I wake up to the vision of the stunningly intricate mosaic laid into the vaulted ceiling of Celestial Sanctuary's entry chamber. It's supposed to reflect how any one of the gods who incarnate as sages—represented by figures in an array of brilliant colors—can find clarity here in this mountain retreat to restore our strength, dancing our katas in forests and lakes.

  I guess I did find my strength here, but what I did to make that happen... peaceful is not the word.

  Did protecting the dragon count as peaceful? I didn't kill anyone, but I did threaten to. What other kind of strength could have not just stopped them, but made them go away?

  I don't know. It's not what the priesthood made me study, given that they wanted to use my wrath in a particular way.

  But the fact that they didn't teach it to me doesn't mean it doesn't exist; it could just mean they didn't want me to know it.

  And strength that the priests are wary of spreading would be worth learning, I think.

  "You're awake."

  I turn my head, belatedly realizing that the dragon—somehow back in human form?!—is seated right next to me. Watching over me as I slept?

  Odd that I didn't note the presence of his magic immediately upon waking. Even though I don't know him—I don't even know his name—perhaps his presence nearby has been continual enough that his proximity didn't alarm me?

  I always noted the presence of the tutors who raised me, though.

  Then again, I didn't believe they had my best interests at heart.

  Then again, they weren't dragons.

  "What's your name?" I ask abruptly.

  His eyebrows arch. "Zan."

  We stare at each other.

  Okay. Now he has a name. And he knows my name somehow, so we're not strangers, and it's not weird that he's been staring at me while I sleep and I don't mind it.

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  Oy.

  Carefully I sit up, only then noticing there was something soft under my head.

  "Spare clothes," Zan says. "You can wear them if you want."

  I feel a strange sense of vertigo, looking down and realizing I have been wearing the same sage robes for half a millennium.

  And although my magical stasis has apparently prevented them from crumbling off of me, I am coated in a layer of dust.

  I can't even really feel it, but swiping a finger along my arm reveals that my skin tone is pale—not news, it always has been—but not actually ashen.

  "...Or you can wash first," Zan says.

  "Wash first," I agree, oddly queasy.

  "I have food too." Zan begins digging in his pack. "I don't know precisely how your stasis worked, but it might be wise to have some before moving much. Much more, anyway."

  He is so annoyed that I rescued him.

  But when food emerges, all I can focus on is that I am starving.

  Zan has cheese, nuts, bread, jam. Jam.

  I hesitate to reach for it out of habit. I always had to be careful not to show preference for foods I actually like lest the priesthood decide it was an opportunity to teach me discipline and deny it to me.

  There aren't priests here, but the reflex to hide myself is long ingrained.

  "This is what was in your pack?" I ask instead.

  "Yes," Zan says acidly, "you risked your life for some bread."

  "Is it good bread?"

  A pause. "Yes."

  I also pause. "Do you like bread?"

  Zan appears to consider that question seriously, regarding the loaf of bread critically. "An old friend used to make the best bread I've ever had. My bread standards are high."

  An old friend. Imagine, a dragon having a friend who would bake him bread.

  But five hundred years have passed.

  His friend is dead.

  Zan isn't, though.

  Abruptly I say, "I didn't risk my life for bread. And I didn't risk it all, unlike you. Why were you even coming here?"

  "Are you even going to eat the food you're so carefully not looking at?"

  Damn it, he noticed.

  I purse my lips, glaring at him mildly.

  He gives me a vaguely annoyed look of challenge in return.

  Zan isn't a priest.

  Even annoyed with me, he's not withholding food.

  Fuck it.

  I reach for the cheese with one hand and the jam with the other.

  Dairy and sugar: my two great food loves.

  Nuts would probably be good for me and I don't dislike them, but this is the first food I'm going to taste in centuries and maybe it's okay for it to be sweet.

  Zan passes me a piece of bread. I layer just an incredible amount of jam on it and then a mound of cheese and then some more jam on top.

  His expression gradually shifts from annoyance to increasing bemusement to carefully bitten-back laughter.

  My snack is now so tall it almost doesn't fit in my mouth, but by the gods I will make it.

  I open my mouth as wide as I can and shove it in.

  Rich blackberry jam. Creamy cheese. I can't tell if the bread is good to be honest, it's basically just a vessel for delivery of my sugar fat.

  Bliss.

  When I open my eyes, Zan's expression is no longer amused, but keen.

  Like he can see the shape of all I've hidden for so long.