not have been out of place in a mansion. In fact, if I hadn’t known we were standing inside a mountain, I would have thought we were on some upper-city tosh’s estate. Tavarian had given us a full tour—the place had ten rooms, not including the staff quarters, and there were ventilation shafts and extra overhead windows cleverly hidden by vegetation to allow plenty of fresh air inside. There was also a shelter for Lessie, with a separate entrance shadowed by some giant trees where a full-grown dragon could comfortably fit. She was in there now, eating a substantial meal of mutton, while we enjoyed our lunch in here.

"I'm so glad that I made extra stew," Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper, chirped as she bustled in to refill our tankards. "I had no idea you would be arriving, and with a new dragon in tow, no less!"

“Yes, I apologize for not sending word,” Tavarian said. “But we really couldn’t risk it.”

“That’s quite all right,” she said as she poured from the pitcher of ale in her hands. “We’re just glad to have you back.”

“It must be lonely, living here all by themselves,” I said quietly as Mrs. Barton left the room. She and her husband, both in their forties, were the caretakers of this hidden estate and lived here year-round. “Do they ever get to leave?”

“They get a two-week vacation once a year,” Tavarian said. “But they are quite content. They have little desire to spend much time in the outside world.”

I frowned at that. Mr. Barton had been a bit taciturn when I’d met him, but Mrs. Barton had a cheerful manner about her that seemed well suited for hosting parties and socializing with fellow townsfolk. I wondered what had made them choose life under the mountain. Even a well-paid job couldn’t be worth it if you couldn’t enjoy the fruits of your labor but once a year.

After lunch, Tavarian quizzed me about the progress I’d made in my lessons, both with and without Lessie. He also took Lessie and me out in the field and had us run through various maneuvers to test our competence. Overall, he was impressed with Lessie’s progress given that she was only a few months old, but we still had a long way to go, and he wrote out a rigorous study and training program for both of us that took nearly all our available time.

“Bank left,” Tavarian ordered during one such training exercise through the magical communication device clipped to my ear.

I relayed the command, and Lessie did so, swerving back toward the center of the valley. “I wish he would let us near the cliffsides,” she complained to me.

“Dive ten feet, then flatten out,” Tavarian said.

Lessie followed the command, though she bristled a little. “I know how you feel,” I said in a soothing voice even as my stomach leaped into my throat from the sudden drop, “but Tavarian is right to be concerned. I know how strong and smart you are, but in dragon years you’re still just a baby.”

“A baby wouldn’t be able to carry an adult human on her back,” Lessie grumbled. “And how am I ever going to be able to make it over those cliffs if he won’t let me try?”

I glanced toward the cliffs. They were several hundred feet high, their jagged points sheltering us from the outside world, but the cliffs themselves weren't the issue. It was the steep updrafts that had battered the airship as we'd come in for our landing, updrafts that could toss a small dragon like Lessie around as if she were a ragdoll.

“We’ve only been here for ten days,” I reminded Lessie as we flew in a small circle over the field. “I’m sure Tavarian will let us try it in a couple of days.”

“Attack left,” Tavarian ordered, and Lessie immediately dove for the ground, her maw stretched wide open. She swooped down over a small grove of trees, miming the action of spewing fire over a group of soldiers, though of course she didn’t do it in real life. Tavarian had made it very clear that we were to use no fire on the ground—the valley got plenty of rain, but it would still be all too easy to set the forests and fields ablaze.

Tavarian ordered a few more maneuvers, using the magical earpiece to give us corrections and feedback with each one. But as I thought back to the training drills at the academy, I wished Major Falkieth were here with her dragon. She and the older cadets had been able to demonstrate maneuvers for us, and had even staged mock battles so we could practice on a live opponent. It would be so much easier if there were another dragon here to show us…

“ZARA!” Lessie shrieked. “LOOK!”

