Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Evander
The dragon’s tooth snagged on his vest, and Evander hissed through his teeth at his mistake. He wasn't himself today—distracted by a pair of pretty, dark almond eyes and waves of black hair. They were going to get him gutted if he wasn’t careful.
“Hurry,” Samara grunted. She and the five remaining Cobblepine trainees were straining to hold the dragon’s mouth open as Evander crawled inside.
“Patience,” Evander said, wedging his body between two of the dragon’s teeth and wriggling across its tongue, toward the infected molar at the back of its jaw.
He didn’t trust the Cobblepine trainees, but with all the other underkeepers already at the festival, he suspected Samara and her friends were eager enough to get out of mucking duty to jump at the opportunity to help.
Now, with half his body in and half his body out of a dreadnought’s mouth, he realized this was a foolish idea.
Five trainees remained after Lysander’s departure: Samara, the leader; Ignatius, the big one; Elspeth, the quiet one; Rosemary, the sarcastic one; and Giles, the little one.
Sometimes, Evander struggled to remember their names, so he recalled their personalities instead. This did not help his rapport.
Sweat beading on his brow, Evander clamped the pliers around the molar, inserted a small, sharp knife under the gum, and began to pry.
Blood dripped down his arms, and the dragon shook its head lethargically. With no concentration of drowserjaw sap strong enough to subdue a dragon this size, the huge creature was only partially drugged.
“Five kibs I can hold it longer than you,” Elspeth said to Ignatius.
Ignatius let out a bark of laughter. “If either of us lets go, we’ll all go home.”
Giles squeaked in terror.
“Oh, hush, Giles,” Rosemary said through her teeth. “If he gets eaten, we’ll just run down to the festival and no one will know it was our fault.”
“Rosemary,” Samara cried. “What is wrong with you?”
“That was a joke,” Ignatius called into the dragon’s mouth.
The dragon’s muscles flexed inches from Evander’s head, and then the top jaw dropped.
Evander yelled, yanking out the tooth in his alarm.
The sudden pain shocked the dragon, and she bellowed, the force of her breath blowing him out of her mouth and halfway across the paddock.
He landed in an undignified heap in the dirt, covered in blood and saliva.
“Is he dead?” Giles wailed. “We murdered our trainer! We’ll all be sent home!”
Ignatius pounced on Evander and dragged him to his feet, but Evander pulled away from him, trying to tuck in his gory shirt.
"That was an accident. I swear …" Ignatius began. Evander waved him away. Good merciful heavens, these trainees really would be the death of him.
“Rosemary,” Evander said. His voice trembled, as did his knees, his hands, his whole body. He tensed, squaring his shoulders. “Explain to me what happened.”
“You cheated us out of our first devouring, sir,” Rosemary said, stifling a laugh.
Samara gasped and looked at her friend in shock.
“Ignatius startled the dragon, sir,” Elspeth said flatly.
Evander glared at Rosemary. “Ignatius did startle the dragon.”
“But the dragon is deaf …” Giles mumbled. “So how …”
“Good question,” Evander snapped. “The answer is that your friend was so bleeding loud, the dragon felt his voice and clamped down.”
“You took too long …” Samara began.
Evander inhaled sharply and held up his hand. “If I had stayed in there for a bleeding week, it would still be your fault. Go. I don’t want to see any of you again tonight. You’re lucky I don’t send you all home with Lysander.”
Glowering, they shuffled out of the paddock.
As soon as they were out of sight, Evander doubled forward, planting his hands on his knees.
For an instant in the dragon’s mouth, he’d thought he was about to be eaten, and it shook him.
Forcing deep, even breaths, he lay on his back on the packed dirt and stared at the stars.
He had a headache before he’d entered the paddock; now, he could hardly see through the searing pain.
But as his heartbeat calmed, the throbbing settled into a rhythmic hum.
Music carried on the breeze, and Evander wondered if he had to go to the festival, or if he could find an excuse to hide in the barn. He didn’t want to see Valenna again. Not yet. And his head pounded. He’d overexerted himself today.
For a year, he’d lived under a cloud of guilt and regret, all while Valenna’s image grew sharper, more statuesque in his memory. He’d hoped seeing her in reality would upend that image. It did. She was more beautiful than he remembered.
Life was cruel like that.
“Vander? Is that you?”
