Honorbound

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Then one of the maids spots me in the hallway. “You,” she says, and I can already tell from her tone that she thinks I work here. “I need someone to take these upstairs”—she shoves a load of folded up sheets into my arms—“and start working on all the beds.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “The paladins’ rooms all need to be turned down before they get back this evening. We were supposed to have it done this morning, but then breakfast ran late, and the washing wasn’t done, and after staying up so late last night, some of them weren’t even out of bed yet. I got an earful for walking into one of the Strongshields’ rooms this morning.” She rolls her eyes, as if the whole thing was ridiculous. “Like I was supposed to know he was still in there with Miss— Well, I shouldn’t gossip. Start with Warwick St. George’s room first, and then work your way down. I’ll try to round up someone else and send them up to help.”

  She starts to rush off.

  “Wait!” I reach out to stop her, almost dumping my pile of sheets. “Can you give me directions? I’m kind of lost.”

  She rolls her eyes at that, too, but then tells me where to go. Right, then left, then up the stairs, and then it’s the first hallway on the right. And Warwick St. George’s room is all the way at the end, in one of the master suites.

  I repeat her directions to myself as I make my way there. Excitement and dread war with each other as I get closer and closer. What if this Warwick guy is still in his room? Or returned to it, which I guess is more likely. But still, he’s the one Celeste said is in charge. What better place to snoop for paladin secrets than in their leader’s room?

  Unless he comes back and catches me going through his stuff.

  Okay, now the feeling of dread’s kind of winning over the excitement. I swallow back a bitter taste in my mouth and push those thoughts away. It’s going to be fine. Plenty of people snoop through other people’s stuff and get away with it all the time. Just because those people have never been me before doesn’t mean anything.

  And Amelrik and Cedric are going to come back having found tons of dragons—well, maybe not tons, but probably at least one—and they’ll have spent hours reminiscing about their shared childhood together, and I’ll feel even more left out and useless than I already do. So I basically have to do this or else go home in defeat.

  And also, I have no idea how to get out of here, so it’s either this or go back to being lost.

  I knock on the door at the end of the hall. “Hello?” There’s no answer.

  So when I open it, there’s definitely not going to be an angry guy on the other side, and he’s definitely not going to be naked or anything.

  And… there’s not. The room’s completely empty. Though the taxidermied dragon’s head on the wall nearly gives me a heart attack. It’s black, though I don’t know if that means it’s from Hawthorne clan or not, since it doesn’t have its wings. It’s also small. I mean, big compared to me, of course, but small for a dragon. Nowhere near full grown.

  I think about the draclings I tell stories to in the library and their eager faces as I describe vicious battles between dragons and paladins. Except in my stories, the dragons always win. And no draclings’ heads end up on someone’s wall.

  I shudder as I close the door behind me, then dump the pile of sheets on the bed. Now, if I was a convenient list of people they suspect are dragons, where would I be? Because, now that I’m here, I’m not really sure what to look for. We already know that the paladins captured a human last night, so they were way off. Which probably means they don’t have any more information than we do.

  Coming here might not have been such a great idea.

  Still, I glance around the room. Dim sunlight shows through the gap in the curtains over the window. I peek outside and see the manor grounds, which are just as sprawling as the rest of the house. There are some snow-covered trees, a huge pond—frozen over, of course—and what looks like a small groundskeeper’s cottage, though judging from how pristine the snow around it is, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been out there recently. I guess the grounds don’t need a lot of keeping in the winter.

  I pull myself away from the view and open up the drawers in the nightstand and in the dresser. I go through his clothes. I find money, which I don’t take, and a couple of jeweled rings, which I also don’t take. There’s also a large wooden chest in the corner. Huge, actually, since it comes up to my waist. It’s big enough that I could fit inside it if I crouched down, and it must take at least two or three people to move it. There’s a smear of dried blood on the lid, near the lock, which I definitely don’t have the key for. It’s probably where he keeps his weapons, or maybe extra armor. I mean, he must have brought a lot of weapons with him, if that’s the case.

  Or maybe there’s a body inside.

  I don’t know where that thought comes from. Just because someone has a chest big enough to store a body, and even if that chest happens to have some blood on it, it doesn’t mean there’s actually someone in there. The blood probably came from one of his weapons before it was properly cleaned. And either way, it’s locked, so it’s not like I can check.

  Except when I take a closer look, I see that the lock’s not actually latched. Okay. So I guess I’m opening this. Just to prove to myself that there’s nothing sinister inside. Though a bunch of weapons that someone wants to use to kill my friends is sinister enough, if you ask me.

  I take a deep breath, steeling myself for whatever I might find. I’m just about to open the lid—avoiding the smear of dried blood—when I hear footsteps down the hall.

  My heart leaps into my throat. I abandon the chest without actually opening it, wondering if I should hide or grab the sheets and pretend to be the maid after all or just stand here and hope whoever it is doesn’t come in. But even though I tell myself pretending to be the maid is probably the safest option, some part of me has other plans, because I find myself hurrying out the door, into the hallway. Whatever excitement I felt before is definitely drowned out by fear and dread, and all I know is that I cannot get caught in this room.

