Ava Mae's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Ava Mae stepped out of the lake onto grass that felt cooler than any grass she had touched. The fox was already on the bank, shaking water from its coat. The dragon stood beside it, waist-high to her, green scales dry as if the water had never touched them. No guards. No horns. Just three of them at the edge of a wood she did not know. She started walking because standing still felt worse. The fox took the lead. The dragon walked at her left shoulder, close enough that its wing brushed her arm every few steps. She kept expecting it to pull away. It did not. After an hour the trees opened onto a clearing. In the center sat a low stone basin, cracked and stained, filled with a yellow-green liquid that hissed when the wind moved it. The rim was eaten down to gray pulp. The fox stopped short and would not go closer. Ava Mae stepped toward it anyway. She wanted to see her face again, the way she had in the lake. She wanted to know if the dragon still stood behind her in reflections. The dragon moved before she did. It shouldered in front of her legs and pushed her back a full step. When she tried to go around, it turned with her. Its tail curled behind her ankles like a low fence. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I hear you." She crouched. The dragon lowered its head to her level. Up close its eyes were the same blue as hers. Not similar. The same. She reached under her collar and pulled out the heart-shaped locket her mother had given her the morning she left home. Rose gold, warm from her skin. She had not opened it in weeks. She opened it now. Inside, where her mother's picture had been, the paper was blank. Not faded. Blank, like it had never held a face. In the polished inside of the lid she saw her own reflection, and behind her shoulder, the dragon, watching her open it. Her chest went tight. Something she had carried from the mortal world had been read and rewritten while she crossed. The dragon had not appeared to her at the lake by accident. It had been waiting, and it knew her the way a thing knows its other half. She closed the locket. She rested her hand flat on the dragon's snout. It leaned into her palm and made a low sound in its throat, almost a purr. "You're mine," she said. "Or I'm yours. I don't know which." The fox yipped once from the treeline, sharp, urgent. Through the trees, past the stinking basin, Ava Mae saw movement. A tall figure in green and gold armor, dark blonde hair catching the light, walking a patrol line he clearly walked every day. Mase Thornweave. The prince. Alone, and headed straight for the clearing. She dropped behind the basin and pulled the dragon down with her.