Page 48 of Earth Dragon
He turned to look at her over one shoulder, stepping into the fresh pair of trousers he had found.
“How am I a hypocrite?” he demanded.
“You only love things that conform,” she said. “You wish you could be free of your conformity, but you’re the reason your world is shaped the way it is. You told me you weren’t making choices out of fear, but what is your rejection of me?”
“You don’t think I have a right to be guarded when the woman I—” He stopped short again, glaring at her. “When you’re plotting with your father, as ever.”
“I am not,” she said. “I had no idea this was what he was planning.”
“And what did you think he was doing here?” Ewan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“If your father had raised you to understand what would happen to you if you ever crossed him…” she trailed off, frustrated at the tears in her eyes. She had not come to speak with him to gain sympathy, and that was all her confession would produce. He would never look at her the same. She had been raised to be weak and unassuming. And to fear her father’s penalty above all else.
She was the one constantly afraid, not Ewan.
It was her fear that had held her back from telling the truth. She should have it out, right now, that it wasn’t loyalty or worry about what would happen to her father. It was the ever-present knowledge of what would happen to her if any attempt on her part to thwart him failed.
She had seen what he had done to her mother.
But she didn’t want to talk about it. She had been raised not to speak of it.
And so, she simply turned and fled. Since going back into the common room was out of the question, she chose the only other route that seemed available to her, heading up the narrow staircase to the second floor.
She was trembling and wanted a dark space where she could hide herself away and breathe.
She hadn’t had an anxiety attack in a very long time, not like this. She would count under her breath to control the sensation whenever it flared, but now she was breathlessly counting, and nothing was helping.
Sing, she told herself.
She did. She started singing a song from the time when she had been the happiest. When Malcolm’s moment of transference had still been years away and she had enjoyed her life at his father’s court. She had made friends with Sir Patrick and the dragons he had grown up with, she had felt at home in a beautiful place, and she had wanted it to never end.
The song brought her back to the dark blue walls and the grand hallways. The stone floors and the cool breeze off the ocean. It reminded her of looking down whenever she had been out flying to catch the reflection of her dragon shape on the surface of a lake.
The second-floor landing was as narrow as the staircase, but she spotted a door half-open and stepped inside a small sewing room. Closing the door behind her she leaned against the wall and shut her eyes tight. Everything smelled of cut lumber and moss. Everything was grounding and simple and plain.
Focus on the good memory, she told herself.Focus on the good.
There was a knock and she realized she must have closed the door behind her.
“I have your soup,” Ewan said. “It’s getting cold,” he added.
It told her he had been thinking of their first evening together, too.
At the sound of his voice and the thought of the simple gesture he was presenting her with, her tears spilled over. She should not feel so filled up by it. It was no more than him feeling sorry for her. She had managed to elicit the sympathy she hadn’t sought, that was all. He might listen to her now, at long last, but it would be to humor her.
It is ruined, she reminded herself.
“I’m not… hungry,” she got out between barely held back sobs.
“Shannon,” he said, soft sternness there. “You must eat something.”
“I don’t… want it. Thank you,” she said, swiping at her tears and trying to get a hold of herself.
They were right to judge her. They were right to hate her.
She had watched her mother die and had done nothing to stop it.
Nothing at all.
