by Cari Z
“We have to get down there.”
“He can still save himself,” Charlie argued, but when Gorot screamed again, she blanched. “Damn, why doesn’t he just fly back to the stadium?”
“And bring those things into his breeding ground? Not a chance.” Not to mention, Gorot might actually be in too much pain to take off. “We need to get pikemen down there, pry those things off of him.”
“Or at least get the gunners to step up to the plate. Ivan!” She turned and ran toward the turret. “Ivan!”
Evan let her go, his mind working a hundred miles a minute. He already knew what Ivan would say—they couldn’t fire on the worms without risking hitting Gorot and Susan. Forge wasn’t equipped to send out ground troops, especially not at night. The city relied on the wall and air support too heavily—there probably wasn’t even a garrison stationed at the single city gate. But Gorot wouldn’t last long without help, and they couldn’t afford to lose another dragon.
Evan couldn’t watch them lose another dragon.
He snatched a pike out of the nearest man’s hand and levered himself up and over the edge of the wall before the stunned fighter could even shout.
The wall wasn’t perfectly vertical, and there were ways down if you were careful. Evan didn’t have time to be careful, but he’d tracked this path before. There a jutting piece of brick big enough to support his foot, here a chunk of rebar he could grab and use to swing to his next perch. It was almost as good as a ladder, except for how he couldn’t make his way quite as reliably in the dark. His foot slipped when he was still twenty feet off the ground, and he fell half that distance before he managed to stop his descent by digging the head of the pike into a crevice. Unfortunately, that was enough to crack the shaft of the weapon, and he swore as it splintered in his hands.
“Are you fucking crazy?” He could just hear Charlie’s shouts over the dragon’s cries. “Get back up here!”
He couldn’t go back, though. Not without doing something, at least trying to help Gorot and Susan. He dropped the rest of the way to the ground, shook out his stinging, bloody hands, then grabbed his bow from his shoulder and one of his arrows and set off at a run toward the dragon in the distance. Without much light, it was hard to see an opening on the nearest creature, a weak spot in among the round black body, but maybe around the head—
Nothing. The arrow actually bounced off its head, which at this close a range meant it had to be heavily reinforced—bone, maybe? Chitin? Evan drew another arrow, aimed and fired again toward the underbelly. This one didn’t bounce, but it was clear from the way that the monster kept right on feeding that it wasn’t at all bothered. Too shallow, then. Fuck. Those targets were usually the most successful, apart from hitting the throat or the eyes, but this thing didn’t seem to have either of those.
Gorot screamed again, flames roaring as he twisted his neck around to blow fire at his nearest attacker. The flames were close enough to singe it, and the leech-thing curled its tail in protectively, but it didn’t stop digging into the dragon’s side. Gorot didn’t have a good enough angle to burn them off, not if he didn’t want to dump Susan, and Evan knew that the dragon would probably rather die than put his rider in peril. Susan kept firing from above, but her arrows went the same way—bounce, bounce, bounce.
Evan took a deep breath and stared at the creature that had been singed, watching how and what it had instinctively protected. Well, fuck it. It was worth a shot. He turned to the nearest leech, nocked his arrow, exhaled slowly, and fired.
Evan’s arrow went into the very tip of the creature’s tail with an unexpectedly dramatic effect. The beast immediately detached from Gorot, bending over backward and coiling into a tight, spasming ball. It had no visible eyes, only a mouth filled with rows and rows of jagged teeth that gnashed fruitlessly. The wound it had left in Gorot’s side bled freely. Evan grimaced and aimed his next shot straight into the thing’s mouth. This one bit deep, and a moment later the monster’s convulsions died down to nothing.
“Again!” Evan looked up and saw Susan waving frantically at him, her tightly braided hair undone and whipping around her face. “Go around to the next one! We’ve got to get them off!”
Evan almost jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off and turned to see two archers and a pikeman, who must have followed him down the wall.
“How do we help?” the grabby one asked.
