“I’m your father,” the duke said simply. “And I haven’t protected you as I should have.”
“Father, my injuries weren’t your fault,” said Heath, still stunned. “You couldn’t have prevented—”
“I’m not talking about your injuries,” said his father calmly. “I’m talking about your role as King Matlock’s liaison. I’m talking about your overdeveloped sense of responsibility.” He looked over at Heath’s confused face and let out a long sigh. “You know that this mess isn’t your fault, don’t you, Heath?”
Heath looked away, shrugging uncomfortably. “I know I’m not the only one at fault,” he said. His thoughts were on Percival’s mulish attitude, and there was a touch of bitterness to his words. “But I haven’t helped.” He looked up at his father. “I keep thinking it over, trying to figure out how I could have prevented things getting to this pass.”
“Maybe you couldn’t have prevented it,” said the duke. “Or any of the rest of us. Maybe this was inevitable, sooner or later.”
“I wanted to believe we could work together,” said Heath.
“Of course we can work together,” said his father firmly. “The story isn’t over yet. But maybe things needed to reach a crisis before we’d all take each other seriously.”
“Maybe,” said Heath, without conviction. “I wish I’d never called Reka that day, though. If he hadn’t seen Percival and the others practicing their magic…” He trailed off with a sigh.
“Then things would have reached a head another way, most likely.” The duke pushed himself carefully to his feet, clapping his son on the shoulder as he went. “Don’t fall off the edge, Heath.”
Heath gave a half-hearted smile as his father retreated back to the manor. He felt even worse than before, knowing his father was blaming himself for Heath’s troubles. He still didn’t really understand what his father had meant about not protecting him.
He was staring out to sea, thinking of nothing in particular, when a familiar rushing sound made him look up in surprise. For a moment, a dark shape blotted out the sun, then Reka landed lightly beside him.
“Greetings, Heath,” said the dragon placidly. “Did you call me?”
Heath blinked at him in confusion. “No.” He thought for a moment. “I was talking about you, though. To my father.”
“Ah, I see,” said the dragon, nodding wisely. “That would be it.”
Heath frowned shrewdly at his friend. Reka had never responded to a reference like that before.
“You were just bored, weren’t you?” he accused.
“Dragons do not get bored,” said Reka loftily.
Heath rolled his eyes, his lips twitching. “No need to use your superior dragon voice, Reka. I don’t blame you for looking for an excuse to get out of your home. In fact, it makes two of us.”
“Is that so?” Reka asked brightly. With an unnerving abruptness, he launched himself off the cliff face. He wheeled down and out in a large semicircle, then ended on Heath’s other side, where he reached out his taloned front feet and perched precariously at an angle, right on the edge of the rock.
“Want to explore?”
Heath couldn’t help laughing. Reka was like a frisky puppy. “What’s got you in a good mood?” he asked.
Reka did the strange rippling shrug favored by dragons. “I like having you back at the coast. The air is too heavy in that city of yours. There’s so much tension, it’s uncomfortable to focus my farsight on you when you’re there.”
“How unpleasant that must be for you,” said Heath dryly.
“It is,” Reka acknowledged, with a regal nod of his vast head. “So where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere other than here,” said Heath, a bit petulantly. But even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. Or rather, whom he wanted to see. But it was unlikely that Merletta would be on the island. He hadn’t been able to see her from afar in weeks, and even then, she’d shown no sign of going to Vazula.
But as her name flashed through his mind, he saw her, with perfect clarity. She was above water, her whole form visible to him. She was exploring the island’s ruins, looking for what, he had no idea.
“Let’s go to Vazula,” he said, forgetting he was on the edge of a cliff, and jumping to his feet a little too quickly for safety.
Reka let out a long sigh that smelled faintly of smoke. “We used to go other places as well, you know. Back before you met the mermaid.”
“Come on, Reka,” Heath pleaded. “I haven’t seen her in an age.”
That made the dragon give a gravelly chuckle, his expression once again superior. “An age? How inaccurately you humans speak of time.”