“Stay away from you?” Amelrik glares at her. “You’re the one who tortured me. You put that ring around my neck. You broke my ribs! And yet here I am, helping Virginia rescue you. Not because you deserve it, because you don’t, but because she asked. And you have the nerve to tell me to stay away from you?”
“You’re a monster. And a criminal. You’ve—”
“That’s enough.” I give Celeste a stern look, which feels kind of weird, because it’s usually the other way around. “We have to go find the key so we can get you out of here. We’ll be back soon.”
“No, you won’t.” She shakes her head. “He keeps it with him.”
“Who does?” I ask, but my stomach drops, and I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
“Prince Lothar.” She glances toward the hallway, like saying his name might summon him. “He’s afraid someone else might let me out and use me against him.”
Lothar has the key. There’s no way we could steal it from him without him noticing. I doubt either of us could even get close to him.
I look at Amelrik. He looks at me.
Celeste watches our silent exchange, her mouth twisting into a scowl of disapproval.
I ignore her. “There has to be another way. We can cut the bars—”
“Cut the bars?” Amelrik raises an eyebrow at me. “And how are we supposed to do that?”
“Okay, something else then! But we can’t just—”
“Someone’s coming.” He keeps his voice low and motions for me to be quiet. He tilts his head, listening to something in the hallway.
My heart pounds as I glance around, looking for a place to hide. But there isn’t one.
Amelrik’s shoulders relax. “Never mind. I guess I was—”
There’s a roar, and a flash of purple scales and claws. It happens so fast, I can’t process what I’m seeing at first. And then Amelrik’s on the floor, blood spreading out from a gash that runs along his side and across his stomach.
A purple dragon looms over him. Over us.
Lothar.
He laughs, his booming voice echoing through the chamber. “Did you think I wouldn’t be watching?! That I wouldn’t have instructed the guards to send word the moment they saw you?” He snorts, puffing smoke out of his nostrils. The key to Celeste’s cell glints from a string around his neck, too high up for me to reach, even if I could get close to him. “I expected you to sneak in, coward that you are. But I thought it was my father you’d be going to see. Going behind my back and tattling to him, like you always did. But this? Trying to steal our St. George? That’s grounds for war.” He grins, showing off his teeth.
“Whatever your problem with me is,” Amelrik says, wincing as he sits up, “it’s gone on long enough.” Wings rip through the back of his shirt as he transforms. The bleeding stops at the same time as his eyes turn yellow and black scales spread along his forearms and down the sides of his neck.
Celeste gasps in horror. A weird half-yelp, half-croaking sound escapes her throat.
Amelrik stands, keeping his focus on Lothar. “Let’s settle this.”
“You should have stayed dead the first time,” Lothar says, “because unlike my father, I won’t show you any mercy.”
“No!” I step in front of Amelrik, holding up my hands. This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I can’t just let this happen. “Don’t move! I’m a St. George—I’ll bind you if you don’t leave him alone!”
Lothar peers at me, like he hadn’t recognized me before. “If you were going to bind me, you would have done it by now.” Then he lunges.
“Virginia!” Amelrik grabs me, pushing me out of the way. Lothar’s claw clips his arm but only hits scale. Amelrik ducks as Lothar snaps at him with his jaws.
I turn to Celeste. “Do something!”
Her mouth opens and closes silently. Then she says, “I can’t.”
Lothar slams Amelrik with his tail. There’s a crunching sound as he hits the wall.
Tears fill my eyes. “Because he’s a dragon? You’d let him die because he’s—”
“Vee, I can’t!” She grips the bars of her cell. “I’ve tried, but there’s iron here for a reason! It absorbs my magic, just like a dragon ring. They knew what they were doing when they put me here.”
Amelrik cries out as Lothar hits him again, this time propelling him into the opposite wall. Lothar’s playing with him—torturing him—like a cat with a mouse.
