OBSESSION

“You understand what humans do. You still do not grasp why they do it.”

I disagreed.

My grandfather knew this.

He waited.

I had known him for five hundred and fifty-seven years. He had possessed the ability to wait for considerably longer, and experience had taught me that silence was one of the weapons he employed most effectively because eventually the other person became compelled to fill it.

I was not other people.

We stood on the western terrace overlooking the lower valleys of Vaeloria. Morning mist lay between the mountains, obscuring everything beneath the upper forests, and far below us something sufficiently large to disturb several acres of canopy sent a flock of silver-backed birds exploding into the air.

Grandfather did not look.

He was looking at me.

I considered several responses.

The first was that his statement was demonstrably false.

The second was that I had spent eighty-three years correcting precisely the deficiency he claimed remained.

The third was that if he intended to prolong my human assignment again, I would prefer he dispense with philosophy and simply say so.

I selected the second.

“I have studied human motivation extensively.”

“Yes.”

“Their governments.”

“Yes.”

“Their religions. Economies. Laws. Wars.”

“I am aware.”

“Their philosophies, family structures, medicine, art, social systems—”

“Kaivareth.”

I stopped.

“You have four human degrees.”

“Yes.”

“Eleven passports.”

“Currently.”

His mouth moved.

Barely.

I chose to interpret this as respect.

“And,” he continued, “you have accumulated enough human scholarship to become tedious on several continents.”

“That seems unnecessarily subjective.”

“It is the consensus of our family.”

“I was not aware my preparation for kingship had been put to a vote.”

“It has not.”

“Then consensus is irrelevant.”

This time he smiled.

Briefly.

My placement among humans had begun when I was four hundred and seventy-four, shortly after I entered my first adulthood.

It was expected of an heir.

Our family had guarded the human realm since before humans became particularly reliable at recording their own history, and one day that guardianship would become mine. Kingship was not an ornamental arrangement in Vaeloria. A ruler who could not understand the people, lands and systems entrusted to him was not merely incompetent; he was dangerous.

A king could not protect what he did not understand.

On that point, Grandfather and I agreed.

Where we differed was his continued insistence that I did not.

“You know a great deal about humans,” he said.

“I know.”

“That was not praise.”

“It was accurate.”

He gave me a look.

I waited.

“You can explain them.”

“Yes.”

“You can often predict them.”

“Often.”

“You can manipulate their systems very effectively.”

“That sounds like praise.”

“It was not.”

“That seems unfair.”

His gaze shifted towards the mountains.

“You still approach them as though sufficient information will eventually make them reasonable.”

I frowned.

“Humans are frequently reasonable.”

“Yes.”

“And when they are not, the cause can usually be identified.”

“There.”

I looked at him.

“There what?”

“That.”

I waited for clarification.

None came.

“Grandfather.”

“You believe every human action becomes intelligible if you gather enough information.”

“That is generally how information works.”

“No,” he said. “That is how you work.”

I considered this.

The distinction seemed artificial.

Unnecessary.

“A human decision has causes.”

“Of course.”

“Those causes can be observed.”

“Sometimes.”

“Inferred.”

“Sometimes.”

“Tested.”

His expression altered.

Very slightly.

I stopped.

“You are proving my point,” he said.

“You have yet to define your point.”

“I know.”

This was becoming increasingly like an itch positioned somewhere between my shoulder blades.

I had spent most of my life being prepared to rule. Languages, law, diplomacy, warfare, economics, history, agriculture, medicine, philosophy, governance, the old sciences, the newer ones; the administration of land and resources, the management of competing interests, the difference between what a population said it wanted and what its behaviour demonstrated it would tolerate. I had studied famine and courtship, taxation and grief, military logistics and the peculiar human conviction that planetary positions at the time of birth might explain why someone had sent an ill-advised message to an unsuitable man at two in the morning.

Humans were complicated.

They were contradictory.

They were frequently irrational.

None of those things made them unknowable.

“I have lived among them,” I said. “Not merely studied them.”

“Yes.”