I glanced up and would have fallen off the saddle if my feet hadn't been secured in the stirrups. A dragon, easily the size of a small house, soared straight over the cliffs, its giant wings briefly blotting out the sky. Lessie's body trembled with excitement as the other dragon tucked its wings to the sides of its body and dove for the ground, its silver scales flashing in the sunlight, heading straight toward Tavarian.

Silver scales.

“Dragon’s balls,” I choked out. “It can’t be.”

“It has to be.”

Sure enough, as Lessie and I landed, the silver dragon was nuzzling Tavarian, purring so loudly the ground vibrated beneath my feet. Tavarian was grinning, his face transformed as he stroked the dragon's enormous head, and as I stood there, a flush crept over my cheeks, like I was intruding on a private moment and should turn my face and wait for them to finish their reunion.

And yet, I couldn’t look away.

Lessie, on the other hand, had no such considerations. She gave the silver dragon about ten seconds, then trotted over to him. The other dragon turned, and the two of them immediately began sniffing each other.

“So,” I said, coming over to Tavarian. “Your dead dragon isn’t so dead after all, is he?”

“I never said Muza was dead,” Tavarian said mildly, but the devilish glint in his eyes told a different story. “I merely said that he didn’t make it back. I never specified what happened to him afterward.”

“So, your dragon has been living out here this entire time?” I exclaimed. “So far apart from you? Why would you willingly choose to be separated like that?”

“Because I didn’t want Muza to suffer for Elantia’s actions,” Tavarian said quietly. He turned his gaze back to his dragon, and there was so much affection and pain in his eyes that it stole my breath. “If I’d brought him back with me to Elantia, he and I would have just been sent off to fight another war. So, I set him free instead.”

I wanted to ask Tavarian more about that, but Muza turned toward me, pinning me with eyes the exact color of a tropical ocean. My breath came out of me in a whoosh as he extended his neck, nostrils flaring as he sniffed me.

“He says he likes you,” Tavarian offered, “and Lessie as well.”

“Oh, good.” I ran a hand along his nose, admiring his silver scales. They were the exact color of Tavarian’s eyes, and of the dragon armor he’d worn the night he and Lessie had rescued me from Salcombe. The dragon gave me a rumbling purr as he allowed me to pet him, then promptly turned away and nudged Tavarian’s hip.

Tavarian chuckled. “Your lessons are finished,” he told me. “You may take the rest of the day off.”

Lessie and I looked at each other, then headed back to Maravel Hall. As much as we would have liked to stay and quiz Tavarian and Muza, we understood they needed time to reconnect after being apart for…for how long? Months? Years? Just how often did Tavarian visit his dragon? And if Muza stayed here in this valley, then why hadn’t he been here when we arrived?

"Muza doesn't live here in the valley," Tavarian said later on as we feasted on a dinner of roasted boar and root vegetables. "He lives in a far-off, secret place, one that has never been discovered by any nation and never will, so long as there is breath in my body. This estate acts as a sort of go-between point for us, and we meet here once a year."

“Once a year?” I winced. “How long have you two been doing this? Ten years? Twenty?”

“Sixteen,” Tavarian said. “And yes, it is incredibly difficult. Most dragon riders would not be able to withstand the mental toll such a long separation takes, but the fact that I am half-mage seems to help combat the effects.”

I shook my head. Clearly, Tavarian was much stronger than I had ever given him credit for. When we'd first met, I thought he was just another pompous sky dweller like the others of his kind, or worse, another Salcombe out to take advantage of me. But the more I got to know him, the more I realized how wrong I was. Beneath the stony façade, he was intelligent, considerate, and even kind. Someone I could look up to.

Someone I could care about.

“Has there been any progress on the hunt for Salcombe?” I asked. I knew Tavarian could communicate with Captain Marcas and his fellow councilors for very brief periods using a magical device not dissimilar to the earpiece I wore during flying lessons.

Tavarian shook his head. “I would have thought he’d be caught, since there is a nationwide manhunt for him, but it seems your old mentor is annoyingly clever. It is entirely possible that by this point he has managed to slip across the border or onto a ship.”

