Dahozhoni Meadow does my breath smell?

One pale ear twitched backward, listening for Odessia’s footsteps. He realized he half-expected her to follow him. More than that, he kind of wanted her to follow him, despite himself. Cambria sat heavily, hunching with his shoulders moving up toward his ears and squeezing his eyes shut even harder. A furrow appeared on his brow as he tried to shove that thought—to shove all thoughts—out of his head.

He couldn’t be sure how long he sat like that, scrunched up as the temperature began to cool and red warmth pressed on his eyelids. But when his heartbeat finally slowed to a steady thud, his thoughts had begun to calm and crystallize. He could visualize the proverbial fork in the road.

Suppose he ran: he just fled the scene and never saw Odessia again. Cambria would probably get over her quickly, quite frankly, but it dawned on him that he would never stop wondering. He would do everything in his power to tell himself he didn’t care, didn’t want to know, but the Dragonling knew now he’d passed the point of no return that very first time he’d left a part of himself in Odessia.

He drew in a deep breath, straightening his spine and opening his eyes. He didn’t rejoin her, didn’t even look her way yet. Just because he had recognized his fate did not mean he had accepted it yet. No, that would take some time. Cambria had effectively just ruined the schema he had spent most of his life building and the last few months reinforcing. It would take time to rebuild his mental blueprint. He had no idea what that process would look like, how long it might take or who he would be at the end.