“I have worked beside them. Conducted business with them. Served through one of their wars. Watched them form families, ruin them and occasionally rebuild them. I have seen humans behave with extraordinary courage and extraordinary stupidity, sometimes within minutes of each other.”

“Yes.”

“I understand that they are contradictory.”

Grandfather’s eyes settled on mine.

“That is not the same as grasping the contradiction.”

I said nothing.

Mostly because I suspected he would enjoy it if I asked what that meant.

I refused.

He began walking.

I followed.

“You have done well, Kaivareth.”

I glanced at him.

That was new.

Praise from my grandfather was never casual.

“You have taken your responsibilities seriously. You know more of the human realm than most of our kind ever will.”

“Thank you.”

“Your assignment is not complete.”

There it was.

I had suspected as much.

Suspicion did not improve confirmation.

“What remains?”

“That is what you are going to determine.”

I stopped.

He continued several steps before turning.

“That is not an assignment.”

“It is.”

“It lacks a defined objective.”

“No.”

“No?”

“The objective is perfectly clear.”

“Then state it.”

“No.”

I stared at him.

Three thousand years had given my grandfather a dangerous tolerance for inefficiency.

“How am I expected to complete an assignment whose criteria you refuse to provide?”

“You will know when you have.”

“That is not a criterion.”

“No.”

“It is barely a sentence.”

“It has two verbs.”

“For whom?”

“For you.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He smiled.

“My current administrative identity is twenty-five.”

“I know.”

“I cannot remain twenty-five indefinitely.”

“You have managed the problem before.”

“Eleven times.”

“Then I have every confidence in your ability to survive a twelfth.”

“That is not the point.”

“No,” he said.

Something in his tone shifted.

Not enough to interpret with certainty.

I disliked that.

“I have responsibilities here.”

“You do.”

“I am heir to this throne.”

“You are.”

“I should be here.”

“And one day you will be.”

His eyes moved towards the archway leading back into the palace.

“The human realm gives you something Vaeloria cannot.”

“What?”

“People who do not care that you are Kaivareth.”

I considered that.

“They care about wealth.”

“Some.”

“Status.”

“Some.”

“Appearance.”

His mouth twitched.

“Frequently.”

“Then your statement is inaccurate.”

“Incomplete,” he said. “Those are different things.”

Again, that tone.

There was something embedded in the distinction.

I declined to pursue it.

“You will return,” he said. “Continue your life there. Observe. Study, if you insist.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

“And when I discover this undefined deficiency?”

“Come back and tell me.”

“What if I conclude there is none?”

“You already have.”

He walked away.

“Grandfather.”

He lifted one hand without looking back.

The conversation, apparently, was over.

I watched him disappear through the archway.

My grandfather was wrong.

The difficulty would be proving it.

“They’re closing the noodle place.”

I looked up from the article on my tablet.

“What?”

“The one near campus.”

Lydia sat opposite me with her laptop open between two cups of coffee, three books, enough loose paper to constitute a minor administrative emergency and a pen she had been chewing for the last seven minutes despite my having informed her on several occasions that this was unhygienic.

“Why?”

“Rent, apparently. The owners can’t make the numbers work anymore.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“I know. Their beef noodles were really good.”

“The broth was better than the noodles.”

“You ordered them every time.”

“Because they were good.”

She drank her coffee.

“Anyway. End of an era.”

I returned to my article.

There was a brief silence.

“What?”

I looked up.

“What?”

“You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The quiet thing.”

“I am reading.”

“No, the other quiet thing. The one where I tell you something mildly disappointing and you suddenly look like you’re reorganising a government.”

“I have never reorganised a government because of noodles.”

“That is not enough of a denial.”

I returned my attention to the tablet.

“That was exactly what you said when the bakery stopped making those almond croissants.”

“They did not stop making them. They changed suppliers.”

“Yes.”

“The replacement butter was inferior.”

“I know.”

“So I made an introduction.”

Lydia stared at me.

“To whom?”

“The original supplier.”

“You told me they changed back because they found another source.”

“They did.”

“Kai.”

“Yes?”

“Was the source you?”

“No.”

She relaxed.

I considered whether further explanation was required.

It probably was.

