The Dragon of Trelian (22 page)

“Meg,” he said finally. “Meg, we should stop. We have to stop. It’s hurting you — I can feel it. . . .” He couldn’t stand it. Gently, he started to pull away from her mind.

“No!” she cried, seizing him in a way he didn’t understand but couldn’t seem to resist. She held his mind in place, strengthening the connection he had sought to break and firming the images of Jakl and the link she’d created between them.

Then she let go.

The tunnel walls collapsed to reveal a shining cable of light connecting her with the dragon. Calen began to send forward the summoning energy, but it wasn’t necessary; Jakl’s awareness came sweeping along the link to meet him, grabbing at the edges of the spell and reaching toward Calen and through him, seeking Meg. Calen got a glimpse of what Meg was so afraid of — the dragon’s presence was incredible, overwhelming — he had a moment to be astounded at the strength it must have taken for Meg to keep that wall between them standing, and then Jakl pushed through him, breaking his connection with Meg and actually forcing him physically back into himself so that he had to reach back to brace himself or be thrown from the rock to the ground below. But clearly it didn’t matter — it had worked; they had reached Jakl, and if Meg was right, he’d be coming to find them.

Calen shook his head to clear it and opened his eyes. “It worked, Meg!” he said needlessly, for surely she had to be as aware of what had happened as he was, if not more so. . . .

His thoughts broke off as he watched Meg’s eyes flutter and roll back into her head. He leaped from the rock and got behind her just in time to catch her as she fell limp and unconscious into his arms.

FLYING. HER WINGS WERE FINALLY STRONG
enough and now she could soar, fast and true, piercing the sky as she raced along the path of the link. She had taken care to get high enough that no one on the ground would recognize her for what she was, if they saw her at all, but once she reached that safe altitude, she had released all other distractions from her mind and thought only of reaching Meg . . .

Awareness shifted dizzyingly inside her.
No,
she thought.
I am Meg. That’s not
—

Sensations of air and wind and cold rose up to envelop her, and she lost herself again.
Flying. Flying. Following the link.
Meg struggled and then gave herself over to darkness and was gone.

Someone was calling a name. Was it her name? “Meg,” someone said. “Meg” and “please” and “I’m sorry.”

Don’t be sorry,
she wanted to say. The voice sounded so sad. But she was too far away. It was hard to hear or speak over the rush of the wind.

The world was an explosion of color and need and physical sensations. Air was life. Water was life. Fire was forming deep and warm inside her. Flight was joy. Hunting was joy. Feeding was life. The link was everything, joy and love and life and fire and sky and earth and soul. She had been incomplete for so long, but now she knew that was ending. The walls that kept them apart were broken and they were one, as they were meant to be. She longed to be together again
now,
struggled to fly even faster. The earth was a blur of green and brown and blue.

Warmth on her face. Sun through a haze of trees. The ground beneath her was cold; why was she lying on the ground? She blinked, and the green branches above resolved into individual shapes. Energy burned inside her. She wanted to get up, to move, to fly —
to fly?
— but her body felt so weak. She couldn’t understand what was wrong.

Someone was holding her hand. That was nice. She turned her head. Calen. Calen was holding her hand. She tried to smile, but even that seemed to take too much effort. He was staring away at nothing. He looked so sad. Why did he look so sad? She tried to ask him, but her voice came out as a harsh, wordless croak.

Calen was bending over her in a second. His eyes searched her face desperately. What was he looking for? “Meg?” he said softly. “Meg, are you back?”

She swallowed and tried again to speak. “Back?” she whispered. What was he talking about? “I don’t —” She broke off into a cough. Her throat was so dry.

“Let me get you some water,” he said. He disappeared from her view. When he returned, he held a sodden piece of cloth. She wanted to scold him — couldn’t he have found a glass? — but she was so thirsty. She let him place the cloth between her lips and sucked out as much moisture as she could. The water was cold and delicious. Even sucked from a cloth. He made two more trips. Her throat felt much better. How had it gotten so dry?

He was still staring at her worriedly. “What’s wrong with you?” she whispered finally. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Calen sat down beside her. He hesitated, then asked, “What do you remember?”

Flying. The wind. The sky.

No.

Meg tried to think back. “We were watching them set up for the —” Oh. Right. Wilem. And Sen Eva. Calen waited as she worked her way back through the awful events of the day before. She remembered waking up this morning, and the stream, and the noises in the forest, and running . . .

“And then we were going to try to reach Jakl, with a spell. . . .” Thinking of her dragon brought it all suddenly back and she realized Jakl was there, taking up her mind. . . .

FLYING

“Meg!” Calen was holding her arms, shaking her. She fought back to consciousness. “He’s so strong,” she whispered. “I can’t push him out. . . .”

“Meg, look at me.”

She looked. Calen was staring into her face. She wanted to smile at how serious he looked, but it was so hard to focus. She felt disconnected from her body, as though she weren’t really there.
I’m not here,
she thought.
I’m soaring, I’m flying, getting closer.
. . .

Meg struggled to keep her eyes on Calen’s. Calen was here. And he was looking at her, so she must be here, too. She must be.

“Don’t look away,” she said softly.

“I won’t,” he said. He took both of her hands and held them gently. “I’m right here with you. But you have to listen to me. Don’t try to push Jakl out. You can’t keep the barrier up between you any longer.”

“But it worked — we reached him,” she said. “It’s done.” Shapes moved at the edges of her vision. Treetops. Clouds. A blur of land below.

Calen spoke carefully. “You have to fully accept the link, Meg. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you had been keeping yourself apart all this time. It would have been much easier to adjust from the beginning, before the link had grown to its present strength. But you have to stop trying to push him away. You’re part of each other now. You have to embrace that.”