And of course, Valenna was here, right now, seeing him like this.
Cruel and humiliating.
“Are you alright?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I always lie on my back in the center of the paddock at this time of day. It elongates the spine.”
“Does it? I don’t remember you doing that in Largotia.”
“Well, my spine wasn’t so wonderfully elongated in Largotia.”
“Do you need help?”
Groaning, he sat up, then struggled through the throb in his temples and gained his feet. Walking slowly so he wouldn’t stumble, he crossed the paddock, climbed over the fence, and joined Valenna. She wore a heavy cloak over her dress, buttoned to the neck.
“Good grief, Vander!” she gasped, her eyes widening. “What happened to you?”
“Oh, that.” He glanced at his bloody clothes. “Not my blood.”
“Are you sure?” She took a step toward him, scanning his body. He felt warm and tingly, and he unconsciously squared his shoulders.
“Really,” he repeated, “I just pulled a dragon’s tooth.” He pointed at the dragon stumbling along the fence, rubbing its side on the protesting posts.
“I hope you’re not planning to come to the festival like that,” she said with a mischievous smile.
Evander wasn’t listening; he was noticing the way her hair curled against her neck and remembering what it felt like to brush her dark tresses aside and kiss her there, below her ear.
“Vander?”
“What?” he asked, dragging his mind to the present. “Oh, yes. I’ll come directly.”
She cast him one last imperious glare and turned toward the festival lights dancing among the trees.
Sighing, his head in a fog, Evander strolled to the barn and unlocked the storage room he’d converted into his bedroom.
It wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but it was dry and offered enough space for his bed and a chest of drawers for his clothes.
He’d chosen it because Hera, his pet hydra, slept in the stall next door.
After scrubbing the blood from his hands and face, Evander donned a forest-green shirt and shrugged on a brown tweed waistcoat.
He never wore a formal jacket; it restricted his range of motion when he worked with the dragons, and he couldn’t abide the stiff shoulders.
He left his hair alone—it waved where it waved, and there was no point getting in its way—settled an ivy cap on his head, and rolled his sleeves to his elbows.
A tie lay at the bottom of the drawer, challenging him.
He hated ties; they made him feel like he was being strangled and reminded him of his very unpleasant years at school, where his tie had been used, more than once, to actually strangle him.
He left it and hesitated before taking his glasses from a box beside the bed.
The festival would be noisy, with uncertain light.
If he didn’t wear the glasses, the headache would keep him awake all night.
Before he left, he glanced at the tin of wyvern bone powder beside the bed. He debated taking some tonight—it had been two days since his last dose—but when he unscrewed the lid, there was only a dusting of creamy white at the bottom. He replaced the lid, slipped on his glasses, and left the barn.
A warm velvet darkness lay over the dracorium, with a breath of spring chill in the air. Lights sparkled in the trees, and the usually overwrought keepers milled about in their finest clothes, laughing too loudly, drinking too much, talking too quickly.
Garlands of flowers hung from the lamp posts, tables were strewn with glowing gold orbs, and smiling women weaved through the crowd, trays of food balanced on their hands.
Cheerful fiddle and pipe music echoed from somewhere in the trees.
Evander removed his glasses and passed his hand over his eyes.
Fiddles, especially, were like shards of glass in his temples.
A woman passed with a tray of goblets filled with fizzlewine. He took one and lifted it to his lips, but someone snatched it from his hand. Irritated, he scowled down at the thief. Valenna stood beside him, sipping his drink, her eyes sparkling over the rim of the goblet.
She wore a shimmering lilac dress overlaid with sheer smoky gray organza. The straps draped off her toned shoulders, and her hair hung in loose waves, crowned by a chain of small, white flowers.
Evander forgot his headache and gazed at her in an agony of regret. If she’d meant to make him miserable, she had succeeded.
“Are you alright, Vander?” she asked. “You look tired.”
He slipped his glasses on again and cleared his throat. “Sorry. No. Yes. I’m tired.”
“Then you shouldn’t be drinking this.” She set the drink on a table. “Do you still take wyvern bone powder?”
“Sometimes.”
She creased her brow. “Why not always?”
He didn’t reply, his attention following a pixie bug dancing overhead.
“Why not?” she persisted.
“I’m busy,” he lied.