“I merely arranged the contract.”

Her eyes closed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You asked.”

“I know. That was my mistake.”

I returned to my article.

“You’re not going to do anything about the noodle place, right?”

She had not abandoned the subject, which meant she would continue asking increasingly specific questions until I either supplied sufficient information or she arrived at it herself, and experience suggested the second option was considerably more troublesome.

“I already have.”

Silence.

I looked up.

Lydia had stopped moving.

“What did you do this time?”

“Nothing dramatic.”

“That sentence from you has never once meant anything good.”

“I acquired the company.”

“The restaurant?”

“The company.”

She blinked.

“There are eight outlets.”

“Yes.”

“You bought all eight noodle shops.”

“I bought the company that operates them.”

“That is somehow worse.”

“It is more accurate.”

“Why?”

“The noodles were good.”

She stared at me.

“We liked the noodles,” I added.

“You know what normal people do when they like noodles?”

“Return to the restaurant.”

“Yes.”

“Which would have become difficult if it closed.”

Lydia opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“No, because—right, this. This is exactly the thing I mean.”

“I was unaware you meant a thing.”

“You always do this.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do. You like something and suddenly there’s paperwork. Or a contract. Or you own the building, or the supplier, or somebody’s great-grandfather who apparently still remembers how something was made in 1932 has been located and flown in from another country—”

“That happened once.”

“It should have happened no times, Kai.”

“He possessed necessary expertise.”

She pointed at me.

“See?”

“I do not.”

“That. Right there.”

“That is not an explanation.”

“No, it’s—” She gestured at me with both hands. “You’re just so—”

I waited.

“Dragon.”

I looked at her.

“Dragon.”

“Yes. Dragon.”

“Explain.”

“Oh, happily.”

She began counting on her fingers.

“Old things. Territorial. Weirdly possessive. You remember where absolutely everything you own came from, you can sit completely still for so long it becomes creepy, you watch people like you’re deciding whether they’re edible—”

“I have never done that.”

“—you own way too much property, and whenever you like something you don’t buy more of the thing like a normal rich person, you buy whatever makes the thing so the thing can never disappear.”

I considered this.

“That is more efficient.”

Lydia slapped the table.

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“Dragon.”

“You have failed to establish a relationship between the two.”

“You bought eight noodle shops.”

“They were undervalued.”

“Because you liked the noodles.”

“We liked the noodles.”

“That is not helping you.”

“It is accurate.”

She stared at me.

“One day,” she said slowly, “I am going to find out you have a cave full of gold somewhere.”

I said nothing.

Right person.

Wrong time.

Definitely the wrong place.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You do.”

“I did not say that.”

“You didn’t say no.”

“I frequently do not say things.”

“Kai.”

“Yes?”

“You have a cave.”

“I did not say that either.”

“Full of gold.”

“This conversation has become speculative.”

Her mouth fell open.

“That is the most guilty sentence I have ever heard.”

“There is no cave under my house.”

She went still.

“That’s not the reassuring answer you think it is.”

Oh, Lydia.

If only you knew.

She balled up a receipt and threw it at me.

I caught it.

She made a face.

I smiled.

I had been told I possessed a dazzling smile. Lydia had once informed me that using it after saying something infuriating should be prosecutable.

Lydia had a habit of approaching the truth with astonishing accuracy and then walking directly past it.

I had stopped discouraging her.

It was entertaining.

We had been friends for two years and eleven months.

By my standards, we had barely met.

By hers, I knew about her childhood, three former boyfriends, her father’s affair, two people she despised at university, several bodily functions I had never requested information about, and an incident involving tequila which she maintained could not legally be used against her because I had not personally witnessed it.

Humans moved quickly.

I liked Lydia.

That had surprised me.

She was intelligent, irreverent and largely unimpressed by me, and while the first two qualities were reasonably common, the third was not. I had spent most of my life highly favoured, highly regarded and, according to several women whose judgment I considered otherwise sound, highly desirable.

Lydia had once asked me to move because I was blocking the plug socket.

I respected this.

She turned her laptop towards me.

“Read this.”

I did.

“Well?”

