It wasn’t until a week later, when they had both finished all their exams, that Yenni consented to go out with Weysh again. Aside from agreeing to study with him, she insisted on putting off any outings until they were done.

“It’s important that I pass these exams and remain here,” she told him, and he couldn’t exactly argue. So when not with Yenni, and not running through drills, he’d spent the majority of his time with Harth and Zui, who were both happy and relieved to see him somewhat back to himself.

Yenni had finally accepted the riding gear he’d bought her all those moonturns ago, so to celebrate the end of exams Weysh took her for a long nighttime flight. They went past the city, and even past the surrounding farms, and Yenni never once asked where they were going. But after perhaps an hour he felt her began to shift and squirm, even despite the riding pants. Weysh gave her the signal and swooped down onto a grassy plain where one giant tree stretched its thick branches skyward, as if reaching for the full moon.

She dismounted and sat cross-legged, and he lay down and put his large dragon head in her lap. They sat listening to the cool breeze rustle the grass and the cricket’s lilting serenade. White lantern flies rose up from the grass, glowing silently around them and tingeing the air with magic.

“Look at that moon,” Yenni said as she stroked the scales of his face. “It’s so big, it makes me want to dance.”

He made a high moan she correctly interpreted as Why? She was very good at understanding his communication in dragon.

“Right now on my island it is the Big Moon Festival. Every year I danced on the beach with the other girls of my tribe.”

He made another sound, a low grunt, and she laughed.

“All right, I’ll show you.”

She got up and moved away, then she began to dance, skipping and jumping and swinging her arms and rolling her hips as the lantern flies bobbed around her. She was lost in a rhythm only she could hear, and didn’t seem to notice when he changed to a man. Byen, she was so graceful and strong, her movements sensual in an effortless way. She probably wasn’t even trying to seduce him, but at that moment Weysh wanted nothing more than to throw her down on the grass and slowly tease her the way she was now torturing him.

“You are so achingly beautiful,” he said.

She stopped and faced him, and as the crickets chirped and the leaves and grasses whispered, they simply stared at each other.

Weysh sat on the grass with one knee up, and he opened his arms to her. “Come here, my heart.”

Yenni smiled shyly and shook her head as she took a step back.

Weysh raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”