He said magic is in my blood. Maybe it is, and if I can’t feel it, that’s only because it’s such a basic part of me. Like my heartbeat, like my breathing—always there, always happening, even when I don’t notice it.
I broke a dragon out of jail. I caught fish with my bare hands. I’m not the helpless dud everyone at the barracks thinks I am. I’m Virginia freaking St. George, and I can do this.
I never learned how to undo the spell on a dragon ring, but I picture the iron shattering, the magic dissipating.
Amelrik cries out as another blow hits him. I open my eyes and see him double over and fall to the ground. The hunters start kicking him. In the ribs, in the stomach, in the face.
“Stop!” I scream, my voice shrill and terrified. And I feel something. A tingling in my hands. There’s a flash of red, and the smell of sulfur, and a cracking sound as the dragon ring breaks apart. “Amelrik, now!”
The hunters notice the ring. One of them swears. They back off to find their swords and their axes.
Bern grabs me by the hair, yanking my head back. “You’ll pay for that.” Cold metal presses against my throat.
Great. I finally manage to cast a spell, and before I can even celebrate, this jerk is going to kill me.
The knife pricks my skin. I’m so sure I’m going to die. And then Amelrik tears Bern away from me with superhuman strength, the knife skittering to the ground. “I said don’t touch her!”
I look at Amelrik, expecting to see a dragon. I’m not sure what I’m seeing.
He’s transformed and broken out of his bonds—that much is clear—but his body is still human. No, his body is still mostly human. Leathery black wings with flashes of red underneath spread out from his back, having ripped through his shirt. His hands are still hands, but with hooked claws at the ends. His eyes are cat’s eyes—yellow with black slits. Patches of black scales cover the outside of his forearms, like armor. They creep up the sides of his neck and along the very edges of his face.
I gasp. This is why he didn’t change forms the night of the party, when Lothar was goading him. Even if I’d never seen a dragon before, I’d know that he looks horribly wrong. Disfigured. Hideous. Words I never thought I’d think about him before this moment.
He deflects Gavin’s sword with his scaled forearm, then takes the weapon from him, flinging it to the ground. Bern comes at him with an ax. Amelrik slashes at him with his claws. They come away bloody.
Bern drops the ax and presses his hands to his sides. “Retreat!” he shouts, and Gavin and Sam fall in with him, backing out of the clearing and hurrying off down the road.
Amelrik’s yellow eyes meet mine. He sees the shock on my face—the revulsion that I wish wasn’t there—and it’s like I hit him. Like I hit him harder than any of those hunters ever could.19
AN UNDERGROUND ABYSS
I hold in my questions as long as I can. I make it all the way to that night, when we’re sitting by the fire, chewing on the last of the food the hunters left behind. Amelrik gobbled down most of it earlier, after he changed back into human form. We’ve hardly said a word to each other since then, and the silence has been so tense and awkward. I can’t take it anymore. I open my mouth to speak.
“No,” Amelrik snaps.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Whatever stupid question you were going to ask, the answer is no.” He scribbles idly in the dirt with a stick, not looking at me.
“It’s not a stupid question.” And even if it is, I have to say something, because saying nothing is killing me. “Are you half dragon, half . . . human?”
He shoves the stick harder into the dirt. “You’re not even sure what you think the other half is? That’s a new level of offensive, even for you. And no, I’m not.”
“So your parents are both dragons, you’re just—”
“Don’t.”
“—different.”
He flinches. “I hate that word.”
There’s a sliver of apple peel stuck between my teeth. I worry at it with my tongue. “Do your wings work?”
He stares at me, his green eyes bright and piercing. Maybe it’s related to his transformation earlier, or maybe it’s because the dragon ring is gone, but they seem more vivid. “Do I look like I want to talk about this?”
“I just mean, can you fly?”
“No.”
“Oh. So, those red bits under your wings . . . is that why you dye your hair like that?” I gesture to the red streak in the front.
“I told you I lived with Elder clan for a long time. I started doing this to remember where I came from.” He pauses, then corrects himself. “To remind everybody else where I came from. That I wasn’t one of them.”
Yeah, I don’t think they needed any help with that. “Maybe, sometime, can I touch—”
“No.”
He was pretty quick with that one. I guess he doesn’t want me touching any part of him. “I was just going to say your wings.”
“I know what you were going to say.”
“You can’t blame me for being curious. Are there other dragons like you? Is this just something that happens? Is it . . . is it why your father sent you away?”
He drops the stick and clenches his fists. “Stop. Just . . . stop. I don’t want to talk about it. Not with you, not with anyone!”
“But—”
“Not ever!” He gets up and storms off to the other side of the fire, away from me. Then a second later he storms back. “You don’t know me. You don’t get to ask me those questions and gawk at me and ask to touch me, like I’m some kind of sideshow attraction! Okay?!”
There’s a bitter taste in the back of my throat, and my eyes are about to water. “Yeah. Okay.”
“You saved my life, but I’ve saved yours three times now. I don’t owe you anything. And I’m certainly not here with you because I want to be!”
“Then why are you here? The dragon ring is off—you don’t need me anymore. Just tell me where to find Celeste, and I’ll figure this out on my own.” Somehow.
He sighs, his anger softening a little. “I’m still going with you.”
“No, you’re right. You don’t owe me anything.”
“You don’t know the first thing about dragons. You’d never make it on your own.”
“You’re really going to still help me?” I give him a skeptical look. “Even though the ring is off and you don’t want to be here?” And even though I can’t stop asking him annoying questions?
“I made a promise. Unlike some people, I keep mine. Besides, I’m not leaving you alone to get yourself killed.”
“You would do that? For me?”
He shrugs and looks away. “I’ve saved your life three times so far—what’s one more?”
I don’t know what I was expecting the entrance to Elder clan to look like, but I guess I thought it would be more intimidating. It’s basically just the opening to a cave. A carved-out space in the rock that leads off into darkness. And okay, maybe a scary hole that leads off into an underground abyss full of dragons is intimidating enough. I’ve come to kind of trust Amelrik—maybe more than just kind of—but these dragons aren’t him. They could be violent and cruel, impatient and hateful. They could take one look at me and decide to kill or torture me. They could be all the things that he’s not.
But Celeste is down there, waiting for me to rescue her, even if she doesn’t know it yet. There’s no question of whether or not I’m going in.
Amelrik breathes in deep, like he’s savoring the essence of this place. “We’re here,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he sounded happy about that. Maybe he’s just glad that this is finally going to be over. But then he takes my hand in his and smiles at me. “Once we’re inside, follow my lead.”
“That’ll be easier if you actually tell me the plan.” And also if he starts making sense.
“The plan is I do the talking and you play along.”
“But—”
“You want to get your sister back, don’t you? Stick close to me. And do not wander off.”
“Is that why you’re holding my hand?” Because he thinks I’m going to get distracted by the first shiny thing I see and disappear?
He quickly lets go of me. “You’re right. It should be like this.” He holds out his arm instead, all serious and formal, like he’s about to escort me into a ball or something.
Whoa. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to hold on to me. I’m not a child.”
“Do you want to look like an important guest of royalty, or like a common slave?”
“Gee, are those my only options?”
“You’re making an entrance with a prince. Try to act like it. That means take my arm. And stand up straight.”
His accent is getting thicker, and he’s talking really fast, so that it takes me a couple seconds to figure out what he said. And meanwhile he’s staring at me like I’m a complete moron. “I am standing up straight.” Close enough, anyway.He huffs in frustration, then looks me over and makes a face. “You should have had a bath.”
“I should have had a bath?”
“Both of us. But it’s too late now, and . . . just try not to embarrass me.”