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She shook in my arms, and I rested my chin on top of her head, wrapping her up tight in my warmth. She buried her face in my shoulder, her red hair tickling my jaw.
I thought again of the promises I’d made to Lysander. I’d promised to protect her, and I wanted to do that with every inch of my body. But… I wantedher,too. For myself. And Lysander would never have wanted some orphaned urchin turned dragon knight to kiss the precious princess.
And I wondered…
Was love stronger than honor?
CHAPTER23
Zehr
As the endof my life came, I drifted in and out of time. Everything felt like a dream. When I roused in the real world, it took intense effort to draw a breath. The last vestiges of magic swirled around my fingers, as if my subconscious fought to save myself.
But what was the point now? The dreams rushed up to meet me.
“Monster!” the other kids shouted as they chased me down the road toward the orphanage. I whirled and hissed at them, and they all came to an abrupt halt, backing away as I moved closer to them.
Then the first one of them scooped and grabbed a rock…
The bed shifted, and I breathed the strange scent of sugar and pine. My heart raced, and I tried to drag myself up out of sleep. But I was so tired and so cold and I couldn’t force my eyes open.
“Wake up, Zehr,”Honor demanded. “We found the pieces of the Scourge stone. We have work to do.”
After long seconds went by, she lay down on the bed beside me. Her warmth skated over my skin, raising goose bumps of longing; I wanted more of that warmth.
Then in my dreams, she was beside me, so close her shoulder brushed mine. I tried to think of something else, not those miserable memories from my childhood; I tried to think about the moment I had marked her in that garden.
But the kids still faced us. They were all holding rocks now. I was already limping, blood trickling down my leg where one stone had cut open my skin.
Honor stood beside me, taking in the scene with one quick sweep, then her face grew furious. “Little assholes.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her away. “It’s just a memory. You can’t change it.”
If I could, I would stay. But I had run, and now the two of us ran, along the muddy lane and then across an uneven field. The kids shouted and whooped behind us as if they were fox hunting.
We reached a copse of trees and took shelter from the kids, and she turned that bright gaze on me. “It should have been different.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
She tilted her head to one side, studying me. She was probably thinking of how I’d said once I didn’t stew in the past.
I wouldn’t have said that if I knew the girl was going to invade my dreams. But the truth was, after two hundred years, I didn’t think of those kids much. They’d all died and faded and been forgotten, while I roamed the world. Everyone knew the name they’d once called me, and everyone feared me.
And yet… here was the end, and here were my dreams.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“You wanted me here,” she said in a reasonable tone. “You told me not to leave you.”
“No one wants to be alone when they're dying.”
She'd had her usual teasing look on her face, but now it clouded. “You're not going to die. Not right now. You have to live to grovel, because you've been absolutely awful to me.”
I scoffed. “I've no reason to grovel.”
She looked up at me with wide eyes and a winsome smile, and my heart ached to keep her smiling, the way it always did. “I think you will. Especially after I save your life.”
There was mischief written in the planes of her beautiful face, and I grabbed for her. “What are you doing?”