My eyes meet Amelrik’s. His face is distorted in pain, but he mouths something at me: Run.
It’s like the night we met all over again, except this time my paladin sister isn’t going to save the day.
And I can’t run. I won’t. Because there’s no way I’m leaving him here to die.
“What are you doing?” Celeste says. “Get out of here! He’s buying you time, and you’re just standing there, wasting it!”
One of Amelrik’s wings hangs funny, obviously injured, maybe broken, and the thought of that happening to him again makes me sick. His yellow eyes plead with me, begging me to run while I still can.
It’s because he’s looking at me that he’s off guard when Lothar slashes at him. Amelrik puts a hand to his chest as more blood soaks his clothes. Then Lothar knocks his legs out from under him with a sweep of his tail.
“Go!” Celeste shouts. “There’s nothing you can do! You can’t save him!”
“Yes, I can.” I take a step forward, holding up my hands, which are shaking. I was bluffing before, when I threatened Lothar. But not this time.
“What are you doing?! You don’t have magic!” There’s desperation in Celeste’s voice, like she thinks I’ve gone crazy and that it’s going to get me killed. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“Doing? I’m so sick of hearing that. If you don’t believe in me, then fine, but shut up about it!”
She goes silent, and just for a moment, I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Then I realize I don’t care.
My whole life, I’ve tried to do things Celeste’s way. I tried to learn magic, to be like her. To kill dragons like her, even if that’s not what I wanted. But it never worked, and in the end, it wasn’t Celeste who taught me magic. It was Amelrik, the dragon she told me to stay away from. The dragon I fell in love with.
The last time I tried to cast the binding spell, just the attempt was enough to scare off Amelrik’s mother. But there’s no way that will work on Lothar—it has to be the real thing.
And maybe I lied just now, because I’m not sure that I can cast this, that I can save him. But I have to.
Lothar presses a claw to Amelrik’s throat. “Killing you is going to be even easier than killing Raban.”
A shocked look spreads across Amelrik’s face. He starts to speak, nearly cutting himself on Lothar’s claw, and then stays silent.
I think about the binding spell, focusing all of my energy into it. I picture Lothar turning human.
There’s a flash of red light, followed by the smell of sulfur. But those things have both happened before without it meaning anything. And Lothar’s still in dragon form.
“At least he put up a struggle,” Lothar says, and then slices his claw across Amelrik’s throat.
Right as the binding spell works—it actually works—and there’s the sound of flesh ripping and tearing as he’s forced into human form.
Amelrik has his hands pressed to his throat. When he pulls them away, his hands are bloody, but his throat is intact, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relieved in my life.
Lothar looks like he did the night I first met him—brown hair, blue eyes—except now he’s naked. The string with the key on it lies sprawled on the floor. Amelrik moves to grab it, but Lothar tackles him.
They fall to the ground, and then everything happens really fast. Amelrik might be worn out and injured, but he’s still stronger in dragon form. Lothar tries to hit him while he still has the upper hand, but Amelrik kicks him and twists out of reach. He punches Lothar in the
face and then pins him down, and now it’s Amelrik who has his claws to Lothar’s throat.
“You murdered your own cousin.” Amelrik’s seething and out of breath from the fight.
“I had to! It was the only way to make sure that you didn’t—” He stops himself from whatever he was going to say.
I grab the key off the floor and hurry to unlock Celeste’s cell. As soon as she’s free, I hug her as hard as I can.
“Didn’t what?!” Amelrik shouts. He’s shaking now, though I can’t tell if it’s from anger or from his injuries.
Lothar’s face twists up in disgust. “I heard what my father had planned for you. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. And whatever it was, it doesn’t justify what you did to Raban, and what you tried to do to me!”
“He was going to bring Signy home and marry her off to you.”
“What?”
“She’s older than me. He could have picked one of my younger sisters—they’re almost of age—but he didn’t, and you know what that means.”
