A few feet away, Zenevieve is stroking her dragon’s snout and watching me. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re building up Mirelle’s confidence. She’s always been told she’s useless, and you’re showing her she’s not.”
“This is dragonrider training. No one gets special treatment.”
“Stesha, I know you put more thought into it than that. Do you remember when I was overwhelmed by all the attention I was getting? You suggested I get a sword and showed me how to feel powerful. I think you know how it feels…” She bites her lip and checks that we’re out of hearing distance of the others, which we are.
“I know how it feels…?” I prompt her.
“I don’t want to make you angry with me.”
I’ve never been angry with Zenevieve in my life. I don’t even know what that would feel like. I brush snow from Minta’s scales and wait.
“I don’t know if you’re allowed to say this to an Alpha,” Zenevieve says. “You all seem to strive so hard for perfection at all times. But I think you remember feeling unimportant and afraid.”
I smile to myself. Leaning down, I cup the back of her neck and press my forehead against hers, the bridges of our noses touching. I do this all the time with Nilak, and it feels natural with Zenevieve as well. “You do remember me, don’t you?From when I was a boy, before you left Lenhale to live in the countryside.”
“Of course I do,” she whispers, her green eyes filling my vision. “You were Grandfather’s apprentice.”
“I remember you, too.”
“I wish I could have given you a hug back then. I think you haven’t forgotten that it was a painful time for you, and you don’t like to see anyone fearful.”
Anyone? I don’t care about just anyone. “I like to know the ones I care about can protect themselves until I’m able to reach them.”
“You care for Princess Mirelle?” she asks, and there’s a flicker of misgiving in her eyes.
“No, Zen. But Queen Magritte has shown me kindness, and so I honor her whenever I can.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “We have to go.”
I walk back through the snow toward Nilak, every footstep I take sinking half a foot deep into powder. Soon we’re airborne, but we’ve lingered too long on the mountainside.
The lich catches up to us.
Nilak sees it first, a dark figure against the snow, and it hurls a ball of green flames at Scourge and Zabriel as I shout a warning. Nilak dives, unleashing a torrent of dragonfire on a dark speck on the snow. Instantly I’m joined by Zenevieve on Minta and Onderz on Zeith, and they add to Nilak’s flames, but it’s Zabriel who finishes the sorcerer off. The crown prince is so exultant that once he’s on the ground, he raises his sword in victory, only to be burned by his own dragon’s final breath of flames.
Zabriel screams in pain. The trainees hurry to heap snow on the crown prince’s burned hand while I stand over him, a vein throbbing in my temple. To execute a mission and then be injured by your own dragon. I have never seen anything somonumentally stupid in all my life. The rider of the flare’s Alpha won’t be able to hold a sword for weeks. What if war breaks out? What if he needs to protect his family? The boy is foolish and reckless. Maledin is doomed if Zabriel is still this idiotic when he sits upon the throne.
“Blood and wyvern piss, Zabriel. I will have to waste your father’s time with this.”
I leave him lying on the snow gasping and flopping about like a dying fish. He can’t endure an injury with any self-respect.
I’m climbing up Nilak’s flank when I hear Zenevieve’s cry of pain. I let go of the strap, hit the ground, and run to her.
“What is it? What has happened?” I ask, slightly out of breath.
Zenevieve has her hand behind her back. “Nothing.”
“Show me.”
“I’m fine.”
There’s a stubborn expression in her eyes, and I know she’s trying to be brave. She doesn’t need to be. I’m here now, so I can be brave for her. I step closer, looming over her. “I said, show me.”
She draws her hand out from behind her back, and I see there’s a two-inch gash on her palm, oozing blood. “I forgot to put my gloves on, and I cut myself on one of Minta’s loose scales.”
The sight of her injury stabs me through my heart. Zenevieve’s bleeding. She’s in pain. I told her father she would be safe with me, I swore it on my life, and she’s been injured on her first mission.
