Page 14 of Red Dragon
Though puzzled, she handed them to him. Maybe he wanted to look through the lenses and see what it was like? She was on the verge of explaining how the corrective power would hurt his keen-sighted eyes, but he merely lowered them to his side and nodded to her. Thanks to her blurry eyesight, she almost missed the gesture.
“If you focus on your peripheral vision rather than what’s straight ahead, it may help you relax. Especially if you make it a regular practice.”
“You mean the vague blurry stuff to the left and right?” Syla waved to suggest what she saw.
“And up and down. If it helps, it’s a little blurry for everyone. Or at least less sharp. Especially out here.” He snapped his fingers near his ear. “But if you’re able to be aware of what’s tothe left and right and above and below, instead of being focused on what you’re looking at, it means your body is in a calmer state. By shifting your awareness to the periphery, you may be able toguideyour body into a calmer state.”
Syla eyed him—or rather, his blurry form—skeptically. “I’m a healer, and I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands of books on all aspects of the body, and I’ve not encountered anything about that.”
“Do your people know everything there is to know about the body?”
Syla resisted the urge to say they knew more thanhispeople. Her instinct was to look down upon the stormers because most didn’t read or write—and because they’d savagely attacked and killed so many of her people. But she admitted that having an oral tradition didn’t mean they were less intelligent, just that they had less stored knowledge in the form of books.
“Not necessarily.” Syla attempted to smooth the skeptical expression from her face and focus on the blurry curtain to one side and the even blurrier Sergeant Fel looming a dozen paces away.
“Have you tried to heal your eyes? Is that possible?”
“I looked into it and read everything we have on the subject of optometry, but myopia, which is what I have, isn’t an injury or disease, so you can’t cure it the way you might stitch a wound or help the body fight off a flu. It’s usually a result of an elongation over time of the eyeball, which causes light to focus in front of the retina instead of directly on it, and that makes the vision blurry.”
Vorik considered that with a thoughtful expression. What a strange thing to be discussing with one’s enemy. But it was safe, she admitted. They weren’t divulging any secrets, unless the axial length of the eyeballs of kingdom subjects might determinetheir capabilities at firing cannons. Fortunately, most of the men who went into the military weren’t that prone to myopia.
“That ailment is rare among my people,” Vorik said. “Even our elders don’t usually have much trouble.”
“You’re clearly a genetically superior people.” Syla shifted slightly to move what was visible in her peripheral vision. She couldn’t tell if it was doing anything to calm her down. Maybe one had to be able to see more than blurs.
“We are not that many generations removed from being thesamepeople.”
“I know. I was being sarcastic. I don’t think you’re superior.”
“No?” Vorik raised his eyebrows and touched his chest.
“Youwith your dragon magic might be.”
“Yes,” he said agreeably. “What causes the elongation of the eyeball?”
“There’s some debate, since not everyone who seems like they would be a candidate becomes myopic, but we think those most at risk are the people who spend a lot of time reading or focused for hours at a time on other near work. I’ve read voraciously since I was three, and I got my first spectacles at seven or eight.”
“At three, I was running around, looking into the sky for dragons and dreaming of flying on them.”
“The eyes are supposedly most relaxed when looking into the distance. You’ll probably never develop myopia.”
“I also challenged my older brothers to duels with sticks.”
“That sounds like a way tolosean eye.”
“It is. That’s a more common injury among our people.” Vorik offered her the spectacles back. “Perhaps, in addition to spending time relaxing your eyes and being aware of your periphery, you should focus more on the distance.”
It amused her that he seemed to take it for granted that she would take his advice on the peripheral viewing. Maybe shewouldtry it now and then, when she wasn’t busy helping defend her kingdom from invaders—or defending herself from plotters.
“I bet you get all kinds of practice looking into the distance,” Syla said. “I should be like you and spend time riding a dragon.”
“Yes. Agrevlari would be happy to carry you on his back.”
“If you’re also there?” She put her spectacles back on. “With your arms around me?”
“Yes.” His eyelids drooped. Now that he was no longer blurry, she had no trouble interpreting that look and recalled discussing riding dragons together in a rather aroused and somewhat frenetic manner when they’d been about to have sex.
Her body heated at the memory.