Valenna rolled her eyes. “The physician said that they’ll keep getting worse if you don’t take the powder. He said you might bleed inside your head.”
She was right. During their happy year together in Largotia, he had tried to hide his headaches from Valenna, but since they ate all their meals side-by-side, and he didn’t like to take the potion in front of her, he began to neglect his daily dose.
When two weeks passed without a draught, the pain became so unbearable that he took the potion, but by then it was too late.
He and Valenna were training two little yearlings together, soaring in the clouds, when Evander felt a warm tickle on his neck.
He scratched it and drew back his hand, his fingers tipped with blood.
He’d pushed the dragon into a dive so steep his stomach rose. He knew what was coming, and he had to land. He was ten feet from the ground when the world went black.
He awoke a week later in hospital.
Valenna, the physician, the master dracologist—they all believed the bleeding inside his skull was the result of his fall, not the cause, and he let them believe it. How could he explain the truth? Valenna would never see him the same way. She was too pure, too innocent.
Valenna had been sitting at his bedside when he awoke, and she’d written instructions on how often to administer the wyvern bone powder to stop the bleeding, which apothecaries mixed it, and what types of tea best covered the bitter taste.
She saw to it he never missed another dose.
Now, as the powder in the tin grew thinner every day and the pain fluctuated from a dull ache to blinding, he took the potion twice a week. Something deep inside told him that he deserved the headaches. It was his punishment for leaving her. Now he got to suffer, and the suffering felt right.
“Vander?” Valenna hissed.
“Have you met Haldir yet?” Evander asked abruptly.
“I hope to meet him tonight.”
“Excellent. I look forward to that.”
A low snort caught Valenna’s attention, and she glanced over her shoulder. Evander’s three-headed hydra lumbered down the path, her right head trying to snatch a branch as her middle head led them. Her left head was asleep, its long neck curled, and its jaw resting on her shoulders.
“Is that Hera?” Valenna asked.
The hydra reached them, her middle head sniffing Evander all over like a dog whose master has just returned from work. The right head tore out a mouthful of hickory leaves and chewed contentedly, its eyelids drooping.
Hera was twice the size of a draft horse.
Evander’s head reached her shoulder, and her three long necks stretched into the tree branches, doubling her height.
Her center head was larger than the other two, with a square, craggy brow, and a wide mouth lined with jutting razor fangs designed for holding writhing prey in place while the smaller, smoother heads tore flesh from bone with their sharp, conical teeth.
She had webbed feet and a thick, trailing tail, at the end of which glistened a spike as long as Evander’s forearm and sharp as a cut diamond. Her gray-blue scales resembled those of a snake; small and tightly fitted like glistening skin.
As she stood with her yellow eyes half closed and her jaws shifting sideways as she munched, Hera looked more like a big scaly cow than the legendary symbol of Ashkendor.
Evander petted the hulking monstrosity, his face soft with love and pride. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
“That’s not the word that came to mind, but she’s certainly impressive,” Valenna replied.
Hera curled her head around Evander’s shoulders, nuzzling his cheek and knocking his glasses crooked on his nose. He caught Valenna smothering a smile.
“She’s grown so gentle,” he said.
“Last I saw her, she was no bigger than a pony.”
The right head stretched lazily toward Valenna, saliva dripping off her chin. Unimpressed, Hera thrust her nose between Evander’s shoulders, hoping for a treat.
Valenna crossed her arms and gave him a heart-melting look of disapproval. Evander felt weak in the knees. “That thing is going to eat you someday,” she said.
“Hera?” Evander asked, stumbling as Hera bumped him. “Never. If she does, I deserve it. Hydra don’t attack humans unless they feel threatened.”
“Does she fly?”
Evander quirked an eyebrow at her. “Of course not. She’s aquatic.”
“She has wings.”
“For swimming.”
Hera curled her neck around his body, scratching her head on his chest.
“Ach, you’ll get me dirty. To bed now. Go!”
Hera regarded him with puppy dog love.
“Go on!”
Irritated, she huffed and swept the legs out from under a table with her tail, nearly impaling a waiter on her spike.
Evander shook his head, smiling faintly. “I’d best take her back to the barn. I’ll join in a moment.”
Valenna shrugged and strolled away. He watched her, following the graceful lines of her body until she disappeared into the crowd. Evander swore at himself.