Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Valenna
Willing herself not to watch Evander as he wended his way through the rollicking crowd, Velanna turned her attention to Thomasina, who rose from the table and walked to a small platform in the center of the grounds.
Haldir, smug with victory, stood, offered Valenna an exaggerated bow, and left.
“Attention, everyone,” Thomasina cried. “We are gathered this evening to send off our wonderful trainees from Cobblepine!”
The crowd cheered, and everyone raised their glasses.
“Tomorrow, their countrymen will arrive with the new yearlings and take our friends home until next autumn, when we will welcome a new group of trainees. It’s been an honor, as always, to have them and watch them grow in their knowledge of Dracology!”
Another cheer.
“Of course,” Thomasina continued, “none of this would be possible without the help of our head training officer, Evander Trevelyan!”
A somewhat flat applause followed, bereft of cheering.
Valenna clapped a little too hard, glancing around in annoyance.
They didn’t know what a privilege it was to train under Evander.
Maybe he was sometimes blunt and exacting, but he knew more about dragons than any of them would learn in a decade anywhere else, and he was quite literally risking his life to teach them.
Thomasina went on to praise the trainees, Cobblepine, the queen, and a lot of other fluff.
Valenna couldn’t focus. Evander wasn’t himself.
He was reckless and grim. His pupils were odd.
Her appetite gone, Valenna stood and pushed through the onlookers, making for the barn.
She caught up to Evander as he passed through a quiet copse of trees, away from the festival.
He’d stopped to lean against a sturdy elm.
She approached timidly. “Vander …”
He looked up.
“Is Haldir serious?” she asked, holding up her long skirt as she picked her way over a tangle of roots. “Would he really sell Hera?”
Evander shook his head like he was shaking away the headache. “He’s right about the money. If he’s dragon master, he can do what he likes with her.”
With a growl of frustration, Valenna crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don’t know what to do.”
“It seems fairly obvious to me …”
“Stop it. I’m trying to be objective.”
“Good,” he said. “Then be objective.”
The music from the festival rippled across the grounds, the violins braiding into a melancholy waltz. Evander held his hand out to her. “Dance with me.”
“I’m not a good dancer,” Valenna replied.
He smiled softly. “I remember.”
With a sigh, Valenna took his hand, and he looped his arm around her waist, then fell into step with the music. She stepped on his foot, and he chuckled.
“You never would just follow me.”
She relaxed and leaned into him as he wheeled her slowly over the uneven ground.
“Do me one favor before you go,” he said in his smooth, low voice. It sent a thrill up her spine, and she tried not to look into his face, but he drew her eyes to his as if by some terrible magic.
Such a small thing, but it nearly felled her.
“Make me the happiest man in the world …”
Her pulse raced.
“… and tell me you hate me.”
Valenna started. “What?”
“I wouldn’t feel so …” his voice trailed. “I would feel better.”
She let out a short laugh. “Tell me why you left me first.”
His face tightened with painful yearning. “It had nothing to do with you. You were perfect … you are perfect. But I want you to be happy, and I cannot make you happy.”
“That’s not fair.” Now she was forcing his eyes to look into hers. Now she was drawing him in with her pain and disappointment and longing. “You don’t get to choose that for me.”
Their faces were so close, her breath mingling with his. She wondered if he was going to kiss her, and she ached for him to, knowing that, if he did, she would not resist.
What was wrong with her? She couldn’t be here, with him, falling again like a fool. She had a kingdom to topple; Evander was a distraction.
She lurched away, stepping out of the dance and out of his arms. “I do not hate you,” she said, her voice trembling. “I think about you every day.”
Evander inhaled sharply, like she’d struck him.
“But,” she continued. He winced, as though she’d touched a wound with salt. “You left. You’re here now, I’m in Largotia. The threads are broken, and they cannot be retied.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Gently, Valenna lay her hand on his arm. “But, for the sake of what we had in the past, I can’t make you dragon master. You shouldn’t be working with dragons at all, especially when you’re not following the physician’s orders.”
Evander pulled his arm away. “The physician was being over-cautious.”
“He was not. I was there. He was not.”
“It is my life’s ambition to be dragon master,” Evander said. “You know that.”
“I can’t do it. You’ll be killed, and it’ll be my fault.”
“How would it be your fault?”
“Because I appointed you to the position when I know—I know that eventually you’re going to overtax yourself, or take a blow to the head, or collapse two hundred feet in the air!”
“I won’t. I’m very good at my job.”
Valenna’s magic burned behind her ribs, and thorns crawled slowly over the ground, twining in her skirt. She tried to will them away, but they persisted. Evander didn’t seem to notice.
“The last dragon master,” she said with deliberate calm, “was eaten, Evander. And he died. Now you want to take his place?”
“The last two,” Evander corrected.
She threw her hands up in frustration.
With a dismissive shrug, Evander leaned against a tree and slid his hands into his pockets. “Reginald was a drunk. He wasn’t good at his job, and it was only a matter of time before he got eaten.”
“You think it’ll be different for you?”
“I know it will.”
“I’m serious,” she continued. “You’re not qualified. You have a physical impairment.”
Evander pushed away from the tree and turned toward the barn.
“Evander!” she called after him. “Please! Listen to me.”
He whipped around and tore off his glasses. “It’s either me or Haldir, and you can see that Haldir’s a fool.”
“Better than someone who could drop dead any second.”
Evander inhaled like he was about to shout. She held her breath, waiting for it, almost hoping for it. He was always so placid, so controlled; sometimes she wished he would shout at her. Fight with her. Tell her he left because he knew she was lying to him, and he hated her dishonesty.
He clenched his teeth and rolled his head back like her argument was a crick in his neck. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with quiet anger. “If Haldir is dragon master, then I’ll answer to him. Every day. Do you imagine that will be particularly safe?”
Shame washed over Valenna, and her furious magic clawed at her ribs and curled around her, snaking venomous vines up the trees.
In the darkness, Evander didn’t see them, but she needed to escape this conversation and get away from him before he did.
He stepped closer, hooking his finger under her chin and raising her face.
She felt overwarm and achy. His chest was so near hers, she could feel the brush of his shirt when he breathed.
“I’m not afraid of death,” he said.
“If you knew death,” Valenna said softly, “you would fear it more.”
“I know her,” he replied.
Valenna started, and her gaze snapped to his, searching.
Evander leaned down and kissed her neck below her ear. It sent a thrill through her body, but before she could react, he stepped back and walked down to the barn.
Why had he said “I know her” when he spoke of death?
In Allagesh, where death came quietly in the night when one was old and ready, people never saw Raska—the old crow who brought the dead to Marwenna—and if they told tales of her, they falsely referred to her as “Roz” and used male pronouns.
Only in Sennalaith and Ashkendor, where Raska was a presence on the battlefield, roaming the carnage, picking through the bones of shattered soldiers, did people know death to be female. How could Evander know this?
A buzzing interrupted her melancholy thoughts, and an indignant messenger sprite bounced off her shoulder, chirping, “Missive! Missive!”
“Yes, what is it?” Valenna asked tersely.
“The master dracologist requires an update.”
Valenna’s mind whirred. She needed to just do it.
Make Evander the dragon master and return to Largotia before he broke her heart again.
She needed to focus on strengthening her magic, sharpening her rage, finding her sister, not agonizing over an old flame who was too stubborn to take care of himself.
“Tell her I need a few more days to decide.”