“It doesn’t mean anything! I didn’t even know about it, and I certainly wouldn’t have agreed to it!”
“Yes, you would have. Anything my father says, you jump up and do it, like some lapdog. And don’t act like you wouldn’t have loved for him to make you his heir.”
“He wouldn’t have! My own father doesn’t want me to be his heir—yours definitely doesn’t!”
“If not his heir, then at least his son! He liked you better than me. You, disgusting and half-formed and not even a real dragon!”
Amelrik glares at him and brings his claws in closer, his hand poised over Lothar’s throat, clenched in anger. And there’s a second where I think he’s going to do it. Judging by the look on Lothar’s face, I’m pretty sure he thinks so, too. But then . . . Amelrik hesitates. He pulls his hand away.
Another purple dragon rushes in from the hallway shouting, “No, don’t!”
Amelrik backs off, unpinning Lothar and getting to his feet.
Lothar gets up, too. “Did you see that, Father? He attacked me—he and that St. George he brought!”
The Elder king looks from his son, who hardly has a scratch on him, to Amelrik, who’s clearly injured. And I’m still not great at reading dragons’ expressions, but I don’t think he’s buying it. He snaps something at Lothar in Vairlin, and Lothar scowls at the ground.
Amelrik shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He looks relieved. And like he might collapse.
I rush over to him and throw my arms around him. The blood from his shirt soaks into mine, but I don’t care. “We did it.”
He goes completely still, not hugging me back at first. And then slowly, being careful not to get me with his claws, he slides his arms around me and holds me to him. “Yeah,” he says, not sounding all that happy about it, “we did.”
38
KEEP YOUR OPINIONS TO YOURSELF
It’s a couple hours later when we say our good-byes. We’re out in the woods, a little ways from Elder clan. Amelrik talked to the king for a while before we left, explaining who I was and that Celeste was my sister. It was all in Vairlin, but he gave me the gist of it afterward. Except I think he might have actually told the king who I was to him, because he seemed kind of nervous while he was gesturing to me, and his face turned red, and the king laughed a little. In a good-natured sort of way. I’m guessing. Since he didn’t, like, kill Amelrik and lock us up or anything.
In fact, he let us go. He made an announcement, officially pardoning Amelrik, since he showed mercy to Lothar, even though Lothar totally would have deserved what he got. The king didn’t exactly sign off on his son taking their St. George—er, I mean, Celeste—to another clan and trying to start a war. He made sure Elder clan knew that whatever Lothar had tried to start, it was over, and both clans were relinquishing their St. Georges as a sign of goodwill.
So, mission accomplished, and we didn’t even get ourselves killed. I should be happy. Or at least I shouldn’t feel like the whole world is ending, because this could have turned out a whole lot worse. But tell that to the hollow, aching feeling that’s taken over my chest, threatening to rip me open.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” I ask Amelrik. “Because your wing—”
“I’ll transform again when I get home.” He’s in human form now, and his injuries have healed, or at least most of them.
“You promise?”
“I swear I will.”
We’re both quiet, neither of us saying anything for a while. I’m painfully aware of Celeste standing only ten feet away, watching this. Probably wishing we would hurry up, so the two of us can start the trip back home.
“It’s late,” Amelrik says, and for one horrifying moment, I think he’s about to say he has to get going. “Maybe you should stay the night. You could come back to Hawthorne with me and then leave in the morning.”
I glance over at Celeste, who I know heard every word, and not just because she’s glaring at me, like we will only be staying at Hawthorne clan over her dead body. “Celeste would kill me,” I whisper. “And . . .” If I stay one more night, I don’t know how I’ll ever leave. “I can’t.”
He nods. “I thought I’d have so much to say to you, and now it’s like I have too many things—a whole lifetime’s worth—and I’m not saying any of them. It’s too much for one conversation, and none of it feels like enough.”
I start to tell him I know what he means, but then something inside me breaks. Hot tears fill my eyes and run down my cheeks.
