“What’s that?”
“I think that dragon scared off all my potential suitors. They’re probably all running home in fear. My father’s going to need the help of St. George himself to get me married off now. Which means I’m not leaving the barracks in two weeks. I’m not leaving them ever.”
Torrin frowns. “Vee, that’s—”
I hold up a hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear it. Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t. You weren’t the one who was going to have to marry one of those guys and leave behind everyone and everything you’ve ever known. You weren’t going to have to sleep with one of them and bear his children. And you weren’t the one who almost got burnt to a crisp tonight by your worst nightmare. So don’t you dare lecture me about staying inside forever, where it’s—Damn it, Torrin, it’s not even safe here! I can’t say that anymore, not after tonight. But it’s the safest place I know, and let’s face it, we both know I’m not going anywhere. I can’t leave.”
“Oh, come on,” he snaps. “If you wanted to leave, you could. You just won’t.”
I glare at him, my mouth hanging open in shock. That’s easy for him to say. He doesn’t feel icy hands of dread clenching up his heart and his guts every time he gets too close to the gate. Every time he even thinks about the marketplace or about what it would be like to step foot outside the barracks. His throat doesn’t close up, his knees don’t wobble. He doesn’t feel the bile rising in his throat, and his vision doesn’t get blurry.It’s easy to be fearless when you’ve never felt real fear.
He sees the way I’m glaring at him—like I hardly even know him—and starts to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean it. I—”
“No, Torrin Hathaway, you did mean it. And maybe I can’t walk out of this place, but I can walk away from you.”
I turn my back to him and storm off into the barracks, my fists clenched and my footsteps heavy with anger. He calls out another apology but doesn’t come after me, and I’m pissed both because he has the nerve to try to apologize—as if his words didn’t cut me, as if they can just be taken back and forgiven—and because he’s not trying harder to stop me and make this right.
Saving my life doesn’t give him the right to insult me. And even though he’s at seventy-eight points for the night, he can consider himself disqualified.
3
MAYBE HE HAS A SON MY AGE
Celeste bursts into my room in the morning like she owns the place. I pull my covers over my head, hoping she can take a hint. I haven’t been ignoring the sunlight streaming in through my window or the stench of that rotting dragon head hanging outside for nothing. Sleeping in isn’t always easy. Sometimes it takes real effort.
“Virginia St. George!” she shouts, grabbing the edge of my covers and yanking them away. “Do you know what time it is?”
Golden sunlight catches in Celeste’s blond hair, making her look shiny and brilliant, like some kind of angel. She scowls at my discarded dress from last night lying on the floor and picks it up, smoothing it out and setting it on the chair with a sigh.
I grab my covers back while she’s preoccupied. “Go away,” I tell her, fighting and losing against a yawn. “Try me again tomorrow.” Not that she’ll get anywhere with me tomorrow, either. As far as I’m concerned, I never have to leave this room again, let alone this bed.
“Father’s not going to be pleased.”
“He’s never pleased.” Especially with me. “He’s the one who let strangers in last night. It’s not my fault a dragon attacked.”
“Two dragons,” Celeste corrects me. She hesitates, then sits on the edge of my bed, resting a comforting hand on my back. “Are you okay, Vee? I should have been paying closer attention to everyone. I should have been watching.”
No, I should live up to my family name and be a better paladin. Right now I’d settle for being one at all. “Torrin was there, and he didn’t know.” Not really. Having a bad feeling doesn’t count.
Thinking about him makes me clamp my teeth together. He might have saved my life, but I haven’t forgiven him for what he said.
“We only got one of them,” Celeste says. “Lothar got away. He’s still out there somewhere. But if he tries to come back . . . We’re all on the lookout, you know?”
I sit up, nodding and biting my lip. “I still don’t get it. Why he’d risk coming here, and for what? To try and marry me?” The thought sends a shiver down my spine.