She was shaking her head before he finished. “You don’t understand. He’s everywhere. I can’t hold on to who I am. I keep getting lost.” She couldn’t explain.

“I think that’s because you’re still resisting,” Calen said. “Jakl instinctively reaches for you through the link. But instead of reaching back, you’re pulling away. And that makes him reach further, and harder.” He squeezed her hands. “Do you see? If you reach back toward him, meet him halfway, he won’t need to push so hard into your mind.”

There was a strange sort of sense to his words, but she didn’t want to listen. She wanted her own mind back. Alone and separate and just herself.

He seemed to be able to tell what she was thinking. “Meg, you can’t go back to before you found him. You know that. You can only go forward. There’s no way to undo it. Ever. I think the sooner you come to terms with that, the better.”

“I have come to terms with it,” Meg argued. “I know that Jakl and I will be a part of each other’s lives forever. But that doesn’t mean I have to let him take over my mind. We can be connected but still keep far enough apart. . . .” Calen was shaking his head at her. She felt herself growing angry. And desperate. “What?” she demanded. “How can you know I’m wrong? You don’t know anything about what it’s really like. You don’t know anything!”

His mouth thinned at that, but he didn’t turn away. “I know because of everything I’ve read, Meg. And because of what I saw when we worked together to summon Jakl. I could see the wall you built in your mind, and I could see how it was hurting you both. Jakl was starving for your connection. That’s probably another reason why he’s holding on to you so tightly now that he’s broken through. And I think you were starving, as well. You just hadn’t realized it yet.”

“No, Calen. You’re wrong. It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Had you been getting anything positive from the link? Was it bringing you any joy? Any happiness? Or were you mostly thinking about having to share your emotions and work at keeping Jakl out of your head?”

She didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like that. She had experienced lots of positive things. The colors. The energy. But it was true that the stronger the link became, the more she had to work at keeping herself separate. To stop Jakl from trying to share
everything
with her. She supposed she had slipped somewhere into thinking of the link as more of a burden than a source of anything good.

“Well, so what?” she said finally. “What does that matter?”

“People used to risk everything to link with a dragon, Meg. Why would they do that unless the rewards outweighed the danger? You’re supposed to be getting something from Jakl in this relationship. I think he’s been trying to give it to you. But you’ve been working so hard at keeping him out, he hasn’t been able to.”

Meg didn’t know what to think. What if Calen was right? Did it matter? Did she want to risk giving up what little control she still had of her own mind to find out?

But I’ve already lost that control,
she realized. Calen’s eye contact was the only thing keeping her from being swept away in the rush of emotion and sensation flooding her mind. Was she going to spend the rest of her life sitting across from him and staring into his sweet, infuriating face?

And if Calen was right, holding back was not only futile; it was wrong. Jakl was depending on her. He needed her, and she kept trying to shut him out. She had to find a way to live with the link. To embrace it, as Calen had said. To live fully in the reality of her situation instead of clinging to a past that was already beyond her reach. She owed it to herself, and to her dragon.

My dragon,
she thought again. Jakl had claimed her as his own from the beginning. It was time for her to claim him in return.

“All right,” she said softly. “Let me go.”

Calen looked startled. “What?”

She laughed, and his expression swirled with resentment and confusion and relief. “You convinced me, you idiot!” she said, still laughing. “You’re right. I know what I have to do. Now you have to let me do it.” Meg tried to steady her breathing and ignore her racing heart. She was caught somewhere between fear and excitement; best to let Calen see only the latter. He’d have to be brave enough himself to stand back and not interfere.

“I’m probably going to pass out again,” she told him. “Don’t try to wake me up.”

He started to object, and then visibly forced himself to stop. “All right,” he said simply. “Just don’t forget to come back.”

She smiled at him. He managed a smile back. Small, but still a real smile. “I won’t,” she promised. “You just stay here and make sure no wild animals come out of the forest to eat me.” She laughed again at his startled glance at the surrounding trees and then closed her eyes, giving herself up to the rush of sensations that came streaming through the link.

Flying. Sky. Wind. Together. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy.

For a while there was nothing other than the fierce ecstasy of flight and the unparalleled joy of connection. Then, slowly, Meg began to find the far-flung pieces of herself and bring them together. Now she was like a twig swept along a storm-ravaged river. But at least she was a whole twig and not just splinters of wood. She grinned at the metaphor. Then grinned wider at the realization that she was thinking her own thoughts again instead of the dragon’s.

No, that’s not quite right,
she realized.
Not his thoughts. His feelings expressed through my mind. My thoughts, all along.

Embrace the link,
Calen had said. And of course he was right. There was no sense denying what had happened. She owed it to herself to make the best of this. She owed it to Jakl, too.

Carefully, she tried to reach toward him. She couldn’t say how she did it — she had no physical presence here, just her thoughts and sense of self. As soon as Jakl sensed her awareness, he reached toward her, but with such force that she pulled back before she could stop herself.
He’s so strong. Too much stronger than me.

Suddenly she realized — he didn’t have to be. That was part of what Calen had been trying to tell her. She could share that strength, make it her own. Somehow.

Gathering herself, she reached forward again, and this time when he rushed to meet her, she didn’t retreat. Instead she tried to open herself up to him, letting the rush of emotion and strength run through her instead of slamming against her. She still reeled with the force of it, but now that she wasn’t fighting, she could focus on trying to channel it, guiding the energy he sent like the banks of a mighty river, and slowly, slowly, turning it back toward him to create a circular flow of love and power that coursed between them.