“You have confused correlation with causation.”

Her face fell.

“Where?”

I pointed.

“There.”

“Shit.”

“Yes.”

“You could have softened that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fragile.”

“No, you’re not.”

She looked up.

I looked back.

Then she smiled.

“See? That was almost sweet.”

“It was not intended to be.”

“Still counts.”

“It does not.”

“Humans decide what counts.”

“That explains a great deal.”

She kicked me beneath the table.

I ignored it.

“Also, your argument here contradicts the previous section.”

“Oh, get off my back, would you?”

“You asked.”

“I asked what you thought. I didn’t ask you to dismantle my entire thesis.”

“The distinction seems arbitrary.”

“You are exhausting.”

“So I have been told.”

“By everyone?”

“By several continents, apparently.”

She laughed and pulled the laptop back towards herself.

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

I liked silence.

Humans frequently seemed compelled to fill it, as though the absence of conversation represented a failure requiring immediate repair. Lydia was one of the few who did not.

She typed.

I read.

Rain moved against the windows.

Then a woman laughed somewhere behind me.

My attention shifted.

Immediately.

I frowned.

There were sounds a dragon noticed automatically.

Stone beginning to fracture under load. Metal under strain. The pressure change before a storm. The displacement of air caused by something large approaching at speed. The almost imperceptible alteration in silence produced when another predator became aware of you.

A human woman’s laughter did not belong among them.

I returned to my article.

She laughed again.

Low.

Warm.

A slight roughness beneath it, followed by a quiet, satisfied sound at the end that was not quite another laugh.

I reached the end of the sentence I was reading and discovered I had retained none of it.

I read it again.

Nothing.

My hearing had moved elsewhere.

The woman was speaking now, and her voice separated itself from the surrounding noise with irritating ease.

Chairs against tile.

Ceramic touching saucers.

Rain against glass.

Traffic beyond the windows.

Lydia typing.

Thirty-seven human heartbeats in various states of exertion, irritation, boredom and caffeine exposure.

And her.

I listened.

Then realised I was listening.

Why?

I turned.

She stood near the entrance, folding an umbrella.

Small.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Which was absurd.

Humans were small.

This was not new information.

I had spent decades surrounded by them without finding their dimensions worthy of sustained analysis, yet this woman seemed particularly, almost offensively small, and the more absurd part was that her physical scale bore no discernible relationship to the amount of attention she generated.

She said something to someone beside her.

I did not catch the words.

I caught the voice.

Then her scent reached me.

I stopped.

Osmanthus.

White musk.

Rain on warm skin.

I inhaled.

Once.

Then again.

The second breath was unnecessary.

I already had the scent.

Dragons remembered scent exceedingly well.

It was simply—

I frowned.

A great deal of scent for very little woman.

She could not have weighed much, yet somehow she distinguished herself cleanly from coffee, wet wool, hot food, old wood, rain and every other human in the room without smelling strong in any conventional sense.

Remarkably efficient.

I frowned harder.

That was a ridiculous observation.

Her scent was not efficient.

Scent did not possess an efficiency rating.

I looked at her again.

Brown hair.

Rain caught in it.

Small hands closing the umbrella.

She was speaking to someone just beyond the entrance.

Her heart was slightly elevated from exertion.

Steady.

Strong.

I had no reason to know this.

I withdrew my hearing.

Then she turned.

I saw her face.

Oh.

Wait.

What?

For several seconds, I continued looking.

I did not have useful language for what I was seeing.

That was unusual.

Was she beautiful?

Definitely.

I had seen and known many beautiful females—dragons and humans alike.

Among dragons, beauty could span three hundred feet of flawless scale and muscle; it could be found in the architecture of a horn, the breadth and symmetry of a wing, the particular way sunlight travelled across overlapping scales in flight, or fire held so hot at the throat that its centre burned white before release. I had known females whose scales turned armies into mirrors when they crossed beneath the sun, whose wings could silence entire valleys, whose movement made lesser creatures appear unfinished.

Humans accomplished comparable effects with considerably less material.