I nodded. “Salcombe is very resourceful, not to mention wealthy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d managed to barter a spell to disguise himself or something.” Ironic, really, that a mage would be helping him, considering that he was hunting for the World Eater’s heart, the very thing that the mages of old had sworn to protect.

Sighing, I picked at my food as I thought back to the last time Salcombe and I had talked. He was the reason I’d met Lord Tavarian—to settle a debt, he’d sent me to Tavarian’s estate to steal a piece of the heart, and I’d ended up with Lessie instead. He’d tried to convince me Tavarian was collecting the pieces to summon the dragon god, and by the time I’d figured out the truth, it had been too late. Salcombe already had at least one piece, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get his hands on the rest of them.

Including sacrificing my life.

My nose ached with phantom pain as I remembered his fist plowing into my face. The ugly, twisted look of rage and zeal had been more sickening than the strike itself. I’d never deluded myself into thinking Salcombe was a good man—he’d taken me in and raised me, but he’d also used me to find treasure and steal it for him when the item he wanted was already in someone else’s hands. Back when I was a young teenager, when stealing was as natural as breathing and I was starved for affection, starved for any scrap of home and hearth I could get, I didn’t care that Salcombe was using me. I’d been too blind and naïve to see it.

But I wasn’t that naïve little girl anymore. I knew that family and friendship wasn’t about what someone else could do for you. It was about what the two of you could do together. About the memories you could make, the challenges you could tackle, the feats you could accomplish. It was about climbing the mountain together, not cutting someone else’s rope so you could get to the top first.

Salcombe had never understood that. But I had the feeling that Lord Tavarian did.

The next couple of weeks passed markedly different than the first. Muza's presence changed everything—Lessie was more eager than ever to prove herself, while Tavarian was a little more laid back and indulgent. He still wouldn't let Lessie anywhere near the cliffs—and neither would Muza, for that matter—but we did start practicing some more exciting maneuvers, like barrel rolls and corkscrews. Lessie and I even got to practice firebombing dummies in a fire-proofed clearing, an activity she absolutely delighted in.

He also made me drill rigorously with the crossbow, both on and off Lessie’s back. I hated these exercises the most, especially when he made me try to shoot game from hundreds of feet in the air. But I couldn’t solely rely on Lessie’s brawn and firepower when I was in the air, and the crossbow was one of the best weapons I could use while in the sky.

“I wish Muza could come back with us to Elantia,” Lessie said plaintively as I groomed her one night. "It seems so sad to me that when we're finished, he'll have to go back in hiding again."

“I agree,” I said as I stroked a cloth over her scales. The cloth was soaked with a special, slightly spicy herbal solution that cut through grime and strengthened scales. “But on the other hand, this is the most time Muza has spent with his rider in years. I have no doubt these new memories he’s making with us will last him for a good, long while.”

“Or make his pain that much harder to bear,” Lessie argued. “I am starting to think you are right about these wars, Zara. I do want to smite our enemies, but not at the expense of my fellow dragons. Muza said that if I ever were to tire of Elantia or get fed up being commanded by people who don’t have my best interests at heart, to come and stay with him. He tells me that the place he lives in is beautiful and that I would feel right at home.”

“Is that so?” I asked, a little taken aback. I’d never thought about it, but what if Lessie decided she didn’t want to be with me anymore? That she would prefer to go off and live on her own, with someone of her own kind—

“Don’t be silly,” Lessie said, her voice gentling. She craned her neck over her shoulder and nuzzled my cheek. “While I do intend to visit Muza’s island someday, I would never abandon you. We are bound together both in this life and the next.”

Smiling, I nuzzled her back. "Do you really think there's a next life, or an afterlife?" I asked. The ancient Elantians had certainly thought so, before the dragon god had come to our world and shattered our faith, and there were still other countries around the world, that worshipped various deities.

“Of course there is,” Lessie said. “Our souls burn too hot and too bright to be snuffed out by one mere lifetime. Our bodies may break down, but we continue on.”

The conviction in her voice was so firm, so powerful, that I nearly believed it.