She needn’t have worried, though; he simply kissed her and left her in his bedroom, telling her he would sleep on the rooftop in dragon.

Yenni lay alone in Weysh’s bed for long, anxious moments. She knew her worry for him was silly: he was a giant, fire-breathing beast. But she couldn’t forget the image from her dream—Weysh screeching as he fell from the sky. At last she grabbed the soft blanket off the bed and went searching for him. As he said, she found him curled up on the rooftop garden in dragon, his eyes closed and his large body moving up and down with his slow breaths.

“Weh-sheh?” she called softly.

He opened one glittering eye and let out a low, soothing rumble. Come.

It was foolish. Yes, they were on a rooftop, but they were still outside—it would be so much easier for assassins to reach her here. But the notion that the Gunzu might be after her didn’t fill her with fear as perhaps it should; it filled her with fury, made her reckless and rebellious. Her whole life felt molded around them and this cursed alliance. With all her skills—runelore and tracking and battle—everything she’d learned and hoped to learn, was it truly her destiny to be nothing more than a link in her own shackle? She had hoped a year away might slake her thirst for freedom, but it only seemed to have made it worse. And right then she didn’t want to hide from Gunzu assassins; she wanted to be with Weysh. So she snuggled into the crook between his neck and shoulder, telling herself she would go back inside when her eyes began to droop. But she slept there until morning.

Only a week after the attack, Yenni was growing weary of being chaperoned. Two weeks after, she was decidedly annoyed. Three weeks and she could no longer hide her irritation from her friends. It was even worse than her security back home, with Harth or Zui or Weysh or Diedre always waiting to shuffle her from place to place. She could take care of herself!

But though the constant surveillance was driving her mad, she was also touched by how concerned everyone was for her safety. Zui was constantly late to other obligations because she wanted to see Yenni safely off. And Yenni knew much of her frustration came from feeling like she was a burden. She’d also heard back from her family, and as she’d feared, all their letters were tinged with worry, begging her to stick close to her friends and letting her know they were praying for her safety. Her mother and Dayo wrote nothing about the Gunzu—good, bad, or otherwise—and she took that as a positive sign.