With everything set, we all headed out. With all the excitement and stress I was more than looking forward to a little peace and quiet, but the moment we entered the town it was anything but that. People were cheering for us and throwing flower petals like confetti, it almost felt like we were the royal family. ‘Maybe I should have sat in the carriage a bit longer… Do I… wave? Or…’

It seemed like it was a good thing… But having such a large crowd in front of me made me a little nervous. ‘I should hold up a bit and ride next to… Finlo…’ I looked back to see him standing on one hand atop his horse. ‘I guess he would love a crowd…’ I turned front and center again, keeping my eyes forward and tuning them out. ‘If he’s performing though… Why does it feel like they're all staring at me…’

My stomach started to ache, and the pain didn’t go away until we made it out of the city, following the road up towards the castle overlooking it from a tall hill nearby. ‘I’ve been awake for how long now… And I already want to go back to bed…’

I thought back to when I was wrapped in the fuzzy blankets like a sushi roll as I slowly leaned forward and hugged Fritz’s neck. “You kind of like a big fuzzy blanket you know… I love you, Fritz.”

She neighed happily, making a horse noise for once.

“You look like you’re doing better,” Zu said pulling his horse up next to mine.

I raised my head and took a deep breath. “Ogres are aggressive huh…” ‘I mean, there was that one time after we first met, but even that wasn’t bad… Although I wouldn’t say he didn’t fight aggressively…’

He squinted, confused. “Some more than others, the Oni are considered the least so, but what brought that up?”

I slowly closed my eyes, relaxing my body. “I don’t even remember… Do I really look better to you? I feel sick…”

“That’s weird, we aren’t even on the water anymore. Well, I’m sure the castle will have a bed for us.”

“Beds…” I groaned, halfheartedly correcting him as I stumbled through my thoughts. ‘I really am thinking slow right now… My body feels so hot. I don’t feel like I’m going to breath fire though, so maybe it’s not that bad?’

I groaned again, struggling to hold my eyes open. ‘Airsidh said he’s calm because he subconsciously thinks I would die if he wasn’t. Wait no that’s not quite right, what were his exact words? I wouldn’t survive the courting? No, what was the context…’

“What? No, it’s bad as in singular isn’t it?”

“You're doing this on purpose aren’t you…” ‘sharing a giant bed…’ I felt my face turn red as my eyes suddenly snapped right toward him, remembering the context as my brain only became foggier.

He just laughed, almost proud of himself for some reason. “Airsidh told me the castle would have one giant bed for all of us, so it should be singular in this instance right?”

‘Freaking Airsidh… You’re messing with me through other people now… I knew I should have just stayed in the freaking carriage…’ “Apparently if we we did that I wouldn’t survive…” I muttered out loud staring right at him, only feeling myself get more embarrassed as my brain caught up with my mouth. “Can’t we just get there already…” I growled, my voice dropping slightly. ‘Why is this bothering me so much… It’s more likely Airsidh said something as a joke and he just didn’t understand it.’

“Survive what, hey are you alright?” He moved his horse closer and placed a hand on my shoulder to steady me. Hiis voice suddenly dropped at least three octaves like a roar. He had shouted something in his native tongue… Although I couldn’t even say for sure what syllables he used. “You’re burning up again.” He growled shaking out his hand.

‘I’m so tired…’

“Siya!”

‘If I’m burning up can’t I just cool myself off.’ I channeled my manna through my body and felt a thin layer of ice form on the outside of my skin, instantly turning to steam. I don’t know how many times I repeated the process, but in the end, I finally got a layer to stay, chilling at least the outside of my body. “I’m fine… I think…” ‘I’m not belching smoke, so I shouldn’t be in danger right?’

I heard hooves pounding towards me until another horse pulled up on my other side. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” Finlo grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“What… What is it?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You’re right, you’re fine. Since your dragon blood is still new, it just overreacts to things. Dragons are much more sensitive to all emotions, not just senses like touch, scent, and all that.”

“Things? What things? How do I make it stop?” I whined, slowly lowering my head back down to Fritz’s neck. ‘Poor Fritz, am I burning you? You seem fine.’

“Clear out your mind.” ‘Oh… Ok, I can do that, that’s easy.’ I started taking a deep breath. “You're way too aroused right now.” Before I even finished inhaling I choked, breaking out into a coughing fit. “Great, now you're just more embarrassed so it’s going to get worse…”

“And whose fault is that? And for the record, this is because Airsidh kept teasing me, so I’m EMBARRASSED not… Not the other thing, ok?”

He just rolled his eyes again. “It doesn’t matter, right? Just clear your mind.”