“Hit them at the end of their tails,” he said tersely, then moved on before they could waste time with more questions.
The next one wasn’t as easy to target; it kept thrashing its tail around, but after three arrows, Evan managed it. As soon as it pulled away, he fired into its mouth like he had with the last one. This one made noise, a sound like ripping metal coming from its throat as it died.
Two of the other three leeches were handled the same way, and the last one died when Gorot managed to catch it with his hind leg and crush it where it lay. Its mouth detached with an audible pop as its broken body fell aside. Gorot blasted a jet of fire straight up into the sky, then coiled himself for takeoff. His rise into the air looked painful, slow and ungainly, but he made it and headed back toward the safety of the stadium.
Evan put his hand to his lips and whistled loudly. “Hey!” The people who’d followed him down turned away from their investigation of the nearest leech-thing and looked at him. “We need to get back inside the wall. There could be more of these things on the—” The ground shuddered minutely beneath his feet, and he grimaced. “More of them coming,” he finished.
The pikeman stopped on his way by and clapped Evan’s shoulder with his free hand. “Hell of a thing, man! You just saved our dragon!”
Evan didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all, just headed for the tiny gate. He had the feeling that, no matter what he’d done, it wasn’t going to be enough.
Chapter Six
The ground still shook. The wall still trembled. And Evan was still a pariah, no matter what the man outside had told him before they’d reentered Forge.
He had known he would be. If cowardice was reviled, then insane bravery was just as loathed, especially when it worked. It made people wonder whether or not they could have done what they’d seen, whether they should have done it, and that unsettled them. What did you do when the luckless man pulled off a ridiculous save?
You ignored him, for the most part. Few people met his eyes after he reentered Forge, and even fewer actually spoke to him. That was fine. He didn’t want interest any more than he wanted pity or contempt. Right now, in fact, he just wanted to soak in a hot bath, eat a quick meal, and fall asleep for a week.
The bath part he managed, although the water was lukewarm and cloudy. Evan sat back in the metal tub and closed his eyes, feeling every fresh ache and pain like they had just happened. He had jarred his shoulders when his stolen pike had gotten stuck in the wall, and his hands were covered with tiny scrapes and cuts. His lungs still twinged from the speed of his descent, and the part of his mind that wasn’t completely inured to the horror of a monster he’d never seen before wondered how long one of those leech-things would need to chew through a human body. If they could dig so deeply into a dragon’s armored flesh so fast . . .
A fresh jolt of pain emanated from his lip, where he was biting too hard. Evan took a deep breath and forced himself to relax, pushing his mind onto another subject. Something else, anything else . . . hell, he’d have to cancel working with Jason tomorrow—there was no way he’d be of any use once the stiffness really set in. Jason and Lee . . . he really ought to check in with them, let them know he was all right. Presuming that they cared.
Not fair. You know they care. Don’t make things more difficult for yourself than they have to be.
It was hard sometimes, not letting the bad thoughts become the only thoughts he ever had. Evan knew what depression was—they no longer lived in the age of information, but they weren’t savages. He knew that after Juree died,
he’d been almost suicidal, unable to take that final step only because of the memory of her last moments with him, and how hard she’d fought for his life. It wasn’t as bad now—in fact, things had even been, well, good since meeting Lee and Jason. He shouldn’t take their support for granted, though. He couldn’t.
Only . . .
The water was cold now, and he shivered as he got out of the bath and toweled off. The thought of going back to his lonely cot in the corner of a group room where no one spoke to him or met his eyes was almost paralyzing. He couldn’t do it, didn’t trust his mind not to betray him while he slept, and leave him whimpering as he relived how terrifying it had been, saving Gorot.
It hadn’t terrified him at the time—he’d had no energy to spare for that sort of intense fear, but it would come. And he’d be surrounded by strangers when it did.
No. He could go to Lee. It was late, so late it was already almost morning, and Jason would be asleep but Lee—Evan had the feeling that Lee would be waiting up for him. Stupid, foolish—but possible.
