“How does the young woman fare? What does she say?”
My dragines throb in my mouth as I remember Zenevieve’s half-lidded eyes and her alluring whisper.Why don’t you be my lavish?
I swallow hard. “Zenevieve is grieving her dragon, and she does not say much. Her memories have come back to her, but that is more of a curse than a blessing. I don’t know what to do.”
The old woman sniffs, clearly brimming with opinions that she’s keeping to herself.
I tilt my head to one side. “You say very little.”
“You did not come here to talk, young man. No one knows you here. No one expects you to be the dragonmaster. You came here because she comes here, and you want to feel closer to yourformer ward.” The words are spoken with an ironic lilt.
“I came here for answers.”
“Yet you did not speak with her yourself.”
I sigh and look around the little room. I only ever make things worse when I speak with Zenevieve. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. “Is she happy when she comes here?”
“As happy as a dragonrider can be in a witch’s cottage, far from her beloved dragons.”
“Is she ever going to recover?”
“Who can say?”
I kneel in furious silence. Meanwhile, Mistress Hawthorne seems perfectly at ease, and I can feel her judging me for my feelings for Zenevieve and my inability to do anything about them. “Things between us are not as simple as you seem to think. Heartbreak for our kind isn’t like how it is for humans. It’sdangerous. We were together once, and she nearly died.”
“Then don’t break her heart, you silly man. You don’t need a witch to tell you that.”
“I told you, it’s not as simple as that.” I raise my voice in a roar that rattles the windows. Outside, crows are cawing. Biddy Hawthorne merely watches me.
I take a deep breath and get to my feet. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have come.”
I burst out of the smoky darkness and into the sunshine. It was a waste of time coming to Amriste.
When I return to the castle, every rider is eagerly discussing Isavelle’s coronation, because Zabriel has decided without consulting me that his new queen is to be celebrated in the traditional manner, with Dragon Games. They are a series of competitions for dragonriders with one final victor. They are a mighty spectacle, and they draw large crowds to the capital.
There are storm clouds raging inside my head, and I don’t take the news well, or the fact that holding the Dragon Games was decided without consulting me, the dragonmaster.
“Now is hardly the time for games,” I say to Nilak as I tend to her at dusk.
Nilak raises her head and gazes proudly across at the other dragons. I can feel the competitive spark inside her. Whether it’s the time or not, the Dragon Games are happening, and she wants us to win.
For Maledin, she insists.
What do you mean? How is this for Maledin?
With a nibble of a talon and a rustle of her wings, she shows me her memories. She and I slaughtering Brethren Guard. People cowering in fear as dragons flew over the city. Much has changed since then, but while the people don’t outright fear the dragons, they don’t love them as they once did. The Dragon Games could change that.
“You are probably right,” I mutter, and Nilak gives a soft chirrup of approval, and then one that curls in a question.
“Of course we will compete,” I tell her. “Someone has to show Lenhale what a proper dragon and rider are capable of.”
And we will win, Nilak tells me.
My eyes seek a young woman, and I find her moving among the flare, trailing her fingers over Merrex’s scales and then Omaira’s. Zenevieve hasn’t smiled in such a long time, and Ifeel a pulse of agony and yearning so powerful that it takes my breath away. I want to make her proud. I want to give her hope. Mistress Hawthorne’s words haunt me, and the implication that I should know what’s wrong with Zenevieve has me breaking out in a cold sweat.
Somewhere, at some important moment, I’ve made a mistake. Missed something huge. Something I’ve been missing for five hundred years, and if I don’t do something to fix things between Zenevieve and me soon, it will be too late.
28
