“She, uh…” The flush rose further as Heath thought of her attire. With his superior eyesight, he had been able to see the droplets of water running down the warm skin of her bare shoulders as she moved. Just as he had been able to see the drops clinging to the thick mass of her long dark eyelashes.
He cleared his throat. “She wasn’t wearing much at all, actually. I could only see her torso, but all she had on were a pair of these large sort of shells, connected together somehow. Oh, and a length of some kind of seaweed or something wrapped around one upper arm.”
“That is unusual,” said Reka, sounding fascinated. “I’ve never come across a person dressed in such a manner before.”
Heath flushed all over again as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe she was bathing, and we interrupted her. It might explain why she left in such a hurry.”
“Maybe,” said Reka, clearly unconcerned. “Or maybe the people here dress that way, because of the heat.”
“Could be,” Heath agreed, his eyes drawn back to the water. “I wonder where she went. I must have been distracted, and missed her getting out of the lagoon.” He frowned toward an opening in the mangroves. “Unless she swam out to the ocean before leaving the water.”
“Maybe her magic allows her to breathe underwater,” suggested Reka.
Heath looked over at him, startled. “Is that possible?”
Reka did his strange rippling shrug. “Who knows?” The dragon looked up at the sky. “We should depart soon, if you still wish to return home in time for dinner.”
“Who cares about dinner?” protested Heath. “We need to find that girl! Or at least, find the settlement she comes from.”
“I don’t think you’ll find her,” Reka repeated. “But I have no objection to looking.”
“You’re sure you didn’t see anything from above?” Heath asked.
“I told you,” Reka said patiently. “I couldn’t see any signs of human habitation, but the jungle is too thick on most of the island for me to be able to say with any certainty.”
Heath hefted his rucksack onto his shoulder determinedly. “Well, we know now that there must be human habitation somewhere. We just need to look harder.”
But after several more hours of exploration, Heath had to acknowledge that even if there was anything to find, he wouldn’t be finding it that day. They discovered extensive ruins, including ones quite close to the lagoon where he had seen the girl, but no sign of current habitation. He didn’t explore the ruins at all, his focus entirely on the search for the girl and her people. But the island paradise was, to all appearances, deserted.
The sun was hanging low in the sky when he finally, reluctantly, asked Reka to take him home. They took to the air with a whoosh that momentarily flattened all nearby vegetation, but Heath barely noticed the familiar sensation of his stomach dropping to his knees. His thoughts were on the mystery of the girl’s identity, and he twisted precariously in Reka’s talons, watching Vazula as it shrank from an island to a glittering emerald in the middle of the ocean, then disappeared altogether.
He sighed, turning his gaze to the endless water before him and resigning himself to the discomfort of the journey. It would take the dragon an hour and a half to carry him back to Bexley Manor. He would miss dinner for certain, and he started to wonder what he was going to tell his family. Not so much about this excursion—one day of unexplained absence he could probably get away with. But it wasn’t going to be just one day. He was going to come back the next day, and the next. As long as it took to find answers.
* * *
Three days later, Heath was almost boiling over with frustration. His plans to return immediately to Vazula had been thwarted the instant of his arrival home, and he was still fuming over the whole incident.
Reka had set him down outside Bexley Manor at twilight. As usual, the dragon hadn’t lingered, pausing just long enough to assure Heath that he would return at first light the next day. But apparently even that had been too long.
Heath soon discovered that he had chosen the timing of his excursion poorly. Not that he could have predicted that would be the day the sanctimonious Chief Counselor decided to once again descend on the Duke of Bexley’s family, full of carefully-worded accusations, and veiled threats of further restrictions.
It seemed that Heath’s performance at the tournament had rattled the nobleman even more than Percival’s feats of strength. He had apparently waited all day for the opportunity to admonish the young man, and the arrival of the truant so late in the day, and by dragon no less, had certainly done nothing to improve his temper.
Heath narrowed his eyes, although he wasn’t seeing the target on the other side of his father’s training yard. His vision was clouded by his anger. Usually practicing his archery was a guaranteed way to relieve stress, but truth be told, he couldn’t remember ever being this riled up.
His hand reached mechanically for an arrow but didn’t immediately pull it from the quiver, his fingers running compulsively up and down the fletching as he remembered the scene he had walked in on a few days before.
“Here you are at last, Lord Heath,” Lord Niel had said in an accusing tone, before his family had even had the opportunity to greet him. “You’ve certainly kept me waiting a long time.”
Heath blinked, pulling his thoughts from the island with difficulty. “Lord Niel,” he said blankly. He looked in confusion to his parents, both seated in the receiving room where Lord Niel was pacing, but their stony expressions gave him no clue as to what was going on. “My apologies for the inconvenience. Had I known I was expecting you, I would have—”
“You certainly seem to be allowed a great deal of license,” Lord Niel had interrupted. “Gone from morning until night, with no one able to give me a clear answer about your whereabouts.”
Heath raised an eyebrow, his polite tone taking on a frosty edge. “I wasn’t aware that my whereabouts were any concern of yours.”
His father gave him a warning look, but Lord Niel disregarded his interjection anyway.
“And I see that rumors of your closeness to your pet dragon haven’t been exaggerated,” Lord Niel barreled on, gesturing to the window. Clearly he had seen the manner of Heath’s arrival.