He wants you there. They both do.
“All right, all right,” he muttered, pulling on a clean set of clothes and locking his weapons away before he padded silently toward the nearest walkway to their building. He moved slowly, and was grateful that no one was there to see him limp like an old man. Hell, he was in his thirties now; that actually was kind of old considering how he’d lived his life so far.
Evan stopped woolgathering once he reached Lee’s door. He lifted his hand to knock, paused, swallowed hard, then forced himself to rap on the wood. Nothing. He sighed and repeated the action, a little harder this time. Still nothing. Maybe they were both asleep—fuck, of course they were asleep, that was only reasonable given the time, he should go—
The door opened just as Evan started to turn away. He was surprised to see Jason instead of Lee behind it, though. “Evan!” Jason lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Evan’s waist, knocking the breath out of him. He hugged the kid back, gently due to his painful shoulders.
“Hey there, buddy. Where’s your dad?”
“I don’t know.” Jason’s voice was muffled by the press of his mouth into Evan’s stomach. “Someone came to the door and told him they needed to talk, and I went to go and see but he told me to stay here so I did and I’m still waiting for him, and it’s been hours.” There was a frantic edge to the way he spoke—Jason wasn’t used to his father being gone without explanation. “But now you’re here so it’s better.”
Well, damn. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Let’s get inside, okay?” Jason nodded, and Evan guided him back into the den, shutting the door and keeping a soft hand on the nape of Jason’s neck. “It’s late. It’s so late it’s early.”
Jason rubbed at his eyes. “I know, but I can’t go to sleep if Dad isn’t here.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s when people die.”
Evan frowned and pulled Jason over to the couch with him. It was his first time sitting on it, and he was a little surprised by how soft the cushions were. “What do you mean?”
Jason sighed and slumped against him. “That’s how Mom died, back in Chicago. She kissed me good night and I went to sleep, and then when I woke up, Dad told me she was dead.”
Evan knew that Jason’s mother was a raw spot for both him and Lee, and this was more detail than he’d ever heard about her before. He didn’t even know her name. “I’m sorry that happened.”
Jason hummed and burrowed in closer. He already couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open. “She was a rider,” he said muzzily. “I wanna be a rider like her.”
Evan’s breath caught in his throat. He wanted to ask more, to push further, but after another few seconds, Jason really was asleep, leaving Evan with a lot more questions than he’d had before. Lee had been married to another rider? No wonder he wanted to get Jason trained up—the kid’s empathic abilities were probably off the charts. He’d almost certainly bond to a dragon someday.
Why a rider like her, though? Why not emulate both his parents? Was it just because he was missing his mother, or was there something else about this that Evan wasn’t seeing? Why hadn’t Lee mentioned that his wife had been a rider?
And where was Lee, anyway?
Evan picked Jason up and carried him back to his room, a small, cozy space with a bookshelf beside the child-sized bed and an electric lantern set into the wall. Jason tucked him in under a hand-knitted quilt, then left, carefully closing the door behind him. He felt a bit uneasy, being essentially alone in the rooms without Lee there. Like he was intruding on a sacred space. Jason had been happy to have him, though, and after the bombshell the kid just dropped about his mom, Evan couldn’t just leave.
The couch was probably the safest place for him. He’d stay until Lee got back, then . . . see where things went. Maybe he’d get some answers out of the guy today. Maybe it was finally time to push a little.
Not yet, though. The couch really was obscenely comfortable. Lying on his back, it was just long enough to fit him once he stretched out. Evan shut his eyes, consciously relaxed his shoulders, and waited for sleep to come.
It came so fast he didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke up to the sound of the door opening and two men arguing—loudly. Evan shook his head, trying to clear the dream he’d been having. It had been a strange one, the first time he’d dreamed of being here in these rooms, sitting at the table and tapping his fingers against its wooden top while anxiety seethed beneath his skin. Jason had caught on to his worry, and that wasn’t good—he needed to try harder for his son’s sake, but how could he rest at a time like this?
