A black circle opened on the floor and he rose from it with the same unhurried quality that the descent had carried, his feet finding the familiar boards of his room, the ordinary afternoon light coming through the window, the small space exactly as he had left it.
Kael pushed off his shoulder immediately.
He launched upward and began his circuits — the happy, energetic loops that expressed themselves differently from his composed performance gliding, faster and less deliberate, the movement of a creature that had too much good feeling to hold still.
He made a tight circle near the ceiling, banked around the corner of the wardrobe, dipped under the low beam, and came back around without slowing.
The joy was coming through the link clearly.
Not the performed satisfaction of a dragon announcing its own greatness — genuine joy, the specific warmth of a creature that had accomplished something it had wanted to accomplish and was still feeling the warmth of that in its body.
