Time seems to pass in a blur.

I stand there, watching as my father is wrapped in a shroud and carried off. And long after he’s gone, I remain there in a fog. Healers pause to see if I’m okay, but I haven’t the words to speak. I’m frozen.

He’s gone. Just like that, my father is gone.

And I feel…numb.

It is not a sadness. Not even a fear. Just a complete nothing. Almost as if my mind knows that if I am to feel anything at all, it would be too much. So I don’t feel. I just sit and watch as the windows to the outside world darken, as the room empties, as the day crawls to an end.

I know that it’s only shock. That in time, the grief will surge and it will be all-consuming. But I can’t allow it.

Not yet.

At the same time, a voice in the back of my head chants on and on: He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. For hours it has chanted, and I have ignored it. But now…now that the last healer has left the room. Now that the birds have stopped chattering outside the window. Now that there is nothing to distract myself with, that voice is growing to a shout in my mind:

He’s dead. He’s dead. HE’S DEAD.

The realization moves through me like a poison. It grips my lungs, and suddenly, I can’t breathe. This place—everyone in it…they all mean death. Not life, not healing, death.

Even the air tastes like it. The smell of antiseptics, the quiet conversation of healers in the next room. The way a draft winds through, lifting curtains and rustling linens.

It’s so empty. So cold.

I can’t stay here.

I rush out, knocking shoulders with healers as I pass out of the private chamber and into the hall. Several of the cots have been taken up by wounded rangers. Among them, I’m sure, is Darian. But I can’t make out their faces as my eyes blur with tears. The world turns gnarled and bleary, and I can hardly see where I’m going.

“Wait—Arla!” I can hear Darian call out, but I can’t stay in the infirmary any longer. I need to get out. Away from all of this.

I stumble out into the open air, drinking it in by the lungful. The smell of antiseptics clings to my nose like a rot. And yet, as dizzy and as sick as I feel, my legs take me off toward the stables.

I find my way to it like a ghost, and everything within me begins to settle once I take in the scent of the wooden gates and the sweet, fresh straw bedding I had laid down this morning. The stables have always been my sanctuary in times of need. And these times surpass any before them.

I stand in the lamp light of the doorway, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Twilight has set in outside, and the dragons have still not had their second meal of the day. They look up as I pass, restless within their stalls, but patient. Curious. They know nothing of what’s happened today. They’re innocent creatures, probably wondering why their meal is so late.

I’m grateful they’re the only ones in this place. Just them and me and the familiar smells of my father’s life work.

A soft trill tickles the air as Droplet lands upon my shoulder once again. I take her into my arms and hold her close, nuzzling against her smooth scales and her cool skin. Mindlessly, I move forward.

The dragons all stir as I pass, pining for attention, desperate for food. But I’m too distracted with the sight that rests around the bend. Solie’s stall, empty.

Of course, it’s empty.

Solie wouldn’t be returned until his re-training. And such is a task that would fall on the shoulders of the Dragon Master. Which I suppose…is me now. Something within me twists wrongly at the idea. How could I already be calling myself the Dragon Master? Of course, this is my role in life. What I have been raised to do since I was a child. But is it really my time? Am I really ready?

A new feeling is beginning to root its way through me. An icy cold grip that sends my lungs floundering in my chest.

Fear.

I am afraid, because after what I had seen Solie do to my father…how could I possibly be expected to retrain the very dragon that had slain him?

Droplet fusses in my arms as I approach Solie’s stall. It feels strange, as if the ghost of my father is still tending to the straw. Still washing out troughs and scraping the shedding skin from his precious beasts.

As I step into Solie’s pen, Droplet squirms. Of course, the little thing is terrified of the larger dragons, but I can’t let go of her just yet. I need her. I need to hold something still living. I need a reminder of the goodness in this world.

Luckily, she settles when she realizes Solie is no longer here. She looks around curiously and lets out a soft, melodic coo.

I stroke her head mindlessly as the guilt and sorrow begin to spread through my bones until I can’t stand any longer. Slowly, I slump to the floor of Solie’s stall.

How could I possibly come here for comfort? After everything that happened, how could I find solace in this place?

