Dragonbound(20)

“What?”
“There’s no way you’re not starving, too.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know why you’d think I’d have any food. I’ve spent the past week in a dungeon.”
“Right, right. I don’t expect you to have any food—I expect you to go get food. You know, hunting and stuff?”
“What?”
“Stop saying what.”
“I will when you start making sense.”
I pick at the sap stuck to my hand. “Neither of us brought anything to eat, and you’re a wild animal. Wild animals hunt for their food. So . . . get to it.”
He makes a noise that’s half scoff, half laugh. “I’m a what?”
“A wild animal.”
“Do I look like a wild animal to you?” He gestures to himself, fully clothed and all that, which I have to admit is not very wild-animal-like.
“Not right now. But you are a dragon, so go catch a sheep or something.”
“A sheep. Here, in the woods. With what? My bare hands?”
Okay, so maybe I didn’t think this through.
“Just take this iron ring off my neck, and I’ll gladly go look for a sheep for you.”
“That’s not happening. But you’ve still got more experience than me. You know, going on adventures. How do you usually eat?”
“At the table. My ‘adventures’ don’t usually involve roughing it in the wilderness.”
“Well, that’s just great.”
“And I’m not a wild animal.”
Now he tells me. I mean, I guess I sort of knew that—he is a prince, after all, as hard to imagine as that is—but I just assumed that he’d know what to do. “If we can’t eat tonight, can you at least make a fire? It’s getting cold.” At the barracks, it would still be warm out, even after dark. It’s only twilight now, though it’s fading fast, and I’m already feeling the chill. Goose bumps prickle along my arms.
“No fire. It might give us away, if anyone’s still looking for us.”
If? Of course people are looking for us. They think I got hauled off by a wanted criminal, right? They wouldn’t just give up. Not that I want anyone to find us, but I at least want them to care about finding us. About finding me.
“Okay, so no food and no getting warm.”
“It’s not cold.” 
“Easy for you to say.” I remember how warm his skin felt, even while in the freezing river. So maybe dragons don’t really get chilly or anything, even in human form.
“Just go to sleep. We’ll find food in the morning. Or we’ll be dead, because we didn’t cover enough ground. Well, I’ll be dead. You’ll be dragged back home.”
Where I’d have an awful lot of explaining to do. But I don’t think anyone’s going to find us. He’s just being paranoid, which I guess I would be too if getting found meant my death. It’s not like we could have gone any farther tonight, anyway. We’re both exhausted, and I can’t see in the dark. Picking my way through these woods was hard enough in daylight.
Amelrik lies down on the ground. The dragon ring chokes him a little bit, and he has to shift around until he finds an okay position.
I stay huddled next to my tree. It’s almost completely dark now, and no matter what he says, it is getting cold. I wonder how far I am from the barracks, from home—because even if there’s nothing for me there, that’s still what it is—and suddenly I feel so utterly alone. It hits me fast, sharp as a sword, and then I’m glad it’s so dark out, because tears spring to my eyes.
I’ve never spent a night outside of the barracks. Even before my mother died and I refused to leave them. I’ve always been surrounded by people I know, by familiar rooms and hallways. There are no rooms here. There’s nothing even remotely familiar.
Hot tears slide down my cheeks—at least they’re warm—and I wipe them away with the back of my hand and get a whiff of pine sap. I probably just smeared dirt across my face.
I can’t take the silence, the feeling that I’m in a void. I hope my voice doesn’t give away that I’ve been crying. I also hope Amelrik’s not asleep already. “So, you’re really a prince?”
“Why, Virgin? Do I not seem regal enough to you?” His words are bitter, defensive.
“You’re not what I expected. I mean, for a prince to be like. Not that I’ve ever met one before—well, not before you and Lothar—and I certainly don’t know what I expect a dragon prince to be like. But . . . no. Not really.”
“My father is the king of Hawthorne clan. My mother, the queen. That makes me a prince, last time I checked.”
“Your mother? I thought your mother was . . .” I try to think of a tactful way to say it, but I hate when people dance around the subject. Euphemisms don’t make it any easier. “You said she died.”
