“I hate this,” Weysh grumbled, dropping his humorous façade. “It’s like you’re being blackmailed, like my maman. How can your family allow this?”

“It’s the way things have always been done,” she said simply.

He squeezed her. “Yenni, I’m only one dragon—I doubt I can fight off an army, though if you asked me to, I’d try. And I’m not the heir to some long-lost kingdom, as much as I might wish it. But I promise you this: I will do my best to listen to you and take your needs and concerns to heart. I will respect you and cherish you as no other man will. Life with me will be tenfold better than life shackled to this prince.”

“You think I do not know that?” she whispered, as if she was afraid to say it too loudly.

Weysh ran his fingers through her hair. She’d taken to braiding it back and tying the braids up in a horsetail, in anticipation of flying. “Then why are you hesitating? We’re Given, Yenni. Everything will work out in the end. It must; it’s the will of Byen.”

Yenni sighed. “The reason my father was sick was because he has been pulling too heavily on runes, strengthening the parasitic demon that is making him sick. He has been fighting a threat to our Island, but my mother cannot tell me what. And then for the Gunzu to potentially strike while my parents are already distracted—” She shook her head. “Weh-sheh, if you truly know me, then you know that until I am sure my family and my people will be safe, I cannot prioritize my own selfish desires.”

“I know,” he said glumly. “And I wouldn’t be as thrice-damned loony for you if you could. So be it. Once the year is done I’ll fly you home, we’ll sort out the nature of this threat, and I’ll do everything in my power to help defeat it. Then we’ll deal with this prince.”

Excellent: now he had a plan.

But Yenni sighed again. “I know you are a big, strong, powerful dragon, but if this threat is giving my parents—the chieftain and chieftainess of the Yirba—such trouble, I doubt there is much you can do. If it was something that could be defeated with fangs and fire our armies would have dealt with it by now.”

And just like that it was back, the sinking shame, that old heavy ache of not being enough. Weysh let her go and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Well at least I’m trying to find a solution. I should get ready. I have a run to make.”

He heard the bedsheets whisper as she sat up after him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He turned back to her. “Do you even want a future together?”