Softly, the door to the stables creaks open. I turn, thinking a stable hand has come in to tend to Solie’s empty stall, or to finish the tasks my father left unfinished. But it isn’t a stable hand.

It’s Darian, standing as a dark silhouette in the doorway. He’s slouching in a way that isn’t typical of his straight, tightly-wound demeanor. He’s tired, it seems. His shoulder has been bandaged and braced, and it is all just another reminder of Solie’s attack.

“I thought you’d be here,” he says. Darian moves toward me, his boots cracking against straw and pebbles. He steps into the stall with me and kneels at my side, taking a long, scraping look at Solie’s empty place among the straw.

“Arla,” he begins. By the sound of his tone, he wants to lecture me. But he knows it isn’t the time.

“I didn’t know where else to go…” I start to explain, but I’m distracted by the sight of his bandaged arm and the jagged gash on his forehead that has been stitched together.

“I’m okay,” he says, noticing my gaze. “This is nothing. I’ve been through worse. Listen, Arla…” He hesitates. His voice seems to drift away into nothing. Then he whispers softly, “I’m sorry.”

No.

The grief wells up in me like the word has put a stopper in my heart. Like my soul has been waiting to give him. Counting down the very moment someone else—anyone else—acknowledges what’s happened today. No, no, no.

“Stop,” I tell him sharply.

Darian looks at me, dark eyes reading my face in confusion. Then he concedes and pulls me into his arms.

I allow myself to sink into his warmth, desperate to be buried myself in the scent of him. It’s ironic. I’ve dreamed about this moment since the day I first saw him, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

This is the opposite of what I wanted.

The thought makes the moment—which should have been sweet in another life—far too bitter to stomach.

I pull back from his arms, breaking his gentle embrace. “I need to see Solie,” I say.

Darian’s mouth cracks open, but his words catch on his tongue. “Why?” he asks.

I don’t bother to answer. Darian has never understood my connection to the dragons, and he won’t begin now. I start to shift to my feet when Darian reaches out, catching me gently by the arm.

“Arla—”

I pull away from his touch. “I need to do this, Darian.”

Darian looks me over, and I know he’s trying to understand. I can see it in the concerned furrow of his brow. But he never will, and in this, I am alone.

“I’ll go with you,” he says.

I hesitate. “Why? I don’t need a keeper.”

Darian seems taken aback by the acid in my voice. Of course, he would be. I’ve never spoken to him with anything but honey. “N-no, of course not,” he says.

“Good. Because from here on out…I-I…I am the new Dragon Master,” I say, my voice shaking. “This is part of my duty. Dragons—aggressive or not—fall under my jurisdiction. This is what I’ve been trained to do.”

“But your father—”

“This is what my father wanted,” I snap.

Darian holds his tongue, his gaze falling to the straw below us.

I gather to my feet, setting Droplet down to scurry freely around the stables. Then I make my way toward the restraining pen at the far end of the stables compound. If they were to keep Solie anywhere, it would be there.

Darian does not linger far behind. He follows, eventually falling in step with me. “Listen, I’m not going to try to stop you. It’s just that I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.” Once again, my words are sharp enough to silence him, and Darian falls quiet as we make our way to the edge of the restraining pen.

“Arla,” a voice calls.

When I turn, I start for a moment, thinking it’s my father walking toward me, but it’s not. Instead, I find my uncle, Ivan, approaching. He moves with purpose and power, the long, flowing formal robes of the council billowing at his back. His face is pallid and full of desperation—clearly stricken by the loss of his brother. “I’ve been looking for you,” he says.

Darian steps aside and resumes a more respectful position, as any ranger would in the presence of a councilman; slightly bowed with one hand behind his back.

Ivan doesn’t acknowledge him. He sweeps to me instead, pulling me swiftly into his arms. For a moment, it’s nice. For a moment, I am reminded of just how much he looks like my father. How similar their scent is. How I could happily mistake the two and pretend this is not happening if I just shut my eyes for a moment longer.

But Ivan pulls back before I get the chance.

“I’m sorry, Arla. I know the events that have transpired today are…a lot to deal with. But the council has called a meeting about everything that happened. Decisions must be made, and I’m afraid we must attend.”