There’s a pause. Kind of a long pause, and I think maybe I offended him, after all. But then he says, “She was still a queen.”
“So, are you, like, going to inherit the throne?”
“What I’m going to do is sleep. I suggest you do the same.”
Which I take to mean no, he’s not going to inherit. That or he thinks I’m being too nosy. But I don’t care if I am—I’m alone with him, out in the woods, and I think I have a right to know who I’m traveling with. “How do you know Lothar? Because the two of you obviously have some kind of history, but your clans are enemies, right?”
He sighs, loudly, making it clear he’s annoyed. “I lived with Elder clan for nearly six years as part of a political hostage exchange. It kept the peace, more or less. For a while.”
“You were a hostage?”
“A political hostage. I wasn’t kept in chains or anything. I am royalty, after all. I lived with the Elder king’s family, as a guest.”
“And Lothar lived with your family?”
He laughs. “Oh, no. Not him. The prince of Elder clan was far too valuable to be traded away. Not him, and not his sisters. It was a cousin, someone royal who wouldn’t be missed too much if anything happened to him. But my father had no problem trading me.”“That sucks. You had to have been pretty young, right?”
“I was fourteen. It was the right choice.”
“But still. I know what that’s like. My father traded me away, too. And . . . it just sucks, whether it’s the right choice or not.”
There’s another long silence, and then he whispers, almost so quietly I don’t hear, “Yes, it does.”
I close my eyes, not feeling nearly so alone now. I start to drift off, but before I can actually fall asleep, a thought wakes me up. I open my eyes again, even though it’s too dark to see.
Amelrik said he lived with Elder clan. Past tense. I doubt that they would have made some kind of permanent peace, and I admit I don’t know a whole lot about this kind of thing, but I really don’t think they would have just let him go.
But he’s here, my prisoner, not theirs.
So what happened?
I start to ask as much, but his breathing is slow and steady, and I realize he’s already asleep.
15
KILLING DRAGONS IS SORT OF HIS JOB
I wake up feeling warm and safe, and it takes me a second to remember that I’m not in my bed. Well, the ground isn’t exactly comfortable, or anything like my bed, so it’s not a difficult conclusion to make. But there’s a moment where I don’t remember anything that happened yesterday, and then it all comes flooding back.
Breaking a dragon out of jail. Leaving home with him.
Curling up with him last night to stay warm.
Wait, what?
Amelrik’s arm is draped over me. I’m lying with my back to him, his body pressed against mine, and I can feel his breath on my neck.
Okay, I vaguely remember deciding that sleeping sitting up against a tree was overrated sometime last night, after I kept waking up with a crick in my neck. I remember lying down beside Amelrik. But this clearing is small enough that it would have been impossible not to lie down next to him. So that part’s not my fault. But he was asleep, and I was so cold, and maybe I parked myself a little closer to him than necessary.
But not this close. And I didn’t force him to put his arm around me or anything.
Still, maybe I can slip away without waking him up, and then nobody has to know this happened. I’ll just act totally normal, and Amelrik will never know.
“Get away from him, Vee.”
Torrin’s voice startles the hell out of me. Not just because I had no idea anyone else was here, but because of the hostility in it.
Amelrik’s definitely awake now. He mutters something unintelligible—or maybe just not in English—and jerks away from me.
So much for no one finding out. I can’t tell if he’s as embarrassed as I am to have woken up huddled together like that, but I guess he has bigger problems, like Torrin holding a sword to his chest. 
I sit up, knocking pine needles off of myself. Torrin is not happy. That’s clear from everything about him, from the way his shoulders are bunched up to the betrayed look on his face. Oh, and, you know, the fact that he’s about to kill Amelrik. But killing dragons is sort of his job, so maybe that doesn’t count.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I tell him. Even though I’m not exactly sure what it looks like.
“I spent all night tracking you.” He says that to me, though he keeps his eyes on Amelrik. “The others gave up, but not me. Oh, no. I was so worried about you! I left you alone in your room when I knew there was a dragon on the loose. And if something had happened to you, I don’t know how I’d . . . I thought he kidnapped you! And then I find you like this! With him.” Torrin practically spits the words.