I’ve learned enough from being around dragons to know it was just a warning, but the crowd erupts in screams of sheer terror. And suddenly everyone’s pushing and shoving, trying to get away. I’m the only one still trying to get to the stage.
Someone’s elbow collides with my sternum, hitting hard. Someone else pushes past me while I’m still reeling from the pain, almost knocking me down.
I have to stay on my feet. If I fall, I’ll get trampled. I’ll never be able to get back up again.
One of the dragons lets out a low growl that carries throughout the square. It does not sound happy. Its eyes flick to Amelrik, but it must decide he’s not in danger now—or at least not enough to out him in front of a bunch of angry paladins—because it turns its focus to Warwick, pointing a claw at him. “That man has committed multiple crimes against the crown and against all dragons! You will give him to us—”
“No,” Celeste says, holding up her sword, her voice firm. The other paladins all have their swords out, too.
“He’s a criminal. A prisoner,” the dragon adds.
“He’s our prisoner, and he’s still a paladin. We’re not handing him over!”
The dragon shouts in Vairlin. It’s two words, and it’s simple enough that I actually understand. Take him. They rush forward at the same time as the paladins run to meet them.
I finally make it to the stage. I consider trying to climb up the front of it for a second until I remember there are stairs to the side. I rush over to them, and then I’m there, on the platform, throwing my arms around Amelrik.
He winces when I squeeze him, so that I think more than just his face must be bruised, but he still hugs me back, squeezing just as hard.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “I thought—”
“I thought I was never going to see you again,” he says, stealing my words. He pulls me even closer to him, his warmth soaking into me, despite the layers of clothing between us.
I bury my face in his neck, taking in his smell. I never want to let go of him, but I can hear dragons roaring and swords clanging, and we kind of still need to get out of here. I pull back, looking him over. Someone unlocked his manacles, so that his hands are free, but the chain they’re on is still attached to the one between his ankles. I guess the paladin who was unchaining him got distracted when the dragons showed up.
“We need the key!” I look around the stage, but I don’t see anything. I drop down to the floor, scrambling against the wood, trying to spot a glint of metal. But whoever it was must have taken it with them.
Amelrik reaches down to the chain connecting his ankles. He braces his foot against one of the shackles, pinning it in place, and then pulls on the chain with both hands. I can see his muscles straining and his face turning red with the effort. “I can’t… It won’t quite—” He doesn’t finish that thought, pulling hard on the chain instead.
It still doesn’t budge, and I think we’re going to have to try and run like this, with him hardly able to move.
But then Cedric’s there, joining us. He doesn’t even have to say anything. He and Amelrik just look at each other, and then Amelrik grabs one end of the chain and Cedric takes the other. Between the two of them, it breaks easily enough. Amelrik still has cuffs around his ankles, but he can move freely now, and the loop the manacles were still chained to slips off the broken links.
“You’re alive!” Cedric says, sounding like he can’t believe it. “I thought they were going to kill you!”
“Me, too.” Amelrik’s eyes dart over to the fight raging not that far from us.
Cedric lets out a deep breath. “When I heard about the execution, I… I couldn’t not show up. Leif was too sick. I didn’t want him to risk it, or to have to watch them kill you.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to have to watch it, either, but I had to be here.”
There are still two paladins guarding Warwick. They each grab one of his arms and hurry him off the stage, away from the dragons, their eyes darting over to the fighting going on.
Cedric’s eyes narrow at them. He turns to me and holds out his arm, an edge in his voice when he says, “Take the ring off.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Amelrik says, but he’s looking over there, too, his fists clenching, like he’s thinking the same thing.
“We need to get out of here,” I tell them, just as a dragon tail slams down on the stage in front of us. “Now.”
Amelrik turns to Cedric. “Go get Leif and meet us in the woods by the west entrance. Then Virginia can take the rings off.”
“But—”
“Go!”
Cedric swallows back any protest he had and takes off.
We take off, too, running into the town square, trying to keep as far away from the fighting as possible. The dragons notice us—or, rather, they notice Amelrik—and try to put themselves between us and the paladins. There are only two of them now. I wonder for a second what happened to the other one, and then I see a naked man on the ground with a sword wound through his chest.
Celeste must have bound him, and then her or one of the others killed him.
The other two dragons fight on relentlessly, their attacks mostly focused on Celeste, not giving her a chance to cast the binding spell again. I feel torn, wanting her to win, and also hopeful that she won’t be killing these dragons who have come to help us. But I don’t want them to kill her, either, and when one of them snaps its jaws a little too close to her, I gasp.
That gets its attention, and it swivels around to look at me. One of the other paladins takes the opportunity to throw a spear into its side. It roars, spewing out flames, and suddenly there’s a wall of fire right in front of us.
Amelrik reacts first, pulling me back and turning us away from it, so that he’s shielding me with his body. He’s not fireproof, but he can take a lot more than me, and he can also heal from it. But thankfully we dodged in time and the flames don’t touch either of us.
I hope the dragon’s okay. That both of them are. I feel a pang of grief and loss for the one that already died.