  But as I’m stepping into the hall, I think maybe that was dumb. It’s probably just another one of the maids coming to—

  “Vee?”

  Ice water flows down my back. What the hell is she doing here? Besides living here, I mean. But it’s the middle of the day.

  Slowly, I turn around. “Celeste?”

  She frowns at me. “What are you doing? That’s a private room. You can’t go in there.”

  I can, apparently. “Oh, um, I wasn’t.”

  “Your hand’s on the knob. And why are you here in Rosewood Manor?” Her nostrils flare as she suddenly sucks in a breath, her eyes going wide. “Don’t tell me Amelrik’s with you. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but—”

  “He’s not!” I hold up my hands, trying to signal for her to shut up.

  “Then what the hell is going on? I catch you breaking into Warwick St. George’s room—”

  “I wasn’t breaking in!” Crap. This is bad. Why does she always have to jump to the worst conclusions? “I was just—”

  “What, Vee?” She cocks her hip, putting a hand to it, her expression exasperated, just waiting to hear what crazy, stupid thing I’ve done now.

  “I was looking for him.”

  “For Warwick?”

  “Yeah. He’s your leader, right? Well… I want to help.”

  “Help.” She repeats the word like she’s never heard it before. “You want to help? With what?”

  “With catching the dragon, obviously.”

  She raises her eyebrows in confusion. “You want to help us catch a dragon? I thought you didn’t do that. Now that you think you’re in love with one.”

  I grit my teeth, trying to ignore that last comment. “Just because I’m in love with a dragon doesn’t mean I don’t care about catching a murderer.”

  “But all dragons are—”

  “No, they’re not. And I don’t want… I don’t
want what happened to our mother to happen to anybody else. You said yourself I have magic now. And if being a paladin means putting a stop to all this, then maybe I could try it. Just for a little while.”

  “I meant more like you could start training. Being a paladin isn’t like a pair of shoes you try on just to see if they fit.”

  “You and I both know there’s no time for that. It won’t hurt to have another St. George around. And maybe… maybe this could be more like a trial run.”

  14

  DON’T ASK FOR SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT

  Amelrik looks at me like I just told him I flew to the moon. “You what?”

  “I joined the paladins.” We’re sitting on our bed at the inn. He just got back from his search with Cedric. “I mean, not really, because it’s not like I’m actually going to do it. I just told Celeste that. She caught me snooping, and I had to say something, and I managed to convince her that I want to catch the murderer—which isn’t even a lie—and now she thinks I actually want to join them! And she was really suspicious of me, and she knows you’re here, and maybe I do have to do this, because if I don’t follow through, she’s going to know I was lying to her, and then who knows what she might do, and I never should have gone there!” I press my hands to my face, wishing I could disappear and have this not be happening. “Please tell me you guys found the murderer.” I mean, I’m pretty sure they didn’t, otherwise he probably would have said it first thing, but I can hope.

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  Nothing. They found nothing, and the only reason I even went to Rosewood Manor was because I was so sure they were going to find something and make me feel dumb. I flop down, so that I’m lying on my back, looking up at him. “Will you write a letter to Celeste and tell her I’ve come down with a horrible, incurable illness and won’t be able to follow through on my commitment?”

  He snorts. “I’ll get right on it. Though maybe it shouldn’t be anything incurable. You don’t want her to think you’re too sick—otherwise, she might try to come see you.”

  “Good point. Maybe I can just never show up, and instead of being suspicious, she’ll think I’m useless, like she always does.”

  “You’re not useless.”

  “I know, but so far I’m not feeling very useful, either. This isn’t how I pictured my first murder investigation.”

  “You pictured being involved in a murder investigation?”

  “After reading all those Princess Mysteries books? Of course I did.” I poke his knee. “And don’t even try to tell me you didn’t.”

  “Well, I might have.” He grins at me, sending a spike of warmth through my chest.

  I smile up at him. And for a second, I think maybe it doesn’t matter if I never have all of him. I feel safe with him. I trust him. And I feel loved. Isn’t that enough?

  But the fear in his eyes earlier… Maybe I feel safe with him, but he doesn’t feel that way with me. At least, not all the time. And I kind of hate myself for it, but the words are already on my lips, because I know if I don’t say them, they’ll just eat away at me. “Why didn’t you want me here?” I was trying to say it like it wasn’t a big deal—as if there was any chance of that—but instead I just sound hurt.

  The grin disappears, the light in his face suddenly gone. He looks away. And there’s no question of whether or not he knows what I’m talking about. “Virginia, I…” He swallows. “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t.” I thought I did, but that was before. Back when I thought he’d never let anyone get that close to him. And I notice he didn’t deny it, either. I sit up. “You don’t trust me.”

  “Of course I do,” he says, but his voice wavers.

  “Not as much as you trust Cedric.”

  “That’s not… It’s different.” He draws his knees up, wrapping his arms around them, closing himself off.

  “Why? Because he’s a dragon?”

  He shakes his head, not offering me any other explanation.

