A Pet for the Dragons

184.

IVRET

Arika's health continued to leave me in deep confusion, making me question my skills every day.

It had been almost a week since we went out, and since then, she had been somewhat distant. Physically, she was making good progress. She was putting on weight, and her cheeks finally seemed to have some colour after months.

However, she didn't seem like herself again, and this was... this was getting to me. Zorge assured us that she was still sane. It was just that she was finding it hard to deal with everything, and it frustrated me even more.

I wish there were a way I could get inside her head and fix everything. That was the work of mind healers, but they were quite rare. As far as I knew, one hadn't been born in a long time.

It wasn't a skill one could learn. One had to be born with it. Still, I spent most of my time in my tower, searching through all my old scrolls and some of the old books that I had managed to either borrow or indirectly steal from the Cardinal library.

None of it worked in the end... making me feel more useless in this situation. I was more frustrated with myself. Sometimes I felt unworthy of seeing her. It felt like I was failing her each day.

Zorge happened to be the one spending the most time with her. He'd give me updates each day on her mental state, and it would further make me mad. On the other hand, Radrox was nowhere to be seen.

He'd been gone since the day after our trip. He didn't particularly tell us where he was going and why he had to be gone. This made everything even more frustrating because I had to patrol at night. It meant spending less time trying to figure out how to bring Arika back to good health, both physically and mentally.

So far, Mavie hadn't sent anyone after us, but I knew better than that. Mavie had her eyes and ears almost everywhere, except for where the humans lived. I wondered if she'd find us there if all of us shifted there.

It was something I had been pondering for a while. We could live among the humans, donning permanent glamour magic to blend in with them. Maybe, then, we could give Arika a normal life. However, I realised on the day of our trip that Arika isn't suited to live there as much as we... this was tricky.

I sighed deeply and checked the time. It was almost time to feed Arika. I got to work on making dinner for Arika. I grilled some fish and meat for her the way she liked — on my enchanted grill, with the special herbs that made my stomach roil. But she liked it and that was all that mattered.

Once I was done preparing her dinner, I went to her room. It wasn't the place where we wanted to keep her. She deserved to have a tower of her own, fully furnished and decorated. But for now, we kept her in one of the rooms on the second floor. It was the closest to everyone's room and easily accessible.

I knocked gently and stepped inside.

"I've brought you dinner, Arika," I announced, searching for her in the room. Zorge was nowhere to be seen, and that irked me as much as it shouldn't. It was his duty to look after her all the time, but maybe he went out for patrolling or something? Still, he should've informed me first. It annoyed me greatly.

However, I shook this off and stopped deeper into Arika's room, looking for her.

"Arika?" I called for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. A hint of panic rose inside me. "Arika!" I called out for her louder as my heart started pounding in my chest. I'd kill Zorge if something happened to her.

"I'm here," I found brief relief when I heard her weak voice answer from the bath. I set her food on the bedside table and went to check on her.

She had drawn herself a warm bath and sat there alone. Her jet back hair was wet and stuck close to her head. Her face was flushed, and her glowing blue eyes appeared brighter as she studied me from head to toe.