Dragon Kin

32

Alicja

"No magick at the table dear," Victor says with a smirk, and I clap my hand shut on the swirling chaos I created in my palm.

"Sorry," I said, and pouted.

He grins. I like his grin. I like his smirk. Heck, I like him. The way he walks, the way he moves. That nostril flare he does when he's thinking. Wow!

Looking around I spot Jeffery coming with my plate of breakfast food. I think it is egg and meat day. Meat isn't steak or sausage, it's hamburger trying to be sausage, and not quite making it — but apparently it is the preferred breakfast meat for the natives.

Jeffery sets mine down and I wrinkle my nose. It's meat.

I don't know, maybe if the spices were different, but I'm a little cautious about asking what's inside. I might not want to know.

I've been so random in my reading lately. I feel like I've been just binging, with no goal or need in mind except to keep at bay the enormity of what is happening to me. Maybe that enormity was over? I could do magick. I could summon Mana.

"Does this mean the change has happened?" I asked him.

He sets his fork down, leans back and pulls the cuff of his sleeve up, to examine his wrist. I look at mine as well.

"I don't see a change, you?" I asked.

I shook my head, "No. Is that important?"

"I don't know," he said, a touch of concern in his voice. "I thought that there was supposed to be a change in the mark. Others, with the mark, like my father, he no longer had his, though he swore that he was bonded to my mother."

"Was she a human?" I asked, certain he said she was a dragon.

"No, she was from this city," he said quickly, sensing my fear. "She was a dragon, born." Then he offered, "I've never heard of the changeling becoming a dragon... Jeffery? Anything?"

"No, sir, nothing in my memory. Though, it is difficult to prove a negative..."

I gave him a wan smile, "Impossible some might say."

"Bah, I do the impossible all the time, five times before breakfast." Victor playfully scoffed, and took a bite of his eggs.

His teasing caused me joy, and that shooed the dark thoughts away again. I didn't want to be changed.

You are both the question and it's resolve.

I heard that from someone, but ... couldn't remember who that someone was. The source. That bothered me.

My training, all my life, was to keep in memory that very thing — the source of the information. It was often more important than the information itself. Because if you couldn't rely or even remember where information came from, you often couldn't use that information safely. The implications were manifest.

And on top of that, I wasn't sure what the memory meant, or in what context it was said. Somehow that phrase dissipated my fear of the change. My emotions responded to it instantly, accepting it as a reasonable answer... Why?

"Alicja?"

"Yes?" I said, sitting up straight, knowing I had missed something.

"I asked, if you are going to a debate today?" he repeated.

"Ah, no. Isn't Uncle Max's council decision happening today?" I asked.

"Yes, but I didn't know if you wanted to attend," he said, looking back at his plate and then pushing it forward. "It's just a council thing. Probably boring."