Dragonbound(31)

She clears her throat. “My cousin. The one I told you about?”
“What are you . . . Oh. Ohhhh. Right. That cousin.” Osric nods.
Godwin is still confused. “Which cousin? The dead one?”
Osric smacks his arm. “No, you idiot. Does he look dead to you?” He lowers his voice, but we can all hear anyway. “The crippled one.”
“Oh.”
They’re not grinning anymore, and they both give Amelrik really solemn looks.
“It’s okay, Odilia,” Osric says. “We can hang out here with you. We’ll practice later—we’ve got plenty of time before the games.”
“Well . . .” Odilia glances at Amelrik.
“Just go,” he says, waving her off. “You were the one who interrupted us in the first place.”
“Really? You’re the best.” She reaches out and ruffles his hair as she gets up.
Osric and Godwin take running leaps off the edge of the cliff and transform in midair, so they’re dragons by the time they hit the water. They just barely make it.
“You stupid boys!” Odilia shouts after them, but she’s laughing again. She transforms first, then dives in, too.
Amelrik sighs. His excitement from earlier is gone, and now he just seems sad.
“Come closer,” I tell him, even though we’re already sitting right next to each other.
“What?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s a secret. I have to whisper it.”
His forehead wrinkles, and at first I think he’s not going to do it. But then curiosity gets the better of him, and he leans toward me.
I make like I’m going to whisper in his ear, and then at the last second I lick the side of his face instead. His skin is salty with sweat.
“Hey!” He wipes my spit off with his sleeve, but he’s also grinning and trying not to laugh. “What was that for?”
“Human saliva is a little-known pick-me-up, but only when applied liberally and directly from the tongue.”
“Is that so?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He smiles at me. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“It doesn’t not prove it. And it’s my birthday. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to argue with someone on their birthday.”
“Funny, I’ve never heard that before.”
“Well, you didn’t know about the mood-enhancing quality of spit, either, so obviously you still have a few things to learn.”
25
NOT LIKE THE REST OF THEM
It’s the next afternoon, and me and Amelrik are taking a walk through the woods, no hills this time. I made him promise that part before I’d come out here with him. He said he just wanted to take a walk, but he seems really nervous, and there’s obviously something on his mind.
And I know it’s stupid—really stupid—but part of me hopes that the thing on his mind is me, and that he’s going to kiss me again. For reals this time, even though it certainly felt real enough before. It’s stupid for several reasons. One, because I’m a St. George and he’s a dragon and I shouldn’t want that, and two, because of course he doesn’t feel that way about me. Guys never feel that way about me, and I’m sure a dragon prince is no exception.
I mean, he’s made it clear that he only kissed me because he had to. The only reason he’s letting me sleep in his bed is to keep up appearances, and because I refused to leave. He went out of his way to make my birthday fun yesterday, but that’s what you do on someone’s birthday if you’re their friend. And it’s especially what you do when they know absolutely no one else and are far from home.Amelrik stops at a clearing off the side of the trail. He looks around, pausing to listen—I guess to make sure we’re alone. “Virginia . . . don’t be mad, but this isn’t just a walk.”
“Uh-huh. I kind of figured that.”
“There’s something we need to talk about. No, there’s something we need to do, and . . .” He scratches his ear, not quite looking at me. “You might not like this.”
“I might, though.” Especially if it’s anything like last time.
“I figure it’s not a good idea to do it back home.”
“You mean, because of the bed situation?” Maybe sharing a bed won’t be weird if we only kiss when we’re out here.
“What does the bed have to do with anything?”
“Um.” Crap. “Nothing?”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “I haven’t even told you what I’m talking about.”
“So tell me already. I don’t have all day.”
“You kind of do. But, anyway, what I’m saying is . . .” He lets out a deep breath. “We need to practice your magic.”
“We what?” That is not what I signed up for. “I don’t do magic, okay? And even if I did, I don’t see how you’d figure into it.”
“Because you need someone to practice on.”
“You want me to practice on you?”
“No, I really don’t. But there’s no one else.”
“Just get a dragon ring.”
He scowls at me. “Dragons don’t keep dragon rings around! And even if we did, it’s not enough. There’s no way anyone’s ever putting one of those on me again, and we need to know if the spell’s actually working. And that means you cast the binding spell on me, and I . . . I see if I can still transform.”
“How is that different from having a dragon ring on?”
“It doesn’t hurt the same way.” He puts a hand to his neck, where the ring was, even though it’s completely healed. “And it’s only temporary.”
The spell lasts different amounts of time, depending on how strong the caster is. Celeste’s lasts for twelve hours, while mine would probably only last twelve seconds. “Okay, but you obviously don’t really want to do this, and neither do I, so I don’t see the point. And you said the Elder king is like a father to you. Can’t you just talk to him?”
“Talk to him?”
“About Celeste. Ask him if he’ll let her go.”
“Are you serious? I’m supposed to be dead. He was supposed to have killed me.”
“Yeah, but—” 
“You want me, an escaped hostage with a death sentence still hanging over his head, to stroll up to the king and ask him nicely if he’ll let your sister, a dangerous weapon, go free? Forget the fact that he’d be obligated to execute me on the spot, and that there’s no way I’d ever get an audience with him. How would it look if he just handed over their St. George to another clan?”
“Like he was doing you a favor? A really big one?”
Amelrik sighs. “When we go to Elder clan, no one can know I’m there. And if we’re going to rescue your sister, it wouldn’t hurt to have magic. It might even save our lives.”
“So you want me to do this because of Celeste? And it has nothing to do with you telling everyone in your clan that I’m a better paladin than her?”
“Well . . .”
“You said I didn’t have to do magic!”
“You don’t! Probably! At least for a while. But it might come up, and if it does and you can’t do anything, we are dead. And as much as I really, really don’t want to do this, I want to keep living even more. I assume you feel the same way.”
“If you want to keep living, maybe you should stop pissing me off. And did we have to come all the way out here for this?”
“I don’t want my room to stink.”
“Won’t the other dragons smell it on me? If I do manage to make, like, a spark or something?” If he thinks I’m going to actually cast a whole spell, he’s going to be disappointed.
“We’ll rinse off in the lake first before we go home.”
“That’s fine for you, but that lake is cold.” I remember when Osric and Godwin shook water all over us yesterday, and that was bad enough.
“You can’t go back inside the caves stinking of paladin magic. And you certainly aren’t getting into my bed like that. In fact, you should probably take an actual bath first.”
“Yes, Mother.”
He presses his hands to his face. “Let’s just get this over with.”
We move to the far side of the clearing. Amelrik stands right in front of me, his head held high, like he’s putting on a brave front as he faces his executioner. He takes a step back. Then another. Then he changes his mind and steps forward again. He wipes his palms on his pant legs and takes in a slow breath. “Okay. Okay. I’m ready. Do it now. I’m—No, no, wait. Wait!”
You’d think from the way he’s saying that that I was actually doing something, instead of watching him have some kind of breakdown. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, we do.”
“But we don’t have to do it today.”
“If we put it off, I’m going to lose my nerve.”
“Going to?”
He glares at me. “I wore that dragon ring for ten days, I think I can handle this.”
“You know you don’t actually have anything to worry about, right? There’s no way I’m really going to manage the binding spell.”
“Just hurry up before I change my mind.”
“Chicken out, you mean. But . . . okay.” I try to remember what he said before, about magic being a part of me, and how it’s not something I choose to have—it’s just there. I imagine the energy for the spell leaving me and binding him into human form. Which seems pretty unnecessary, all things considered. “This isn’t working.”