Queens. Scholars. Soldiers. Courtesans. Artists. Women who had stopped entire rooms merely by entering them and women who had destroyed kingdoms without once raising their voices.

Beauty was not rare.

Not across five centuries.

Not across two species.

So this should have been easy.

Brown eyes.

That was a fact.

Warm brown, darker towards the pupil, with a depth that changed slightly when she turned towards the light.

Her mouth was—

I stopped.

Why was I cataloguing her mouth?

Her eyes moved across the café.

They passed over me.

Continued.

Something inside me objected.

I went still.

To what?

She had looked at me.

Then she had looked elsewhere.

That was normal human behaviour.

Nothing had occurred.

I withdrew my attention.

A moment later, when I looked again, she had moved out of sight.

I disliked that.

I frowned.

Why?

A human woman had entered a café and ceased to be visible.

This happened constantly.

It had happened several times since I sat down.

I had not objected then.

I returned to my article.

I read the same sentence three times.

“Hey, you.”

Her voice.

Much closer.

My attention snapped away from the page before conscious recognition had completed.

The small woman was approaching our table.

No.

Not approaching us.

Approaching Lydia.

There was affection in the words.

Familiarity without ceremony. Recognition requiring no introduction, no title, no clarification.

You.

A word requiring no name because the name was already contained inside the relationship.

Interesting.

Her scent reached me again.

Osmanthus.

White musk.

Rain on skin.

I could separate them without effort.

I had no idea where the first two came from.

I found that irritating.

Why?

“Mum.”

Lydia’s entire voice changed.

Not dramatically.

A small softening.

Warmth sliding beneath the irreverence.

Of course I caught it.

The woman bent and kissed the top of Lydia’s head.

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“It was on silent.”

“Useful.”

“I was studying.”

“So I see.”

There it was again.

That ease.

I knew Lydia with friends, professors, strangers, men she disliked, men she intended to dislike, people from whom she wanted something, people who wanted something from her, and people unfortunate enough to encounter her before she had eaten.

I had not heard quite this version of her.

Daughter.

The woman was her mother.

Of course.

The resemblance became obvious once I knew where to look.

Not colouring.

Movement.

The slight narrowing of the eyes before amusement.

The way both of them seemed capable of holding an opinion without experiencing any need to disguise the fact.

I should have noticed sooner.

That irritated me.

Her gaze moved across Lydia’s papers.

Then to me.

Our eyes met.

Brown.

I had known that already.

Knowing it had not prepared me for proximity.

Her heartbeat changed.

One beat.

Slightly faster.

Another.

Then steady.

I heard all three.

Why was I listening?

“Mum, this is Kai.”

She looked at me.

Not quickly.

Not slowly either.

There was simply enough attention in it to make me aware that she was actually looking.

“So you’re Kai.”

“You’ve heard of me.”

“Unfortunately,” Lydia said.

“Traitor.”

Lydia grinned.

Her mother’s mouth curved.

Warmth altered her entire face without making it less observant.

“I’ve only heard good things.”

“That is demonstrably untrue.”

A pause.

Not an awkward one.

She looked at Lydia.

Then back at me.

“I suspected.”

I almost smiled.

Lydia groaned.

“Oh, no.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Her mother was still looking at me.

Not staring.

That would have been easier to classify.

She simply seemed to notice me without making the noticing feel like scrutiny.

I became aware of this with unreasonable precision.

Then she extended her hand.

“Lily.”

Lily.

A small name.

Two syllables.

Simple.

It suited her.

Perfectly.

Why did I think that?

I took her hand.

Warm.

Her fingers disappeared almost entirely inside mine.

For an instant I was struck again by the same disproportion.

So little of her.

So much information.

Heat.

Pulse.

Scent.

The pressure of her fingers.

Her heartbeat beneath skin and bone.

I adjusted my grip automatically.

More care than necessary.

Then something inside me became completely still.

Not calmer.

Still.

As if an entire internal system had stopped whatever it had been doing in order to attend.

I stopped breathing.

That had never happened before.

“Kaivareth,” I said.

Silence.

Ash.

I had not intended to say that.