I hope the paladins are all okay, too. Except for Warwick. I don’t know what the dragons plan to do with him, but I suspect it’s something slow and painful, and that’s more than fine with me.
But we can’t stay here to find out, so I push all those thoughts aside and just concentrate on running.
We make it to the woods outside of town and wait in a clearing for the others. And after the last few days, it’s a huge relief to finally be out of East Westford.
Once we’re safe, we stop and look each other over. Thoughts flicker across Amelrik’s face. He looks like he has something he wants to say, then hesitates.
I put my arms around him. “What you did was stupid.”
“You’re alive, Virginia. And free. It wasn’t—”
I pull back and glare at him.
He sighs. “Fine, it was a little bit stupid. But if you’d been captured, who would have rescued me? The barrier would still be up, Warwick would have gotten away with it, and I’d be… well, you know.” His voice goes soft on that last part.
“Don’t think that just because you’re right means you weren’t being stupid.” I look into his eyes, wincing at the bruising on his face. “You didn’t deserve to be captured. You know that, right? You’re not a murderer.”
He bites his lip and looks away. “I know, but I…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what I know.”
“You’re not. Humans might have died because of what you did in the past, but if you hadn’t done that, dragons would have died instead.”
“You think that makes it right?”
“No.” I take a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts. “But it’s more complicated than just right or wrong. Ideally, dragons and paladins would leave each other alone, and nobody would be killing anybody. But that’s not the reality. And I know you didn’t feel right about it, that you didn’t like your part in what happened. And I know you never would have done it on your own, wit
hout the Elder king prompting you. You would never hurt anyone on purpose.”
“Virginia, I… Don’t say that. Maybe I didn’t do it directly, but I knew people would get hurt.” He moves away from me, wrapping his arms around himself.
I put my hands on his shoulders, not done with him. “Would you do it again?”
His eyes widen. “No, of course not. I would never—”
“It was a mistake. And one you feel bad about. Just like what happened earlier today, with that paladin. You can’t change what happened, but you can still move forward. Your mistakes are part of who you are. They help shape you, but they don’t have to define you. And what Warwick did… That wasn’t your fault. Not what he did today, and not what he did to your mother. She’s not crazy because of you.”
He nods. “I know, but—”
“No ‘buts.’ That man’s a murderer. He’s the real monster.”
Amelrik shivers in agreement. “He almost killed me. And the way he was talking? He murdered all those people, and who knows how many more over the years, all so he could root out dragons who were minding their own business. I’m not saying what I did was right, but…”
“But there’s wrong and then there’s wrong?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re nothing like him, Amelrik.”
“I know,” he says, and something in his voice changes, so that this time I believe him.
I let my hands slide down from his shoulders.
He rubs his thumb against my palm. Then he takes a deep breath, like he has something difficult to say. “You know, Virginia, I was thinking… I mean, when I thought I was going to die, I couldn’t imagine—”
A dark shadow descends over us. He stops talking and looks up as the two remaining dragons from Hawthorne clan land in the clearing with us. They sink into the snow, which then starts to melt a little around them.
They look pretty banged up, and the one who took a spear to the side is bleeding, but they seem like they’ll live.
I can’t help noticing they don’t have Warwick with them.
Amelrik asks them something in Vairlin.
One of them answers him, shaking its head.
He sighs. “Warwick got away.”
I figured, though I was kind of hoping maybe one of them ate him. “And the paladins? I mean, are any of them… hurt?” I can’t bring myself to ask if any of them are dead.
The dragon with the spear wound snorts. “Hurt, yes, but they’ll live.”
“Are you okay?” I ask the dragon.
It blinks at me.
“You’re bleeding,” Amelrik explains.
The dragon swivels its head around to peer at its shoulder. Then it—she—changes into human form, and there’s suddenly a blonde woman sitting in several feet of snow.
The other dragon, who’s apparently male, does the same.
“You should probably heal, too,” I tell Amelrik. I know he won’t want to transform in front of them, but it’s not like there aren’t plenty of trees to hide behind.
The woman sits up, snapping something at him in Vairlin. Then, glancing over at me, she adds in English, “The king will want to see your wounds. If you’re not too injured, your highness.”
“It’s fine,” Amelrik says, and I can tell from his tone that he had no intention of transforming yet.
The others switch back to dragon form.
There’s kind of an awkward silence. I don’t feel like I can continue my conversation with Amelrik, or even start a new one—not with them here, looming over us—and I have no idea what to say to them or if I’m even supposed to say anything.
But when the silence gets too intense—or at least when I think it does, because I’m not even sure anybody else is feeling it—I say, “I’m sorry about your friend.” I don’t add that I’m sorry it was probably my sister who killed him, even though I am.
Their eyes go wide.
Which should probably be my cue to shut up, but I don’t. “I know he died saving us, and I—”
“Saving our prince,” the male dragon corrects me, his pupils narrowing into slits. A tendril of smoke drifts out of his nostrils. “It’s our sworn duty as royal guards.”
“Right.” My voice shakes a little. I move closer to Amelrik.
