I raise my eyebrows at him. “You can feel them when you’re in human form?”
“Yeah. Sort of. They ache whenever I think about what happened. Or if it’s going to rain. They never healed right.”
“They didn’t get better when you transformed?”
“Most of my injuries got better when I turned human, but I didn’t have wings in that form, so they stayed broken. I could feel them hurting, but I would’ve had to change into a . . . I would’ve had to change again to fix them, and I . . . I couldn’t do it. They were healing slowly, but I knew they weren’t better, and they hurt all the time. But after what happened, I couldn’t make myself take that form again.” Tears fill his eyes, and he rubs them away with the backs of his hands. “Not for over a year, and by then it was way too late. They were never the same. Maybe I could have flown, someday, but not after all that.”
I put a hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He flinches, but he doesn’t pull away. “Physically, I could have done it. I should have. And I knew. All that time, I knew it was only going to get worse, but I . . .” His jaw trembles, and he wipes at his eyes again.
“I couldn’t leave the barracks. I know it’s not the same, but maybe it kind of is, because it’s not like I couldn’t walk. It’s not like I couldn’t physically go from one place to another, and everybody acted like leaving shouldn’t be any different than that. And maybe it shouldn’t have been, but every time I tried to do it—every time I even thought about it—I felt like I was going to die. I couldn’t have left. Not on my own. And you couldn’t have transformed.”
He nods, but then he says, “I shouldn’t have been there. I knew what she was like, and how much she hated . . . hated when I upset her. She can’t stop herself when she gets mad, and I knew that. I’d made her mad so many times. I was always doing it, and I was so stupid, thinking she’d be proud of me for finally using my wings. But I should have known that she . . .” He sucks in a deep breath, fighting against the tears. It’s a losing battle, and he covers his face with his arms and sobs.
“Wanting your mother to be proud of you isn’t stupid.”
He’s crying so hard, it takes him a minute before he can talk again. “I just . . . I just reminded her of her shame. I made her mad, like I always do.”
“You mean like you supposedly did yesterday? Because you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I upset her.”
“By what? Existing?”
“She has every right to be ashamed of me.”
“Because you’re not like everybody else? That’s not your fault.”
“I was born.”
“So? I still don’t see how you existing is a problem.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. What I mean is, I didn’t hatch. I told you my mother got captured by St. Georges, and they put a dragon ring around her neck. She was pregnant with me when they did it. She should have laid an egg, but she was stuck in human form, and so I was still inside her, incubating.”
“Gestating.”
“Right. That. They kept that ring on her for months. She couldn’t transform all that time, and it drove her mad. It was cruel, what they did.” He shudders and draws his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. “The ring kept me in human form, too. It made me . . . how I am. Eventually, she gave birth to me.”
“And then what happened?”
“My father finally managed to rescue us not long after. But it was too late for her. She never really recovered all the way.”
“Well, that explains why she’s crazy, but not why you think it’s your fault.”
“I know, but—”
“You didn’t put that ring on her.” A St. George did. Someone I’m related to, even if I’ve never met them.
“It was the worst thing that ever happened to her. It broke her. She said she wished they’d just killed her, instead of letting her give birth to an abomination.” He rests his arms on his knees, pressing his forehead to them. “My mother just wanted to come home and try to forget what happened to her, but she couldn’t, because I was a constant reminder of it. My father thought maybe I would still develop more, that in time I’d get better, since I was no longer bound by the ring. But I didn’t. And the whole clan knows what I am. They know what my mother went through, and all the ways that I’m a disappointment. She just wanted me to leave her alone, so she didn’t have to remember any of it, but I wanted her attention all the time. I was always bothering her and getting in her way. I made her worse. That’s why she hurt me.”
“You mean when she tried to kill you?”
He’s quiet for a second, keeping his face pressed against his arms and holding very still. “I mean all the times. But that one was the worst. I pushed her too far, and she just snapped.”
“You pushed her too far? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Your mother’s insane. She should be locked up. You get that, right? She shouldn’t have hurt you. Ever. You didn’t deserve that, and don’t even try to tell me that you did, or that I don’t know because I wasn’t there. I don’t need to have been there to know how wrong it was. And you didn’t make her want to hurt you. If I ever hear you say anything like that again and mean it, I’m going to throw up. I’m seriously going to throw up—that’s how messed up that is. Your mother is insane. That’s why she did that stuff to you. And maybe she’s somehow not quite as crazy when you’re not around, but there is no way in hell that she’s ever actually ‘not crazy.’ If she was, she’d be at court, or she’d live somewhere normal, instead of down some creepy tunnel nobody uses. What happened to her wasn’t your fault, and just because you were involved in it doesn’t mean she gets to blame you for it.”
“It’s complicated. She can’t help—”“She can’t help what? Being abusive?”
“Being ashamed of me.”
“Oh, don’t get me started on that.”
“There are a lot of reasons why—”
“No, there aren’t. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of. You can’t help the way you were born, or even that you were born, or how your parents feel about it. And if your mother has a problem with you existing, she can take it up with me, because I happen to like that you exist. Not that you need my permission, or hers, or anybody’s. And you know what else? I’m glad you were born this way, because if you weren’t, we wouldn’t have met. And you’d be just like any other dragon, and you wouldn’t be you, and I . . . I like you the way you are.”
He lifts his head and studies my face. His eyes are wet. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean, Virginia. I can’t take it. Not from you.”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. And I . . . I spent pretty much my whole life wishing I was like Celeste. She was always braver than me, and way more popular, and as we got older, it became clear that she had magic and I didn’t. Everyone treated me like that meant I was worthless, and it only got worse after my mother died. Because it was my fault for being such a dud. For just standing there while a dragon ripped her apart.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I nod. “I know that now, but only because of you, and I spent years wishing so hard that I could use magic and become a paladin. I couldn’t take back what happened, but at least if I could use the family power like a real St. George, then maybe everyone would stop thinking I was so useless. They’d stop ignoring me and treating me like I wasn’t good enough. And maybe my father would stop blaming me for my mother’s death, and he wouldn’t be ashamed of me. But being a paladin wouldn’t have made me happy. That seems obvious now, and I don’t even know if it would have changed anything. Everyone had already made up their minds about me, and I wouldn’t have been able to forget all the years that they ignored me and looked at me like I didn’t deserve to be a St. George. I couldn’t have forgiven my father for wishing he only had one daughter, not two. He never said it, not out loud, but it was obvious he felt that way. And none of that would have disappeared just because I could use magic.”
“You can use magic.”
“And I’m totally going to rub that in everyone’s face when I get home. But that’s not my point. If I could have used magic all this time and had become a paladin, then I wouldn’t be who I am, either. And you would hate me.”
“Virginia—”
“No, you would. And you’d have every right to, because St. Georges tortured your mother, and they tortured you. And if I’d had magic, maybe I would have been one of the paladins who hurt you. Either way, we’d be enemies. Everyone at the barracks might think better of me if I was like them, but you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t like me if I was just another paladin, and we wouldn’t have met. So I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad I don’t have magic. Didn’t, I mean. And I’m glad you are who you are, however you got that way.”