Celeste looks away, and there’s something funny about her voice when she says, “I don’t know,” so that I don’t quite believe her.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice coming out a whisper. “If you know something—”
She shakes her head. “He saw an opportunity to attack a St. George. That’s all it was.”
But that doesn’t add up to me. He didn’t know I don’t have the family power. He didn’t know I’m not just as dangerous as my sister. And he didn’t attack until Amelrik showed up and made him change forms.
“At least we got the other one,” Celeste says. “He’s locked up in the dungeon with a dragon ring around his neck.”
“Torrin says he’s on a bunch of most-wanted lists. Is he really that dangerous?”
She wrinkles her forehead, questioning my sanity with a look. “You’re asking me if a dragon is really that dangerous?”
My face gets hot, and I turn away. I feel guilty and ashamed for even asking. He’s a dragon. Of course he’s evil. I know that better than anyone. “No,” I mutter, staring into my lap, “I just thought it was weird that he never changed forms. He could have gotten away.”
“All the more reason to be suspicious. But don’t worry, we’ve got him under top security while we interrogate him.” She pauses a little on the word “interrogate,” and I know her and the other paladins will drag out any useful information they can get from him, using whatever means necessary, no matter how ruthless. Not that it isn’t what he deserves. He’s a wanted criminal, after all. A dragon.
He might have told me to run, but he didn’t save me. Torrin did. And if anything, Amelrik put me in danger. He’s the one who stabbed Lothar and caused all the chaos. Though, if he hadn’t done that, I might never have known who—or what—Lothar really was.
“And after that?” I ask.
Celeste cracks her knuckles. “When he’s no longer useful, he’ll die by public execution. We haven’t had one of those in a long time. Anyway, Father is demanding your presence downstairs.”
“He thinks it was my fault.” Of course he does. Just like he blames me for Mother’s death. And maybe that was my fault, in a way, but did it have to mean he stopped caring about me? “Why can’t he just leave me alone? No one’s going to want to marry me now, not even some idiot from out of town, so—What, Celeste? What’s that look?”
She pales a little, not meeting my eyes. “He found someone.”
I hear a rushing sound in my ears, and my blood runs cold. “He what?” After the attack last night, I thought all the suitors would be long gone by now. Not only am I useless in a fight, not only do I not have the family power, but I apparently attract dragons. My hands clasp at my bedcovers, gripping them so tightly that even the soft fabric feels rough against my skin. “Who?” I ask, and I’m both dreading and dying to know the answer.
But Celeste just shakes her head. “Come on—get dressed. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Celeste marches me through the Hall of Heroes like I’m her prisoner. Which I kind of am, because if it was up to me, I’d be anywhere but here right now. Even though I’m curious to see who my father could have possibly found to marry me. Maybe one of the old men from last night fell asleep during the dragon attack and doesn’t know what went down. Maybe he woke up this morning, the only suitor left, and thought he’d lucked out.I glance at the suits of armor that line the walls as we walk by. The silent tributes to the paladin heroes of the past. Celeste’s armor will be in this hall someday, but I’ve never even been fitted. I start to feel a pang of guilt and envy, and then we pass by a suit with a giant tear across the chest, right over the heart. I don’t look long enough to see the details, but I imagine there are bloodstains. I picture that paladin’s gruesome death at the claws of a dragon. The other suits might be more intact, but that doesn’t mean their owners escaped their fate. There’s a drawback to being one of the Families’ best and brightest.
“You want to watch it with that iron grip there?” I ask Celeste. She’s got her hand clamped around my upper arm like a vise. “I’m not one of your prisoners.”
She sighs and loosens up a little. “It’s not that I think you’re going to run.”
Which is kind of foolish of her, because I’d run the second I got the chance. That is, if I had anywhere to go other than hiding under my covers.
“I was just thinking,” she goes on. “I told Father he should reconsider, but . . .” She glances over at me, then shakes her head. “Listen, Vee, you’re not seventeen yet. I don’t care what anybody says—you’re a St. George. You have the family blood, same as me.”