Dragonbound(47)

Amelrik shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He looks relieved. And like he might collapse.
I rush over to him and throw my arms around him. The blood from his shirt soaks into mine, but I don’t care. “We did it.”
He goes completely still, not hugging me back at first. And then slowly, being careful not to get me with his claws, he slides his arms around me and holds me to him. “Yeah,” he says, not sounding all that happy about it, “we did.” 
38
KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF
It’s a couple hours later when we say our good-byes. We’re out in the woods, a little ways from Elder clan. Amelrik talked to the king for a while before we left, explaining who I was and that Celeste was my sister. It was all in Vairlin, but he gave me the gist of it afterward. Except I think he might have actually told the king who I was to him, because he seemed kind of nervous while he was gesturing to me, and his face turned red, and the king laughed a little. In a good-natured sort of way. I’m guessing. Since he didn’t, like, kill Amelrik and lock us up or anything.
In fact, he let us go. He made an announcement, officially pardoning Amelrik, since he showed mercy to Lothar, even though Lothar totally would have deserved what he got. The king didn’t exactly sign off on his son taking their St. George—er, I mean, Celeste—to another clan and trying to start a war. He made sure Elder clan knew that whatever Lothar had tried to start, it was over, and both clans were relinquishing their St. Georges as a sign of goodwill.
So, mission accomplished, and we didn’t even get ourselves killed. I should be happy. Or at least I shouldn’t feel like the whole world is ending, because this could have turned out a whole lot worse. But tell that to the hollow, aching feeling that’s taken over my chest, threatening to rip me open.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” I ask Amelrik. “Because your wing—”
“I’ll transform again when I get home.” He’s in human form now, and his injuries have healed, or at least most of them.
“You promise?”
“I swear I will.”
We’re both quiet, neither of us saying anything for a while. I’m painfully aware of Celeste standing only ten feet away, watching this. Probably wishing we would hurry up, so the two of us can start the trip back home.
“It’s late,” Amelrik says, and for one horrifying moment, I think he’s about to say he has to get going. “Maybe you should stay the night. You could come back to Hawthorne with me and then leave in the morning.”
I glance over at Celeste, who I know heard every word, and not just because she’s glaring at me, like we will only be staying at Hawthorne clan over her dead body. “Celeste would kill me,” I whisper. “And . . .” If I stay one more night, I don’t know how I’ll ever leave. “I can’t.”
He nods. “I thought I’d have so much to say to you, and now it’s like I have too many things—a whole lifetime’s worth—and I’m not saying any of them. It’s too much for one conversation, and none of it feels like enough.”
I start to tell him I know what he means, but then something inside me breaks. Hot tears fill my eyes and run down my cheeks.
He puts his arms around me. I press my face into his neck, breathing in his smell, and hope I never forget what it’s like to feel this safe, or this loved. “I love you,” I tell him, and it comes out choked and full of tears.
“I love you, too,” he says, and his voice isn’t any steadier than mine.
We stay like this until Celeste clears her throat, and when we finally pull away, Amelrik’s eyes are wet. He wipes them with his palms.
I remind myself of all the reasons why I can’t stay here, and why he can’t come with me, and why it would never work out. And then I turn away, because one of us has to, and my heart snaps into pieces.
I hear him leave, but I don’t turn around. My shoulders shake as I cry harder, and I think, Please don’t go. Please, please, don’t go.I would give anything for him to come back right now.
But he doesn’t. He has to go. And so do I.
“Come on,” Celeste says, putting an arm around my shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Vee.”
It won’t, but I don’t tell her that.
“He’s a dragon. You’re a St. George! And you have the family power now. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you, and the last thing you need is to think you’re in love with a dragon.”
I shrug her arm off. “Think I’m in love with him? Did you seriously just say that?”
“It’s not healthy, is what I meant. You had to be around him these past few weeks, so you could rescue me, and maybe it felt like you and him were—”
“Don’t.”
