Chapter 6 #2
“Zenevieve!” I pound after her across the dragon bridge, through the castle, and into the city streets, but the girl is swift on her feet.
There are so many people and so much mayhem that I don’t catch up to her until she reaches her home.
Zenevieve stares up at the burning wreckage with devastation etched on her face.
Looking around, she sees the body lying on the ground covered in my cloak, and she reaches to uncover it.
I snatch Zenevieve back and wrap both my arms around her. “Don’t look. You don’t want to see. It’s your father. I’m sorry.”
“Let me go! It’s not Father. It’s not.” She screams and struggles, then collapses in my arms, sobbing. “Father’s really dead? Mother too?”
“I’m so sorry, Zenevieve.” It’s all I can say, over and over.
Zenevieve is crying so hard that I can feel her heart breaking. I pick her up in my arms and carry her back to the castle, tucking her under my chin and holding her close, desperately trying to give her back some of the shelter she’s lost.
In my rooms in the castle, I sit down in a chair and hold her while she cries. It’s a long time before she opens her eyes.
Zenevieve lifts her tearstained face to mine. “Where do I go now? What do I do?”
“You’re going to live here with me. You won’t ever be alone.
” I remember my crushing loneliness after my parents died.
How no one knew or cared if I existed. I need Zenevieve to know that it’s not going to be like that for her.
“I spoke with your father before he died, and I promised him I would always take care of you.”
“Father was alive after he was burned? He was suffering?”
“He survived just long enough for him to know that you would be protected. As soon as I promised him I would take care of you, he was able to leave peacefully.”
The sun has gone, and my rooms are in darkness. The flare has just lost their Alpha, but Zenevieve needs me more right now. Nilak will watch over the flare tonight and ensure that the dragons know that they are protected.
Eventually, Zenevieve cries herself to sleep in my arms. There’s nowhere else for her to rest except my bed, and so I carry her there, and then make my own bed on the stone floor of the living room, sleeping wrapped in a spare cloak.
I wake just before dawn and see the glow of fire from the dragongrounds.
It’s Pollex’s corpse, set ablaze by the flare to release him to the sky in ashes and sparks.
I watch from the balcony as each of the dragons breathe fire over their dead Alpha, paying their respects to the dragon who died protecting them. It’s a sorrowful, moving sight.
I check on Zenevieve. She has her back to me, looking very small curled into a ball in my bed. She’s not moving, but I think she’s awake.
“Zen. Do you wish to eat something?”
She shakes her head.
“Do you wish to see Minta?”
Again she shakes her head. To not want to see her dragon, her grief must be suffocating. I gently tuck the blankets in around her and leave her to sleep.
Down at the dragongrounds, the smoke from the fire has almost cleared, and I can see right away which dragon has taken over leadership of the flare.
It’s with some misgiving and much disappointment that I see how every dragon is clustered around Scourge’s massive black body.
He stands tall and proud in the smoky morning light.
Nilak would have made an excellent choice for a leader. She might not be the biggest dragon, but she has experience. Loyalty. Intelligence.
But no one can predict the will of dragons or gods. The flare has chosen its Alpha.
For several days, Zenevieve barely speaks a word to anyone.
She stands silently as Minta, Nilak, Scourge, and many more dragons of the flare perform dragon rites on the dead Maledinni in a field just outside the city.
Fifty-four people perished in the fires, and there are many loved ones shedding tears as we watch the flare breathe fire over their shrouded bodies and send them up into the skies.
“Forever flying,” I murmur with the rest of the crowd as we watch the ash circling upward, but by my side, Zenevieve is silent.
I comfort her with a hand on her shoulder, inviting her to turn to me if she wishes. She has embraced me so exuberantly when she’s happy, but now she stands as still and cold as stone. I wish I could take her pain away from her. I wish I could make it mine.
Later that week she goes flying on Minta, but she comes back in tears.
“I thought flying might help, but even when I’m in the sky, Mother and Father feel so far away.”
“You find them in other places,” I tell her gently.
Zenevieve wipes tears from her cheeks and says nothing.
“I know how badly it hurts,” I say. “For a long time after my mother and father died, all I could feel was scared and alone. It wasn’t until Destrin took me in and showed me kindness that I started to find my mother and father all around me.
In memories. In the streets of Lenhale. In people like Destrin and Queen Magritte.
But it could be painful to discover them.
