Halfway through yet another tedious class, Zen nudged Alisa with his nose. ’I must go. Meet me outside when you’re done.’

“Huh, Zen?”

Before she could formulate her question, he’d taken off and zipped away, undulating in the air as he flew.

She barely paid attention to the rest of the lesson, flickers of thought from Zen tantalizingly too brief to get a solid feel for what he was doing, but she felt his excitement and eagerness clearly.

As long as he wasn’t bringing home another wildling.

She took vague notes that she knew would be useless later, then rushed off to find Zen the moment class ended.

When she saw Tay sitting by Zen’s head, she understood. Zen jumped up and flew off, a coiling streak heading out over the academy walls and into the wilds.

Alisa shook her head at his antics, then turned to Tay. “Does this mean you have the paperwork done?”

“Yes. I’ve already delivered it to administration. You’ll be scheduled for the advancement assessment after the year 2 assessments are completed. A week or two, I don’t remember the specifics, but there’ll be a schedule distributed when it’s important.”

“Everything’s set? Just like that?”

“Yes.” Tay hesitated. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about? I have a bit of time if you need to discuss anything with me.”

Alisa considered, then shook her head. “Every time I try to talk to you, you end up convincing me to do something I don't want."

Tay laughed and shook his head. "Surely it's not so bad."

"I don't disagree with you, but it's still annoying. I'd like to be able to make up my own mind about things sometimes."

"I'm not here to change your mind about anything. I'm here because Zen asked for me." He gestured to the academy gate closest to the direction Zen had flown off in.

Alisa's eyes widened as she realized what that meant. "You think he can actually do it? The..." she trailed off, looking around anxiously. "Bond?"

"I do. He's an incredibly determined dragon, and I would not put anything past him."

"Is it safe?"

Tay laughed softly. "I believe so. If anything goes wrong, I can correct it before it becomes a problem. You need only relax and not fight the connections."

"What does it feel like?" Alisa asked, her eyes going to the powerscript drawn on the back of Tay's hand. "Being paired?"

"It gives me a sense of Genessa's location and wellbeing. I can always be sure she's alive and safe, and we can twin our powers as necessary. We can communicate, much like you and Zen do, but it’s more than that. It’s a… deeper understanding. You’ll see."

"Everyone says it makes you stronger, but how? Wouldn't it just weaken the other as you draw on the power?"

"Not in the way you're imagining. Magic compounds on itself, it grows in unexpected ways. Two is stronger than one; three is stronger than two."

"But the more connections, the less stable it is."

Tay made a noncommittal noise. "The more connections there are, the higher the chance of instability. But it's a myth that it's inherently more dangerous. You could destabilize a pair just as easily as a quad, and I find larger collaborations highly valuable and potent."

Alisa frowned uncertainly. "You're not just a pair?"

"I am, Genessa and I are a stable pair. But I've been bonded before in different configurations. Two is the easiest to maintain, anything more would be… risky, but it’s not impossible. I’ve seen it more than once."

"That's right, you said you had a dragon once?"

"I have, yes." His lips twitched in a brief smile, but his eyes remained sad. "You would have liked him."

"What happened?" Alisa asked.

"I was young and stupid and did not understand what I was doing." Tay shook his head. "The details don't matter. Zen is ready and here I am wasting time reminiscing about old times."

They walked further away from the academy to where Zen lay sprawled across the ground, his eyes intent and Alisa's old stylus wrapped carefully in his tongue.

"It would be best to place it on your back," Tay said. "It's a bigger area and lets Zen create the script with less worry about precision."

Alisa glanced between them, and Tay smiled and turned away. "I'll need to observe, but you can prepare."

She hesitantly removed her shirt, wrapping it across her front while Tay stood with his back to her. She felt incredibly exposed, out in the open, but Zen needed the space and they were probably far enough away that no one would see them.

"Lie down on your stomach," Tay instructed, still not looking. "Zen, take your position."

Alisa found a vaguely comfortable position. "Alright, I'm ready." Wind brushed against her back, making her shiver.

Then something hot touched her and she flinched.

"Don't move." Tay put a hand on her shoulder, holding her still. "Go, Zen, don't stop."

The line of heat never quite became painful, but she was intensely aware of its every movement as it traced itself in careful circles and angles, coiling and expanding, the patterns intimately familiar but just a little strange at the same time.

"Is this a custom circle?" she asked, as Zen added a section she couldn't interpret.

"It is," Tay answered, while Zen continued drawing without pause. "Since your bond was never intended to be two-directional, it required some adaptation to convert. You'll also need to add a few lines to Zen, once yours is done."

"And no one thought to mention this to me so I could practice?"

Tay's hand pressed down, holding her steady. "Relax."

Zen's drawing had paused, and Alisa forcefully pushed away the tension. The flow of heat across her back continued.