I did not introduce myself to humans as Kaivareth as a rule. There were practical reasons involving documentation, continuity and concealment; four centuries of listening to humans assault the pronunciation had provided additional ones.

Kaivereth.

Kavirath.

Kay-varian.

Once, regrettably, Kevin.

A woman in London had called me Kevin for eight months because correcting her eventually became more exhausting than permitting the error.

Lily tilted her head.

“Kaivareth?”

I should have corrected her.

Kai.

Simple.

One syllable.

Human.

“Yes.”

Apparently I was not going to.

She said it again.

“Kaivareth.”

Perfect.

Not close.

Not unusually good.

Perfect.

Every consonant where it belonged. The vowel shaped correctly. Even the final sound, which humans almost always flattened.

I stared at her.

She noticed.

“Wrong?”

“No.”

A tiny smile.

“Good.”

Her hand remained in mine.

I was still holding it.

Release her.

I did.

“I thought your name was Kai,” Lydia said.

“It is.”

Lily glanced between us.

“Both?”

“Kai is easier.”

“For you?”

There was no challenge in the question.

Only room.

“For humans.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

I heard the sentence after I had already said it.

Lydia did not.

“You say that like you’re not one.”

I looked at her.

Oh, Lydia.

“Perhaps I’m not.”

“Dragon,” she said immediately.

“Yes.”

Lily looked from Lydia to me.

“Do I want to know?”

“No,” Lydia said.

“Yes,” I said.

We answered simultaneously.

Lily laughed.

Her whole face changed.

There.

That sound.

I wanted her to stay.

The thought arrived complete.

No preliminary reasoning.

No supporting evidence.

No discernible cause.

Stay.

I examined it.

I had known this woman for less than five minutes.

She was Lydia’s mother.

She possessed brown eyes, a low voice and an unusual capacity to occupy my attention.

She smelled of osmanthus, white musk and rain on skin.

She pronounced my name correctly.

None of these facts supported the conclusion.

“Sit,” Lydia said. “I’m nearly done.”

“I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You’re not.”

Lily glanced at the empty chair.

Then at me.

“Would that be all right?”

“Yes.”

Too fast.

I moderated my tone.

“Of course.”

She sat.

Something inside me eased.

Interesting.

No.

Not interesting.

Concerning, perhaps.

I returned my attention to the article.

Or attempted to.

Lydia resumed typing.

Lily glanced at the page beside my coffee.

“Economics?”

“Political economy.”

“That sounds worse.”

“It frequently is.”

She smiled.

“What are you studying?”

“Humans.”

There was a pause.

Lydia looked up.

I reconsidered.

“Human systems.”

Lily’s eyes remained on mine.

“Big subject.”

“Yes.”

“How’s it going?”

The question should have been easy.

I had spent most of a human lifetime doing exactly that.

Studying them.

Observing them.

Learning the patterns beneath institutions and choices, distinguishing causes from stories humans invented after the fact, watching the same desires produce wildly different behaviours under different conditions. I understood their systems, their incentives, their contradictions and the predictable ways they insisted they were unpredictable.

My grandfather’s voice returned with irritating clarity.

You still do not grasp why they do it.

I looked at Lily.

“Less well than I thought.”

She laughed.

I felt the result before I understood what I had done.

Satisfaction.

Small.

Immediate.

I examined the preceding exchange.

I had selected the answer because I knew it would amuse her.

No.

More precise.

I had selected the answer because I wanted to hear that sound again, had identified a response likely to produce it and altered what I would otherwise have said in order to achieve the desired outcome.

The prediction had been accurate.

The outcome had been successful.

Entirely straightforward.

So why was I still analysing it?

Lily shifted in her chair.

Closer.

Approximately three inches.

I noticed.

Of course I noticed.

I could distinguish her heartbeat beneath the room.

I knew the particular warmth of her hand.

I knew her scent well enough already that I would recognise it again.

I knew the exact change in her mouth immediately before laughter escaped it, the slight pause she allowed before answering, the fact that she looked directly at whoever was speaking rather than merely waiting for her turn.

Five minutes.

I had met Lily five minutes ago.

I understood exactly what I was doing.

I did not grasp why.