She wrings her hands. “But I knew there was something wrong with Emmeric. I knew he wanted to hurt Mirelle.”
Through her tears, she tells me of witnessing Emmeric trying to carry Mirelle away while she was in a false heat, and that his knot was swollen. I wasn’t around because I was in a rut, but she told the king. It doesn’t sound as though he believed her.
I grasp her shoulders. “Listen to me. Emmeric could be hateful, but none of us knew that he was capable of this kind of cruelty. You told the king, the only one who had authority over the prince, and he was the one who did nothing. I lay the blame at his feet.”
“Are you angry that I didn’t tell you?” she asks in a small voice.
“Of course not. I hope the king was not angry that you…” I trail off, remembering a bruise on her face, and how quickly the king lashed out at me just now. “You were hurt when I returned from my rut. It wasn’t because of a careless wyvern, was it?”
Zenevieve’s eyes fill with tears, and she shakes her head. She wraps her arms around my waist and presses her cheek to my chest, sobbing her heart out. “I was afraid that you might confront the king in anger for hitting me. I couldn’t let you do that. You want to protect me, Stesha, but I care just as much about you.”
I hug her so tightly that her feet lift from the ground. My poor, sweet girl, keeping all this to herself. I think of Onderz, and the pain of not being able to protect your Omega hits me like a fist. I bury my face in Zenevieve’s hair, my body shuddering in horror. I keep picturing Zenevieve, tears running down her face, and her heart shattered into pieces, throwing herself from Minta’s back. I won’t let that happen to her.
I sleep outside Zenevieve’s door that night, without a pillow or a blanket. My discomfort makes me sleep lightly so that I willstartle by a single footfall. As soon as I awaken in the pre-dawn light, I thrust open her door with my heart in my throat, fearful that she might somehow have been taken under my nose.
Zenevieve is sleeping soundly, her black hair cascading in a gleaming river over her pillow, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I watch her sleeping for a moment before walking quietly forward to brush a silky tress of her hair back from her face. Her eyelashes are gently resting on her cheeks, and her lips are softened from sleep.
I whisper as my fingers linger in her hair, “The oath I made to your father broke when you turned eighteen, but I swear a new one. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll keep you safe, always.”
12
Zenevieve
Stesha forgives me for saying nothing about suspecting Emmeric’s vile intentions toward his sister, but I can’t forgive myself. If I’d only spoken up to more people about the alarming state I saw Emmeric in as he tried to carry her away, maybe Mirelle, Onderz, Dianthe, and Zeith would still be alive. Shar would still be with us as well. Minta misses her brother, especially in the evening when the two of them would preen each other in the dusk light.
We search everywhere for the fallen prince in the days and weeks that follow, but we find no sign of him or his dragon. Zabriel searches longer and harder than anyone, and every night when he returns, his eyes are hollow with grief and pain. King Aylard is constantly in a foul mood, even worse than before. He openly hits soldiers, civilians, and servants for the slightest mistake, real or perceived. Queen Magritte hasn’t been seen, and the rumor is she’s catatonic from grief. The only name on anyone’s lips in the Great Hall is Prince Emmeric.
Every time I close my eyes, I imagine Princess Mirelle plummeting from Dianthe to her death. One evening over dinner I say to Stesha, “It hurts that we have not given her dragon rites. I don’t feel as though she can ever be at peace without them.”
Stesha is taking the deaths hard as well. His face is pale, and there are dark shadows beneath his eyes. “The crevasses travel far down inside the mountains and open up at the bottom. It’s possible that her body may emerge as the winter ice melts.”
It’s a small hope, but it’s something.
Stesha grips my hand urgently and says, as he’s repeated to me several times already, “You must always be on your guard from now on. Emmeric is dangerous, and if he can hurt Mirelle, he can hurt anyone.”
I’m reminded of the day that Mirelle died, and how he seized me and used his Alpha’s roar to command me not to mount my dragon. The effect was more powerful than I was expecting. The compulsion to obey him lit up inside me, and I don’t think I could have done anything else even if my life depended on it. The memory makes me tingle all over.
“I will be careful, I promise,” I reassure him.
But in the days that follow, my patience wears thin. I don’t believe in his heart that Stesha wishes to clip my wings, but his manner verges on paranoid. Every time Minta and I leave Lenhale, Stesha flies with us. I feel guilty that the dragonmaster is spending his hours flying with me when we could cover twice as much ground separately.
I have nothing to report to Prince Zabriel for the fourth day in a row while Stesha stands silently behind me. Nothing. Not so much as a rain shower, let alone a sighting of Shar. If Zabriel thinks it’s strange that the dragonmaster is accompanying me on my missions, he doesn’t remark on it, but one evening, the prince and Stesha share a silent, meaningful look just before the prince departs.
“What was that about?” I ask my guardian.
Stesha is tugging off his gloves and flexing his fingers, not paying me the slightest attention. “What was what about?”
My eyes narrow. I feel certain that Stesha is hiding something from me.
The next day, I’m searching central Maledin, which is the least likely place we’re going to find Emmeric. Stesha is with me, and two hours in, I snap. I land, forcing him to land with me.
As soon as we’re face to face with our feet on the ground, I say to him, “Does the king not need you for more important missions right now? You are the most senior dragonrider.”
“I’ll worry about the king. Where are we going next?”
“Stesha, you do not need to guard me.”
He glowers at me. “Don’t tell an Alpha what to do.”