More awkward silence falls, and I want to ask them how they knew where we were. But they don’t seem like they’re in the mood for smalltalk, plus I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to that. Either Odilia told them or they were here to find Cedric.
To drag him back home so the king can force him to marry Rosalind.
My heart sinks at the thought, even though the alternative is that Amelrik has to marry her, which I’m definitely not okay with. But I’m not really okay with the king forcing either of them to get married, not that anyone’s asked my opinion.
Cedric and Leif join us a few minutes later. Leif’s skin is slick with sweat. His movements are slow, and he jumps at everything, or maybe at things that aren’t there. Cedric’s pale, though not as much as Leif. He looks exhausted, like he’s had more than enough excitement for one day.
The female guard exclaims something in Vairlin when she sees him. Both of them look alarmed.
“It’s okay,” Cedric tells them, pulling up his sleeve to expose the dragon ring. The skin around it is red and swollen. It oozes where he scratched at it, and the black tendrils run up past his elbow.
It looks anything but okay, and we all flinch when we see it, even Leif, whose arm must be even worse.
“Virginia did it,” Cedric explains. “But only to save our lives,” he adds, when the royal guards swivel their heads toward me, their eyes narrowing.
I ignore them, or at least try to, because I have more important things to worry about. I’m so exhausted from my magic battle earlier, and I wish this could wait until tomorrow, or at least until I’ve had a chance to take a nap first. But it obviously can’t, and there’s no way I’m making Cedric and Leif suffer any longer than they have to. I motion for everyone to get in place.
The others move away from Leif, giving him room to transform. I wonder if he’s going to take his clothes off first, but he looks too sick to care. I lift my hand, concentrating on the horseshoe around his arm. Nothing happens at first, and I focus all my remaining magic into it.
I barely have time to register the horseshoe breaking and the spell lifting before Leif shifts. There’s not only the sound of flesh ripping and tearing, but also of his clothes. And then he’s a dragon, looming over me, his scales a beautiful deep forest green. And even though I’m not super great at reading dragon expressions yet, there’s no mistaking how relieved he is.
Cedric holds out his arm next, ready for me to do the same to him.
“Cedric,” Amelrik says. He tugs on his collar, indicating that Cedric should get undressed first.
But Cedric shakes his head. I guess he’s just that ready to get this over with.
I feel a little shaky from casting this once already, but there’s no way I’m going to tell him he has to wait. I suck it up, gathering the last remaining energy I have and focusing it all on breaking the spell.
And I don’t know if it’s because I’m anticipating it not working and end up putting too much into it, or if it’s because Joanna’s magic weakened the dragon ring more than I thought, but it seems like I’ve hardly started to cast before the ring breaks apart.
Cedric transforms, too, all black scales with red under his wings like the other dragons from Hawthorne clan. He heaves a huge sigh of relief—one that makes my hair whip out behind me—and then rubs his face against Leif’s.
The two guards both gasp, not expecting that. They glance at each other, then back at Cedric.
Amelrik says something to them in Vairlin—something that sounds kind of scolding—and they look away.
Cedric and Leif break apart, and then Cedric looks over at us.
Amelrik sighs. “Well,” he says, “I guess this is it. I’m… I’m r
eally going to miss you. And I promise I’ll write this time.”
“You’re going to look ridiculous if you do,” Cedric says, his dragon voice sounding much lower and deeper than his human one, “because I’m going to be staying in the royal wing, same as you.”
Amelrik raises his eyebrows. “You’re coming back?”
“I’m coming home. And Leif’s… Well, we’ll figure something out.”
“We’re sure as hell not staying here,” Leif adds. He must be feeling better, because he sounds angry instead of listless. “The Oak king will need to hear of this, as well as my family. And then…” He stretches out his wings in what might be a shrug. “I just know I’m not coming back here, and I’m not leaving Cedric.”
“I thought you loved it here,” I tell Cedric, even though it’s not hard to see why he might want to leave. “I mean, I thought you didn’t want to go back.”
“I was in the crowd when they…” He looks at Amelrik. “When they had you chained up. I saw how hungry they all were for your blood. Practically the whole town.”
The guards stir restlessly at that, and one of them makes a low growl in its throat.
“Some of them were people I knew,” Cedric goes on. “People I thought were my friends. And I know if it had been me up there, it wouldn’t have been any different. They would have been just as eager to see my blood spilled as any other dragon’s. It made me feel…” He shakes his head, like he can’t find the words, sunlight glinting off the dark scales of his neck.
“Like we couldn’t trust anybody,” Leif finishes. “That’s how it made me feel, anyway, and I wasn’t even there. But anyone would have turned on us if they’d known—if they’d even suspected—what we are.”
“It’s one thing to know it in theory, and another to see that look in their eyes,” Cedric says.
Amelrik clears his throat. He glances over at the two guards, like he’s not sure he wants to say whatever he’s going to say in front of them, then back at Cedric. “What about my father? And Rosalind? And all the responsibilities you didn’t want?”
Honorbound Page 22
