He said it lightly, but tension roiled beneath his words. “It hurts my neck to look up at Hallon and Rallon,” she returned, aware of a similar undercurrent in her tone. “Do I understand that you hail from Ya’arriol Island?”
“Aye. Hua’gon and I come from a family of ten brothers. He’s the oldest, and I am five years younger, the fourth in our clan. You’ll get to meet them all.”
“Oh.”
Somehow, Lia had imagined that Ja’al would be an orphan, like her. Had he entered the Great Dragon’s service out of choice rather than necessity? So yawned the gap between their lives. The gentle excitement in his voice told her that Ja’al had a family who loved him, and parents who had not dumped him on Gi’ishior for Dragon-fodder. He had no appreciation of how deep her soul-scars reached–and better he did not, Lia told herself. She could never wish this on anyone else.
“I see you’re wearing a Dragon’s scale,” said Ja’al.
Lia chuckled, “It’s a White Dragoness’ scale. It took me two months to figure out how to bore a hole through it.” At his upraised eyebrow, she explained, “Master To’ibbik showed me how to build a diamond-tipped bore. That’s the only way to penetrate a Dragon’s scale without enormous force, and it still took three hours of drilling. Now I have a unique necklace.”
“As if you need outward adornment,” he remarked. “It suits you.” Lia failed to deny a blush from sizzling upward from the region of her belly, but he did not appear to notice. “Lia, where do you go on these days off?”
“I wish I could say,” she retorted, rather less apologetically than she had intended.
Her companion sighed. “I have to admit, it’s weird having a girl in the monastery. I don’t know what I expected–a spoiled brat, perhaps–”
“What?”
“Easy, dragonet!” he placated her. “Perhaps, a Princess who had no idea what it might be like to blister her hands from hard work, or take a blow to the ribs and get up again. Great Islands, was I wrong. Just when I think I’ve understood something about you, Lia, I discover there’s another layer beneath a layer.”
“I’m not deliberately hiding–”
“No. But you do have secrets. Your ability to speak Dragonish, for example.”
Lia opened and closed her mouth like a trout sieving water for food. The deep blue of his eyes captivated her, causing her to shiver despite the warmth of the breeze. How had he guessed?
Ja’al said, “Lia, there’s something came to tell you. Please don’t hate me.”
“I wouldn’t.” Hualiama bit her lip, wondering at the melancholy undertone in his words. If he was building up to a confession of love–was this not a strange approach? Yet he had sought a time for them to be alone together.
“Lia …” he groaned softly, sounding so anguished that the wound in her stomach twinged. “Lia, when we return from Ya’arriol Island, I will be taking my vows.”
At once, she replied, “That’s fantastic, Ja’al. I’m so pleased for you.”
Her lie sounded so pathetic, she was surprised he did not snort his contempt.
Instead, with sober mien, the monk noted, “I respect you too much for there to be secrets between us, Lia, and I hope that you respect me equally. You see, when you say you dream of Dragons–let me put it this way–my powers give me insight into your feelings. You struggle to conceal your heart for my sake. It is so very principled of you, I want to weep–for I am irrevocably committed to the Great Dragon’s service.”
Fragile her hopes, and so easily shattered. Lia stared at her toes, fighting a tearful fury that threatened to completely unravel her. Ja’al–toss him into a Cloudlands volcano! His hand rested upon her arm, briefly, a touch that made her tingle as though an electrical storm brewed around her. Life’s tempests. Here came yet another, roaring over her in full spate. Loneliness. Fear for her family. Jealousy, truth be told, that Ja’al should choose his vows over her. Was she forever fated to be little Lia, her Island passed over by all?
Bleakly, she said, “Some secrets are not given to us to reveal, Ja’al.”
“Aye. But to some, it is given to love.”
Love? Now, of all times, he dared … that word? She erupted, “You try to keep loving when life drags your heart through lava flows and tosses it off the Island!”
“Lia–”
“Don’t Lia me!” she snapped. “Don’t you see how hard I’ve tried, Ja’al? Islands’ sakes, you infuriate me like nothing I’ve