“—told you, it’s impossible!” That was Lee’s voice, and Evan wiped his eyes as he sat up, needing to see why his friend was so upset.
“How can you still be so obstinate in the face of everything that happened out there tonight?” This voice was intimately familiar to Jason, although not one he’d heard recently. Paul Townsend, the Governor of Forge, was very tall, almost six and a half feet, and he loomed over Lee so aggressively that Jason actually stood up and reached for his knife before remembering he’d left it locked up downstairs. His movement caught both the men’s eyes, and while Lee looked gratifyingly pleased to see him, the governor appeared horrified.
“No,” he said. “Oh, hell no. Absolutely not, I won’t allow it.”
For all that the man had three inches on him, Lee had a way of filling the room with his presence that made the governor take a step back. “You have no authority to allow or disallow anything to do with my situation.”
The governor tried to regroup. “I could make you leave.”
“Then you’d have completely wasted your time and mine with nothing to show for it, and from what you keep telling me, you need something to show for it now more than ever.”
“What good will you be to any of us if you make a rash decision that leaves you just like you were in Chicago? What good will that do your son?”
If he was trying to make Lee flinch, he’d failed. Lee’s voice went cold, and deeper somehow. “Get out of my rooms.”
“Consider things from my perspective!” The governor was backing out, but he seemed desperate. “Forge could be on the brink of destruction! I would do anything to keep that from happening. Wouldn’t you?”
“Not when it means betraying everything I am.” Lee shut the door in the man’s face, then turned around and faced Evan. He looked concerned. “Are you all right? I heard there was trouble beyond the wall, one of the dragons was wounded.”
All Evan could do was stare for a long moment before he found his voice again. “What was that all about?”
Lee waved a hand as he took a step closer. “The same complaint it always is, I’m afraid. That I’m not earning my keep.”
“How exactly does the governor expect you to be earning your keep?”
“By performing miracles, apparently.” Lee sighed. For the first time, Evan noticed he sounde
d about as tired as Evan himself felt. “He doesn’t understand that some things simply can’t be forced, not if you want them to work.”
“What is he trying to force you to do?”
“Evan . . .” Lee sighed again. “Please don’t ask. Not yet. I’ll tell you soon, I promise, but not right now.”
It hurt, a surprising amount, to be denied by him. Unease lingered in Evan’s chest like a dull arrowhead. “Why didn’t you tell me your wife was a rider?” he asked instead, and watched Lee go a little paler. Fuck, he hadn’t meant to bring it up like that, completely out of the blue, but he felt too raw to be in control of himself.
“What did Jason tell you about Valorie?”
Evan shook his head. “Nothing other than that, but I don’t understand why it was such a secret. You wouldn’t be the first couple to be riders together.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it a secret, exactly. Just.” Lee seemed frustrated. “I don’t talk about her now. I can’t, not after what happened. It isn’t that I wanted to mislead you.” He came close enough to reach out and take Evan’s hands in his own. It wasn’t the first time he’d touched Evan like this, but the intensity of his tone and the strange, vulnerable shine of his eyes made it all seem much more fraught. “Please don’t ask me about her. Not yet.”
Evan wanted to give in, wanted to let it be all right, but something inside of him just couldn’t. What else didn’t he know about Lee and Jason? What was so important about him that the governor himself would argue with him? “What was the name of her dragon?”
Lee’s lips pressed thin, but he answered. “Ladon.”
“And what was the name of your dragon? Or did you even have one?”
“Evan—”
“Are you a psychic instead, is that it? Is that what Townsend wants out of you?”
“Evan, stop. Please.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” God, he was so tired, and all he wanted in the world was this man and his son and yet he didn’t know anything about them, not really. And Lee refused to give him anything to hang his hope on. “What do you think I’ll do if I know? No one here cares! No one but me! I want—” Evan reined in his strange, suffocating sense of anger as best he could. It wouldn’t help him here, and just thinking about trying to stay angry at Lee exhausted him further.