Sometimes I wished I could be numb again. In the end, I am glad I was not.”
I cup her cheek and drop a kiss onto the top of her head.
Zenevieve looks up at me. “I had forgotten you lost your parents as well. I’m sorry, Stesha.”
“It was a long time ago,” I start to say, and then breathe in sharply and take her face in both my hands. I study her closely. “Zen, your eyes.”
She frowns. “My eyes?”
Zenevieve’s hazel irises have turned the most vivid, jewel-like shade of green.
They sparkle like emeralds. The hair that falls over her shoulders is a rich, lustrous black.
I stroke my fingers through her tresses, smiling.
I’m always pleased when there are signs that a rider is bonding with their dragon, but with Zenevieve, it feels special.
That’s because Zenevieve is special, whispers a voice in the back of my mind.
I thought so even when I was a boy. I was both captivated by her and envious of her.
She had so much loving family around her, and it was obvious, at least to me, that she had an affinity for dragons.
When she suddenly left Lenhale, I was sad to see her go, even though I barely knew her.
I was glad she came back. I’m happy she stayed.
Bringing her Minta and watching them bond has been the happiest I’ve felt since Nilak chose me.
I stroke my thumbs across her cheeks, smiling. “Now you and Minta truly belong to each other, inside and out.”
“We do?” Zenevieve runs over to the mirror on the wall. She touches her face and her hair, marveling at the changes in appearance. Her eyes fill with tears, but this time her tears have a little joy in them as well as grief. “I look like Minta. I wish Mother and Father could have seen this.”
There’s the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, and then a knock on my door. With the ghost of a smile on my lips, I open the door.
My smile dies when I see who it is. A man of average height with brown hair and ruddy cheeks, and the comfortable softness of a mated man who’s never known combat.
Lambert, Zenevieve’s eldest brother. He should be hundreds of miles away in southern Maledin.
I was expecting him to reply to Zenevieve’s tearstained letter with one of his own, not turn up here in person.
“Dragonmaster Stesha. I understand that my sister is here?”
A cold feeling washes over me. I want to slam the door in Lambert’s face, but I stand back and allow him entrance.
“Lambert!” Zenevieve runs into his embrace.
“What terrible time you must have been having, my poor duckie.”
Duckie? What a ridiculous nickname for a dragonrider.
The right thing to do would be to give them space, but I stay rooted to the spot with my arms folded, an angry, ominous feeling in my chest. The fact that Lambert has come all the way to Lenhale bodes ill.
Lambert takes both her hands in his. “Zenevieve, I’ve come to take you back home with me.”
No. She’s mine. I almost snarl those words aloud, but I bite them back and say instead, “Lambert. Before he died, Alin asked me to take Zenevieve in.”
He eyes me with a wary expression. “While he was dying? I don’t believe Father was in his right mind.”
“He was.” I resist the urge to add, And how dare you question me, you lowly Beta. My teeth grind together as Lambert turns to Zenevieve.
“I’ll ask Zenevieve what she wants. Duckie, your nieces and nephews long to see you. They will love to have you home with us.”
I cast an impatient glance around the room. A promising young dragonrider forced to be a nursemaid? Has he even noticed that her hair and eyes have changed color? I’m offended from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“What about Minta?” Zenevieve asks.
“Who’s Minta?”
“Zenevieve’s dragon,” I growl.
Lambert hesitates. “The king’s dragons can’t be removed from the flare. I’m sorry, but she will have to stay here.”
“Then I will stay here.” Zenevieve comes over to me and slips her fingers into mine. I stare at our joined hands, feeling a weight lift off my heart.
When I forget to speak, Zenevieve adds uncertainly, “Stesha already said I can stay with him.” She looks hopefully to me for confirmation. “Isn’t that right?”
I squeeze her hand in mine and smile at her. “Always.”
She turns back to Lambert. “Then it’s settled. I’m going to stay with Stesha.”
“But you barely know the dragonmaster,” Lambert protests. “You need your family.”
“I have family here. Nilak knew me right away. Destrin was like a father to Stesha. Minta is my sister. I’m not leaving them.”
Lambert glares at me as if this is all my fault, and I glare right back. I don’t care if he’s her brother. I’m not letting her go. Zenevieve belongs in Lenhale.
“But I came all this way…” Lambert drops his hand and sighs. “You always were too stubborn for your own good.”