Heart pounding unreasonably, I hurry to catch up. "That means dragons won't bail you out of trouble, too, doesn't it?" I ask. It's why he had to flee to the temple. "That's why you're on your own. Do they care that you haven't come back?"
Zan barks out a laugh. "Oh, they care. Periodically they send some youth to try to pressure me. I suspect it's become another rite of passage, a way to demonstrate to the elders that they can be trusted."
"Wow."
"Indeed. As I said: fucked up."
"How far does that go?" I ask. "Would dragons work with the priesthood to ambush you?"
Zan sighs. "They haven't, to my knowledge. They hate the priesthood, too, for obvious reasons. But I'm not sure that means they wouldn't. The priesthood isn't a threat to their power the way I am in existing separate from them."
That, I understand too well.
Maybe that's why he felt he could tell me.
"So you visit Crystal Hollow," I say, turning the subject from the most difficult core. "Do people not recognize you, year after year? Your appearance... I wouldn't say it's forgettable."
A flash of humor through the bleakness of his gaze. "Damning me with the faint praise."
"On the contrary, from what I understand of human aging, remembering anything at my age ought to be considered miraculous," I quip.
A smirk teases his mouth. "Are my looks miraculous, then?"
I nod, completely seriously. "Yes."
He looks at me sidelong, his eyes brighter.
I roll my eyes. "Surely you know what you look like."
The humor fades as he looks away. "Few people see me like this. I use a spell to change my appearance whenever I'm among humans. My natural appearance is too obviously other; I would be tagged as a dragon in instants."
Oh.
I realize he didn't directly respond to my statement, and I wonder if he does not, in fact, remember what he looks like so easily, after centuries of living primarily with an altered appearance.
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"I didn't know dragons worked spells," I say instead of addressing the new dragon in the kitchen.
"We don't. But Kovan discovered that my scales could be used to anchor your priests' spells. I keep a stash of them at the cottage to replenish as needed."
"And for the sages," I surmise. Sages' eyes gradually change color permanently to match our magic the more we use it.
For some sages it takes longer, but anger is an easy emotion for a child. My eyes have been magenta for as long as I can remember.
But Zan shakes his head. "No. Another sage can sense the spell. It's safer for the sages who come here to suppress their power so their eye color doesn't change."
I have surprisingly mixed feelings about that. The Quiet offered sages a way to hide, gave them an opportunity to live their life as something other than a sage.
But I am a sage. My power is as natural to me as breathing. Can I really simply never use it again?
I have the control to; I am trained. I do want to live a new life.
But sages for the last five centuries haven't had a real choice. They could be a tool of the priests, or they could suppress a key part of their nature. That's it.
Both options are a kind of prison, not freedom.
But maybe freedom is not possible for sages.
Zan digs into his pack and passes me a large bow.
I blink. "Shouldn't that have a package attached to it?"
"It's for your hair," Zan explains. "One of my scales with the eye spell is sewn into it. To hide it. Sages used to practice with the spell when they came down the mountain until they were sure they could keep their power suppressed. The Quiet was never quite as strong or consistent in Crystal Hollowâthe priesthood couldn't work magic there, but sages could."
I eye the bow like it's a snake.
"It will give you the chance to decide what you want," Zan says softly. "You can let yourself be known as a sage now, or later. When you're ready."
Another attempt to give me the gift of freedom he didn't manage before, at the temple. Or years ago.
I'm not sure this is freedom, but it is space to move so I can decide.
"I don't know how to wear this," I finally say.
Zan hesitates. "May I put it in your hair?"
He's always so cautious about touching me. Is it care for boundaries, or a history of not being wanted?
Or does he feel the same rush I do when we touch and doesn't know what to make of it eitherâ
Or he does.
"Yes," I say, pausing on the trail.
Zan crosses behind me, and I am hyper-aware of his presence at my back. At the gentle brush of his hands against my hair.
I don't feel a rush this time; more like a tingle of awareness on my skin.
This, I am reasonably sure, is not magic.
Zan fastens the bow in my hair quickly, competently, like he's done this before, which also gives me pause, a moment in which I reassess how I am interpreting all of his interactions.
But he hasn't taken human lovers; at least none that have interested him in settling down. Not that he's interested in that with me, butâ
The cottage we are going to share had a nursery with his image in it.
I wonder if he learned to do a human child's hair.
Maybe that's the reason for his hesitation to touch me: an accumulation of memories for people he's lost.
We may be the same age, but I haven't lived the centuries he did, not really. Distant awareness while meditating isn't the same, and while that mental work may enable me to grow faster now, my mind making connections quickly, it isn't the same.
I never had people to lose.