He puts his arms around me. I press my face into his neck, breathing in his smell, and hope I never forget what it’s like to feel this safe, or this loved. “I love you,” I tell him, and it comes out choked and full of tears.
“I love you, too,” he says, and his voice isn’t any steadier than mine.
We stay like this until Celeste clears her throat, and when we finally pull away, Amelrik’s eyes are wet. He wipes them with his palms.
I remind myself of all the reasons why I can’t stay here, and why he can’t come with me, and why it would never work out. And then I turn away, because one of us has to, and my heart snaps into pieces.
I hear him leave, but I don’t turn around. My shoulders shake as I cry harder, and I think, Please don’t go. Please, please, don’t go.
I would give anything for him to come back right now.
But he doesn’t. He has to go. And so do I.
“Come on,” Celeste says, putting an arm around my shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Vee.”
It won’t, but I don’t tell her that.
“He’s a dragon. You’re a St. George! And you have the family power now. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you, and the last thing you need is to think you’re in love with a dragon.”
I shrug her arm off. “Think I’m in love with him? Did you seriously just say that?”
“It’s not healthy, is what I meant. You had to be around him these past few weeks, so you could rescue me, and maybe it felt like you and him were—”
“Don’t.”
She sighs, like I’m the one being unreasonable. “You have choices. Human choices. You’ll be better off without him. You’ll see.”
“No, I won’t.” I say that as coldly as I can, hoping she’ll take the hint.
She doesn’t. “I know he might have seemed human, but that’s what he does. That’s how he tricked all those people. You can’t believe anything he—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But—”
“Celeste? It’s great to have you back and all, but if that’s all you have to say, then keep your opinions to yourself. It’s going to be a long enough trip as it is.”
39
IF YOU NEED ANY HELP MURDERING THAT WEDDING DRESS
We arrive at the barracks a few days later. Everyone’s shocked to see that Celeste is back, and that she’s alive and well and not rocking back and forth in
the corner. They’re pretty surprised to see me, too. I think some of them even assume she rescued me somehow, until she claps me on the back and tells them I saved her.
As if it was just me, and Amelrik wasn’t there. As if he didn’t almost get himself killed so I could get my sister back. And I know he did it for me and not her, but still. She doesn’t have to make it out like I did it all on my own.
Everyone looks at me differently after she tells them how I finally cast the binding spell and saved her life. Their expressions are full of disbelief and awe, like maybe they misjudged me. Even my father raises his eyebrows at me, like somehow his dud daughter got exchanged for someone worthwhile while he wasn’t looking.
This is the part where I should be rubbing it in everyone’s face, saying, “I told you so.” But my heart’s not in it. And even if they’re all looking at me differently, none of these people are my friends. Me having magic doesn’t change that. And I don’t even see Torrin, the one person who might actually be my friend. Not that things really went so well between us the last time I saw him.
I leave Celeste to her adoring crowd and go to my room, where I can be alone. It feels weird to be here again. I mean, it feels weird to be back at the barracks at all, but it’s especially strange to be in my room. It’s exactly the way I left it, and yet it feels like it belongs to someone else.
The last time I was here, it was with Amelrik. The blanket on the bed’s still wrinkled from where we sat together. My mother’s hand mirror is on my nightstand, and I remember how I jerked it away from him, horrified that he touched it. It was only a little over a month ago, but it feels like another lifetime, like it happened to somebody else.
I glance at my bookshelf, remembering how I actually asked Amelrik if he could read. It’s such a small shelf compared to the giant one in his room, and I feel pretty stupid that I could have ever thought that about him.
A pang of loss hits me when I think about the Princess Mysteries book he got me, and how I left it in his room. It didn’t make sense to bring it to Elder clan with me, and then we never went back. It was the only physical thing I had to remember him by, and now it’s gone, as if the last few weeks never happened at all.
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