Page 203 of Upon Buried Embers
He tenses, then after a moment, he passes me a smaller dagger. Eyeing it, it looks like the same size I’ve been training with.
“Thank you.” I bring it up and place it on a braid at the back of my head and cut through it.
“What are you doing?” Rohan fumes, taking the blade from me.
I take a tie out of another braid and quickly tie the end of the one I just cut, holding it in my palm when I’m done.
“Why did you do that?!”
I grab Rohan’s hand and begin to tie my hair around his wrist. “I don’t want to attach it to your reins, that is for your Mother’s hair.” I feel him tense. “But I want you to have some of my hair, in hopes that whatever comes in The Games, you will have my protection.”
“Elf…”
“Please, Rohan,” I turn and look up at him when I’m done. “Please accept it.”
“And what will you have?” he asks, eyes on his wrist.
“I have you, don’t I?”
“You do,” he rasps, eyes flicking to me. “You will always have me.”
I smile, turning back around. “Then it’s settled.”
“It is.” Rohan replies quietly, arm coming around my waist. “Ready to leave?”
We look back to The Glade, the distant roars and the shaking of trees. I’m sad to leave, and scared for them. “What if more come back and hurt the others?”
“We can’t stay here and miss the calling for The Games.” I can hear the anger in his voice, the tightness of his body at my back. “I would stay here all year and protect them if I could.”
I half turn to him, placing a hand on his cheek. “How does everyone fear you, yet you speak like this of wild dragons?” I tilt my head as his eyes bore into mine. “You have a heart that goes deep, Dragonbond.”
“The heart you speak of does not reside in my body.”
He places his hand over mine and closes his eyes for a moment. I’m so surprised at the softness of the moment, that when I feel Drogonah move beneath us, wings spreading wide to fly, I want to hold onto this forever.
I want to freeze time and stay here.
“Thought of a name yet?” Rohan asks, after a while.
“A name?”
“Yes, a name for yourself like we spoke about.”
“Oh.” I’d forgotten.
“We can’t call you Elf in the city, you’ll be taken by the guards as soon as it’s uttered.”
That’s true. “I don’t know of a name, though.”
“It’ll come to you.”
“Will you help me?” I ask, taking Sparks out of my cloak and placing him in front of me.
He blinks lazily, but as he rests his little front legs on the lip of the saddle, wings stretching wide like Drogonah’s, he soon wakes up.
“You should name yourself,” he replies, hand stroking my stomach. “No one should give you a name but yourself.”
I think on it for a moment. “If I do find a name, what if I can’t remember it?”