  And now I wish I hadn’t started this, but it’s not like I can just leave it. Not now. Because it hurts that he didn’t want me there, but it hurts even more that he won’t tell me why. “I’ve never even seen you naked. Not… not as a dragon.”

  He flinches. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does if it’s because you don’t trust me.” How can he want to marry me if he doesn’t even want me to look at him?

  “You’ve seen me in human form. You’ve seen the half you want—isn’t that enough?”

  Half. The word hits me hard. I never thought of it like that—I never knew he thought of it like that. “How do you know what I want? You’ve never even given me the chance to—”

  “Because I still remember that first time you saw me! When we were in the woods, with those hunters. I’ll never forget the look on your face when I transformed. Like I was a… a monster.” He presses his forehead into his knees.

  My heart’s pounding so hard, I can feel my pulse in my teeth. Hot guilt stabs at me. My mind races, coming up with a dozen excuses, but I don’t have any. He’s right. I did look at him like that, even if I wish I could take it back. “It’s not like that now.”

  “No, but you still always look so shocked.”

  “Because you’re always in human form! Maybe if I got to see you like that—”

  “It’s better this way.”

  “It’s not.”

  He lifts his head, his green eyes meeting mine. “The reason I trusted Cedric is because he doesn’t look at me like there’s something wrong with me. And even if he did, it wouldn’t hurt the same. Not like if you did it. And it’s bad enough you’ve seen as much of me as you have. But if I showed you everything, if I showed you all of me and you looked at me like that… It’s not something either of us could take back. So don’t ask for something you don’t want.”

  Going back to Rosewood Manor tonight is kind of the last thing I want to do. I’d much rather rewind time and never find out that the boy I love thinks I look at him like he’s a monster. But since that isn’t an option, and since this is the only one of my problems I feel like I can actually do something about, I head back out into the cold.

  Amelrik offers to come with me, though he seems nervous about the idea of getting anywhere near the manor house again. And given the way he freaked out last time, and the fact that Celeste would have a fit if she spotted him, I decide I’d better go by myself.

  After all, it’s just a walk in the cold and the dark. In an unfamiliar city. With a murderous dragon on the loose. What could go wrong?

  I spend the whole way there convinced that every shadow and dark corner is hiding a vicious dragon who’s about to jump out and rip me to shreds. I keep to the main roads with the most people still on them and the most street lamps lit and kind of wish I’d let Amelrik come with me after all. At least part of the way. But I remind myself that I’m a St. George. If a dragon jumps out at me, I can cast the binding spell and lock it into human form.

  Where it will still be way stronger than me and not actually, like, restrained or anything.

  I pick up the pace.

  When I arrive at the house, I go through the front entrance this time. I try to keep my back straight, so everyone knows I mean business and hopefully that I don’t work here. When one of the staff comes to greet me, I ask for Celeste St. George. They head off to find her, and I stand in the front hall, staring at all the paintings on the walls.

  Most of them are really stuffy-looking portraits of the various Rosewood lords and ladies who have lived here over the years, and it takes me about five seconds to glance over them all, realize I don’t care, and feel bored again. And anxious. As soon as Celeste gets here, I’m going to tell her I made a mistake. I was just momentarily driven insane, on account of all the attacks and being trapped here, and of course I don’t actually want to join the paladins.

  I’m just going to tell her that, then turn around and leave before she can get mad, or roll her eyes and sigh at me, li
ke she just knew I was going to flake out on her. But it’s not like I’d actually be any help to them, despite what I said. Plus, I have my own investigation to think about.

  There are voices down the hall, coming toward me. It’s two men, and as they get closer, I recognize one of them, or at least his voice. He’s the guy we heard last night, the one that had Amelrik so freaked out.

  I glance over at him now, trying not to look like I’m staring, even though I totally am. He’s middle-aged with gray hair and a hard, unforgiving expression on his face. Something about him instantly rubs me the wrong way, like he’s the kind of person who never laughs at anyone’s jokes, no matter how funny they are.

  Amelrik infiltrated a lot of paladin settlements, back when he was living with Elder clan as part of the hostage exchange. That’s probably where he’d heard his voice before, though I’m not sure why that would freak him out so much. But, then again, with the nasty vibe I’m getting from this guy… I wouldn’t want to run into him again, either.

  But for Amelrik to be so afraid, they must have actually met, right? Would this man recognize Amelrik if he saw him? Would he know who he is and that he’s a dragon?

  They get a little closer, and now I can hear their conversation.

  “That young man,” he says. “The one we were looking into the other day.”

  The other paladin, who’s a lot younger, closer to my age, says, “You mean Cedric?”

  A shiver runs down my spine. My head whips toward them, though I try to pretend I’m just suddenly really interested in a painting on the wall of a large woman in a fancy dress feeding treats to her tiny dog.

  The man makes a disgusted sound. “I don’t know his name.”

  “Dark hair? Asks a lot of questions?”

  “Too many questions.”

  “He seemed harmless to me. Just a bit eccentric.”

  He scowls and gives him a stern look, saying nothing, just staring him down, until the other paladin starts to backtrack.