“IT MATTERS!” My head started to pound, anger getting mixed in with everything else. I wanted to scream. It was like my entire mindset was a series of teeter-totters constantly failing to find balance as even a slight shift sent me fully in that direction. Suddenly everything returned to normal, the only thing still weighing on me being my exhaustion.

“Ok ok you were embarrassed, just take a deep breath and concentrate on the flow of manna in your body.”

I suddenly felt a cool breeze, like the heat was being sucked away. All twords one direction. ‘My pendant?’

I turned over to Zu again to see his horns glowing bright purple as his skin turned to solid stone and black cracks began to form all across his body. “So this is… Dragons blood…” He said calmly. “It’s incredible… Oh, wait, no… I think I’m gonna black out…”

“They just had to make me the babysitter…” Finlo grumbled, yanking the pendant off my neck, pulling me upright, and steadying me before I fell off of Fritz. In an instant, all the heat returned in full force, and my blood pressure spiked even higher than before, but after a single heartbeat, it was calm again.

“This is way too much back and forth,” I groaned. ‘I feel like my head’s gonna explode…’

“You should be fine in a few minutes.”

“Is this something else I have to learn to control? Or…”

“Just get your head out of the gutter and you’ll be fine.”

I felt a rumbling rise from my chest as my voice let out an almost animalistic growl that undertoned my words. “Maybe I should cut yours off and put it in a gutter…”

He raised his eyebrows, caught somewhere between wondering if he heard me right, and inviting me to try.

“I-I I’m sorry I didn’t mean that…”

Closing his eyes, he turned to steady himself as a large portion of the heat remaining in my body dissipated. “Please just… Don’t get embarrassed again, I can’t keep absorbing all this heat.”

“It’s not like I can control it!”

He let out a sigh. “And you're blushing again...”

I lowered my face back down into Fritz's mane. ‘Just kill me…’

“Hey, give me your hand for a second.”

“Why…”

“The blood is affecting your emotions and thoughts, that’s why you suddenly threatened to murder me. I want to check to see if your skin is hardening. You’re not belching smoke, and you're not spitting fire out your rear, so it should be fine, but it’s concerning that your emotions are so unstable.”

I let out a sigh, lifting my hand up to him and turning my head. “Isn’t it just because you’re all acting like pricks…” The moment I opened my eyes I closed them again. “What happened to your shirt!”

“The plate mail was melting my skin because of the heat. Even the air around is boiling.”

All I could do was let out another groan. ‘Then why is Fritz perfectly fine…’ Seeing him shirtless only brought back the image of him nearly naked pulling me from the sea and holding me in his arms. I felt my whole body start to heat up again, before cooling off as he dissipated it.

“Would you stop it already?”

“I can’t help it!”

He let out a disgusted sharp breath of air that sent chills down my arms.

“I-I’m sorry, I just…”

“Don’t you dare start crying? Don't… Don’t do it…”

Surprisingly enough I held back my tears, that being the only emotion I managed to keep under control, but the unreasonable sadness that washed over me felt almost too much to bear and physically hurt inside my chest.

“Ugh… Listen, I’m sorry about this...”

“Sor–”

A sharp sting suddenly covered my face like prickly sand that had stung your eyes and everything went black for a moment, when I opened my eyes again I was still sitting on my horse, and Finlo was still sitting right next to me, but I felt fine again, all the symptoms were completely gone, and my body was covered in sweat that felt cool as the brisk wind swept through.

“Finlo…”

“Yeah? Feeling better?”

“I’m cold…”

He rolled his eyes with a snort, starting to smile again. “You’re being a pain.”

‘Did he choke me out? My neck feels fine though…’ I slowly looked around, Zu was still unconscious, now being drug behind his horse on the ground by a rope, and the carriage had stopped not far in front of us. “Sorry…” I muttered again.

“It’s fine, none of that was you… It’s Good to have you back.” His voice had returned to the friendly one that I had remembered as he threw me my cloak for the cold.

“Can you… Put your shirt back on now…”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but whatever it was he swallowed it and just did what I asked him to. I was grateful for that. For a while, I was starting to think he wasn’t even the same Finlo I knew. The one that talked too much and liked to show off. As I came back to myself though, so did he, at least to an extent… I didn’t have much capacity to think about it. In fact, when we stopped my body wanted to keep moving and I nearly fell off my horse entirely, being caught by Airsidh. Although, I couldn’t even say when he came out of the carriage.

“Put me down please…” I grumbled.

He opened his mouth with a grin but Finlo tightly gripped his arm, making the leather in his vambrace cry out. All it took was for them to exchange glances and suddenly my brother was carefully putting me on the ground without so much as a comment. Nothing about me being an airhead, or even telling me to be careful. It honestly left me so confused that I just stood there for a minute before I finally decided what emotion I was feeling. ‘It pisses me off that he always seems to know how to get the reaction he wants out of me…’