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Later at sunset, I’m standing on the castle walls, gazing out across the dragongrounds. Esmeral is easy to spot among the bigger bodies.
She moves among them, and the bigger dragons snap at her as she passes. The turquoise dragon huddles at the edges of the flare, and the others ignore her. No one grooms her wings.
I wonder if this is my fault. I’ve rejected her, and that’s made her an outcast within the flare. As I watch, a muscular red dragon with a golden sheen strides into Esmeral, knocking her aside. I can’t help but feel he’s done it deliberately, and yet he rounds on her, opens his jaws, and snarls. Esmeral cringes back and slinks away, keeping close to the ground. Making herself small. Apologizing for her existence.
Finally, she takes shelter beneath a low overhang where the bigger dragons can’t get to her. For a long time, I stand by the wall and watch her, but she doesn’t come out.
* * *
When I openmy eyes in the morning, I’m struck with a wave of loneliness. I lay on my back for a long time in the bed, filled with a wretched, helpless feeling like I haven’t known since I was imprisoned at the monasteries. It’s strange because I haven’t felt lonely since I arrived at the castle. If it weren’t for my missing family, I think I’d be happy here with Dusan and Fiala, Posette and Santha, and Odanna down in the city. I’ve never had so many friends before. Then there’s Zabriel, and while my feelings for him are complicated, I certainly don’t feel lonely around him.
This feeling of loneliness doesn’t seem to belong to me. I think it must belong to Esmeral.
I roll over and press my face into the pillow with a groan. It’s already happening. I’m bonding with Esmeral after a few brief encounters. I tried to resist it, but it’s happening anyway. Being Maledinni is nothing like being human, something that keeps catching me unawares. Feelings are so much stronger. Connections are more intense. I wanted to go home to my village still feeling human, but maybe that’s impossible now. Maybe it always has been, and I was fooling myself trying to be something I’m not.
After I eat in the Great Hall, I still can’t get my mind off Esmeral, and I decide to go check on her. Just from a distance. I don’t know if dragons can hope, but I don’t want to get her hopes up, and I don’t want to run into Stesha either.
It doesn’t take me long to make my way through the castle and to approach the dragongrounds, but I haven’t even crossed the stone bridge when I stop dead.
The sight before me makes my blood boil.
Howdarehe?
20
Zabriel
I’m in the middle of a meeting with Godric and Ashton when Isavelle hurries in out of breath with her hair flying around her face.
I step toward her quickly, searching for signs of injury on her body. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”
She points toward the terrace that overlooks the dragongrounds, and pants, “Your dragon.”
Alarm races through me. “Something’s happened to Scourge?”
Isavelle draws herself up in outrage and exclaims, “He’s bullying Esmeral.”
I frown at her. The little Omega dragon? That makes no sense. He mostly ignores the smaller dragons unless they need his protection. “Scourge is the flare’s Alpha. He’s not a bully.”
“Come and see for yourself.” Isavelle catches my hand and tugs me toward the terrace overlooking the dragongrounds. “Look! Just look at what he’s doing.”
Below us and beyond the bridge, Scourge is standing in the middle of the dragongrounds, looming over something turquoise and golden at his feet.
My concern melts into realization. I see what’s happening. In fact, I should have expected this.
“Let’s go down there. Come with me.” I hold tighter to Isavelle’s hand and steer her out of the room, calling to my men that I’ll return soon.
Isavelle and I cross the stone bridge together, but I draw her to a halt before we step onto the dragongrounds. Scourge is in pride of place in the middle of the flare, scales gleaming darkly in the wintry sunlight, wings partly unfurled. Crouching at his enormous taloned feet is Esmeral, less than a third of his size. She’s somehow crept or flown past a dozen higher-ranked dragons to reach him and looks tiny against his huge, black bulk.
The little dragon is quite literally playing with fire as she arches the back of her neck, baring the vulnerable flesh beneath her crest. Scourge darts at her with his massive jaws open, and his teeth snap together just inches from her scales.
A smirk spreads over my face as the turquoise dragon cringes even closer to the ground, but she doesn’t try to flee.
“This isn’t funny,” Isavelle exclaims. “He’s going to hurt her. You need to call him off.”
I fold my arms and fix Isavelle with a severe look. “I heard you don’t care what happens to Esmeral. She’s not your dragon, and you don’t want to be her rider.”
Stesha wasted no time seeking me out to tell me that Isavelle was refusing the dragon who wanted to bond with her and had talked back to him yet again. He has enough to do without chasing an unmated and riderless Omega dragon all over the capital, and so on and so on.