"They are simple lines, you will not have any difficulty with them."

Alisa grunted. "When do you do all this?" she asked. "Are you constantly off conspiring together while I sleep or something?"

"Not at all. I am a very busy man. Zen is a very determined dragon, however, and I find it difficult to say no to him."

Alisa felt something shift, the by-now familiar weight of dragon magic lurking within her stirred and shifted, then surged up to flood the powerscript across her back. She felt something else, something heavier and hotter, pressing in, and for a moment she instinctively pushed back.

"Don't resist," Tay murmured. "Accept it."

Alisa couldn't tell if she answered, her focus was fully drawn into the strange non-physical conflict. It was easy to say 'accept it' but when it felt like being drowned in lava it wasn't so simple.

"Here, your turn now."

Alisa could hardly tell what she was doing as Tay guided her hand through the strokes, finishing the seal that had begun so long ago. One she hadn't realized was incomplete until it finalized.

'It's just me,' Zen whispered, and the full weight of his presence smothered down over her. She'd never realized just how much their bond was skewed to protect her, because Zen had always felt like something small and faint, part of her, but distant. Now, she felt like she was floundering in an ocean of Zen, like she had suddenly become something tiny amid his vastness.

The pressure on her back eased, but she hardly felt it, eyes unseeing as her whole being focused around trying to make sense of the shift.

Her wings fluttered anxiously, she dropped the pen and nosed forward; she rolled over and gasped for breath, clinging tight to Tay's hand. Memories and sensation and self tangled around one another. She remembered events in echoes, neither quite matching up perfectly, or events she'd never participated in.

She remembered flying from the academy in disguise, confident and eager, and flying straight into the chest of the man who would solve all her problems. She remembered the wonder of stepping into grass for the first time, the stalks soft and as tall as her, like a jungle she slithered through. She remembered watching Zen fly out a window and into the distance, wondering what he was always rushing off to; she remembered lying on the roof in the sun, her scales soaking in the warmth. A hundred, a thousand different memories, and she couldn't tell which 'her' was her and which was Zen and which was Alisa.

For a moment she lingered on the memory of when she'd first hatched and something similar happened, a flood of sensation and memory, of self-not-self, before the connection had faded under experience and existence. Now it returned in full force, but stronger. So much stronger.

Zen's suffocating existence shifted, and she began to re-settle into herself.

Something in the corners of her mind finally released, a resistance she'd almost forgotten existed.

If I don't accept it, it isn't real.

But it was real, and it wasn't as terrible as she'd thought. This wasn't what she'd wanted from life, but now that she looked back on her ambitions, she wondered what they would have meant. She'd have been a different person, taking a different path, but there was something empty about the imagining.

Doing a thing for its own sake, only for wealth and ambition, what was this compared to living?

Zen was more important. Sadie and Reen and Tay were more important.

She'd tried for so long to hold on to a path she'd chosen without knowing where it truly led, and only now did she really understand that it would have been a cold and lonely life in the end.

The tangle of their minds had subsided again, but she found she understood Zen in a way she never had before. He was still strange and foreign, still thought in different patterns to anything she’d have in herself.

As Zen coiled around her, his head now the size of her torso, she reached up and patted the dark silver-gleaming scales.

Last year when the madness started, she’d never have believed that she’d ever be this content again. Happy, even. But Tay had been right. She’d already begun renovating and innovating magic in ways people hadn’t ever dreamed of, advancing in new directions that she couldn’t have imagined a year ago.

And if he was able to follow through on her request, soon she’d have even more resources to use toward that end. Becoming a dragon mage may have been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Of course it was, Zen whispered in her mind, and she smiled in agreement.

Somehow, even amid everything, life was good.

Epilogue

Azendandor woke in the middle of the night, full of energy and ready for adventure. He rolled over onto his back, his spines snagging in the grass, and flexed his long body to work out any stiffness. He still had an official nest under a pavilion that he could curl up in, but some days he just liked to sprawl around the house. It made him feel useful, like he was guarding a great treasure.

Speaking of treasure… he poked his nose into the house and mentally prodded Lissa.

Still sleeping.

Mine. Lissa’s mind wrapped around his welcomingly, offering to tug him into a dream, but he gently refused to be drawn in. He hesitated a moment, then pushed deeper, searching for any trace of the tearing-pushing grief-resentment that had once filled the cracks and corners of her subconscious. He found none.

He smiled inwardly and withdrew, left with the lingering sense of togetherness and open acceptance that was sometimes hard to maintain while awake.

'My Zen,' her sleeping mind whispered, and Zen echoed the sentiment back. My Lissa.

Then the connection fuzzed as she drifted back into whatever dream he’d interrupted, and he took off into the air.

In the morning they’d be heading for Leviir, but until then… the night was his, and the world was large.

And when the night's exploration was done, Lissa would always be there to welcome him home.

End of Book One