She sighs, like I’m the one being unreasonable. “You have choices. Human choices. You’ll be better off without him. You’ll see.”
“No, I won’t.” I say that as coldly as I can, hoping she’ll take the hint.
She doesn’t. “I know he might have seemed human, but that’s what he does. That’s how he tricked all those people. You can’t believe anything he—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But—”
“Celeste? It’s great to have you back and all, but if that’s all you have to say, then keep your opinions to yourself. It’s going to be a long enough trip as it is.”
39
IF YOU NEED ANY HELP MURDERING THAT WEDDING DRESS
We arrive at the barracks a few days later. Everyone’s shocked to see that Celeste is back, and that she’s alive and well and not rocking back and forth in the corner. They’re pretty surprised to see me, too. I think some of them even assume she rescued me somehow, until she claps me on the back and tells them I saved her.
As if it was just me, and Amelrik wasn’t there. As if he didn’t almost get himself killed so I could get my sister back. And I know he did it for me and not her, but still. She doesn’t have to make it out like I did it all on my own.
Everyone looks at me differently after she tells them how I finally cast the binding spell and saved her life. Their expressions are full of disbelief and awe, like maybe they misjudged me. Even my father raises his eyebrows at me, like somehow his dud daughter got exchanged for someone worthwhile while he wasn’t looking.
This is the part where I should be rubbing it in everyone’s face, saying, “I told you so.” But my heart’s not in it. And even if they’re all looking at me differently, none of these people are my friends. Me having magic doesn’t change that. And I don’t even see Torrin, the one person who might actually be my friend. Not that things really went so well between us the last time I saw him. 
I leave Celeste to her adoring crowd and go to my room, where I can be alone. It feels weird to be here again. I mean, it feels weird to be back at the barracks at all, but it’s especially strange to be in my room. It’s exactly the way I left it, and yet it feels like it belongs to someone else.
The last time I was here, it was with Amelrik. The blanket on the bed’s still wrinkled from where we sat together. My mother’s hand mirror is on my nightstand, and I remember how I jerked it away from him, horrified that he touched it. It was only a little over a month ago, but it feels like another lifetime, like it happened to somebody else.
I glance at my bookshelf, remembering how I actually asked Amelrik if he could read. It’s such a small shelf compared to the giant one in his room, and I feel pretty stupid that I could have ever thought that about him.
A pang of loss hits me when I think about the Princess Mysteries book he got me, and how I left it in his room. It didn’t make sense to bring it to Elder clan with me, and then we never went back. It was the only physical thing I had to remember him by, and now it’s gone, as if the last few weeks never happened at all.
Maybe the strangest thing about my room is that my wedding dress is still sitting on the dummy, waiting for me to put it on. I can’t believe how close I came to marrying Lord Varrens. I wonder what he thought when I stood him up at the altar and how pissed Father was about it. Maybe almost as pissed as I was about having to marry someone against my will.
I grab a pair of scissors from my desk drawer. They’re not sewing shears, but they cut the fabric anyway. I feel a little bad about destroying Mrs. Hathaway’s work, but there’s no way I’m ever putting this dress on. If I ever get married, it won’t be in something Father had hastily put together, without even consulting me. And it won’t be a marriage he arranged that way, either.
I attack the dress with the scissors over and over again, cutting it to pieces. I chop the ribbon roses into unrecognizable bits, exposing the chocolate stain. Beads skitter to the floor as I slice through the bodice and snip the sleeves.
I’m in the middle of tearing up the train when there’s a knock on the door.
“Go away!” I shout.
The door opens anyway, and Torrin comes in, shutting it behind him. He stares at me, like he can’t believe I’m really here.
Or like I’m sweating and out of breath and surrounded by cut-up pieces of the wedding dress his mother worked on for me.
“Vee,” he says. “It’s you.”
I wipe a lock of hair away from my forehead. “I said to go away. I didn’t say to come in.”