Chapter 24 #2
But trusting Rush Covington might turn out to be the most dangerous thing I could do. “You, sir, could do with a little less arrogance,” I said. Before he could reply, I poked my finger at him. “I know we’re not friends, but you didn’t have to act like I was some…some…charity case.”
He sighed. “We were careless. Someone saw us returning to the school. I had to come up with something, some reason I would be with you late at night. I thought my excuse was better than Luther’s.” He strode dangerously toward me, his blue eyes reckless. “Would you rather I pretend he was right?”
I groaned and pressed my hands to my face. My mind scrambled between images of Shep walking away and Rush shielding me from Myth’s sparks. “Fine. About Myth…”
“We’ll go tonight, like we planned. But we can’t make any more mistakes. No one sees us.”
“How will we leave the school without anyone seeing us?”
“I have a way.”
We fell into step on the path, but we’d soon be visible to people coming and going from the back doors of the school.
“Always mysterious,” I grumbled.
“Always prickly,” he replied.
I frowned at him, but he only smiled in return.
“You head to the lair; I’ll head this way.” He pointed up the path, his breath fogging on the air.
“Why do I have to go back down there? Myth isn’t even there. ”
“Because I’m all wet, and it’s freezing.”
“You’re the idiot who wanted to go swimming.”
“I wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere people wouldn’t overhear us.” Shaking his head, he stormed off down the path toward the lair, leaving me to walk up to school, fighting the urge to glance back at him.
As I walked toward the entrance off the solarium, a man’s voice called my name from the path below. I turned.
“Headmaster?” I said, throat tight. Trying to school my expression into curious interest was like trying to swallow a pinecone.
“Walk with me, Miss Miro.”
The headmaster fidgeted with a clock in his waist pocket as I strode up the gravel path, feet crunching loudly on the stones. My heart hammered in my chest. If he already knew who I was, that I was a bottomsider bonded to an illegal wild dragon, I was out. Just like that.
He looked up at me twice before finally speaking. “You are settling in well?”
I barely registered it as a question. “Oh, yes, sir.” I shook away thoughts of Scarlett’s insults and the rumors circulating about my birth. Rumors, I remembered, started by Rush. I’d need to get him back for that later. If there was a later.
“Good. Good,” he said, muttering as he walked with his hands clasped behind his waist. “I didn’t know Merlon had any family from Avencia.”
Reeking ash. He knew. He was about to kick me out. Right now.
I smiled, but it likely looked as forced as it felt. “We live in Treston now.”
“Right.” He nodded a bit too deeply. “I have known Merlon for a long time. He has never mentioned a niece.”
My gaze fell to my feet. Would it be better to stop lying now or try to keep this charade going? For Myth, I had to at least try. For everyone like me, who wanted to ride but was denied the right to try.
“But Merlon has told me how very skilled you are with your dragon,” he continued. “I am not one to question a dragon’s choice.”
None of you are, I said to myself. Let Myth show you, show all of you, that you’re wrong about the bonds.
That you're wrong about everything. But this was bigger than bottomsiders now, bigger than the canyon-sized gap between the godspawn and the rest of us.
This was about magic and the biggest secret ever kept.
Somehow, I knew the exclusion of bottomsiders from the ranks of dragon riders was tied to the secret of magic.
Headmaster Vaughan cleared his throat. “I am only concerned with maintaining this school’s reputation for being the best training program on the continent.”
He was telling me, to my face, that he didn’t believe our story.
I needed to warn Merlon. At least the only piece of the puzzle he’d figured out was my heritage, not Myth’s. The nobility’s beliefs about bonding were protecting my dragon, for now.
“However,” he said, leaning forward slightly.
“There are many people here who consider dragon bonds to be the reason for our society’s success and continued peace.
No longer are dragons used for warfare, thanks to the way our people can uniquely bond with them.
It is because of our riders, born of ancient gods’ blood, that the bonds are possible, and that we won every battle against those unable to bond with dragons. ”
I nodded. This semester, they’d drilled that history into us.
“But Merlon has long had unusual ideas,” he drawled, as if this were dinner table conversation.
Saints, where is he going?
After too long of a pause, he said, “I wish for you to be careful, Miss Miro. I am not going to question your presence here, given you have a bonded dragon. I will, however, caution you that this school is largely funded by the families whose children have come through these halls.”
Got it. Don’t anger the donors. I nodded again.
“I, for one, am thrilled that someone less known among the noble families of Treston is here. I find it refreshing to be surprised, every once in a while. But, I fear I am alone in that regard among my peers.” The headmaster bobbed a small bow, and I, feeling like an idiot, bobbed one right back, only to remember that women didn’t do that.
He smiled and lifted a hand toward the school.
“Well, it was pleasant speaking to you. See you at dinner tonight, which I’m pleased to say should be well attended. ”
My eyes remained wide as I marched back to the school as Headmaster Vaughan continued on toward the lair. His final words were a subtle reminder that the families he spoke of would be watching me tonight.
Rush had said that to win, I’d need to hold all the cards.
I wondered if, somehow, Vaughan knew what was at stake here.
But how could he? He might know the truth about my heritage, but the long-held beliefs about dragon bonds would prevent him from seeing the truth about Myth—as long as I could keep his flame a secret.
Either way, his words were a warning. One of my secrets was in danger of exposure.