Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Evander
Sitting in Hera’s stall with the truth spread out in his mind like evidence on a magistrate’s desk, Evander tried to pinpoint a specific time when he should have guessed Valenna’s identity but overlooked it.
She was temperamental, but always ran at the hint of an argument.
She never, ever cried. Strange scratches and stings appeared on her arms, her explanations never convincing.
Hera dozed beside him, her right neck curled around his body. He draped his arm over her and rubbed her scale-slicked head.
“Did you know?” he whispered. “Very rude that you didn’t tell me.”
Hera huffed, blowing his hair. His head pounded, and he missed the days when he could stir a pinch of wyvern bone powder into his tea and sleep without pain. But with the powder growing thinner every day, he had to be careful. He would take some before he left for the plains.
Leaning his head against Hera, Evander wanted to jump up and run back to Valenna’s room, wrap her in his arms, cover her with kisses and tell her that he didn’t care who her parents were, or how dark her magic was, because he ached for her, wanted her and only her, every day and every night and every second in between.
And it didn’t matter that she was Cadmus’s witch child; she was also the woman who was at his bedside when he awoke in hospital, the woman who argued with the physician about his prognosis, the one who never let him miss a dose of his potion. Valenna was comfort, healing, loyalty.
But now that he knew the truth, he needed to either tell her his story or distance himself from her so she would return to Largotia, unaware how close she’d brushed heartbreak.
It was cruel to love her, crueler still to tell her so.
And even if he did throw away caution and sense and run to her, she would never take him back. He’d betrayed her.
The dracorium stirred—dragons crying out for breakfast, underkeepers shuffling through the barn. Evander glanced out the window and realized he was late for his duties.
“Not up yet?” Samara leaned over the stall door, grinning like a mischievous child.
Evander squinted at her, the light sending shards of pain from his eyes down his neck. “You should be mucking the stalls,” he said, getting up and brushing the hay off his clothes. “I need to change and pack.”
“Still not up?” a second voice asked.
Evander winced as Valenna appeared, haloed in glowing light. Fitting as it felt for her to glow, it wasn’t natural, and his stomach sank. He was going to have a raging headache on his expedition.
“We'll have to be careful out there. I hear from the traveling party that they lost the dragon in a forest on the edge of the plains, and they have gawper tubers out there,” Samara said.
“Just what I needed—” Evander groaned—“to have to dodge a carnivorous plant days before the paddocking.”
“If you come upon one, can’t you simply cut it down?” Valenna asked.
Samara looked scandalized. “Don’t you take the oath in Largotia?”
Valenna’s brows pinched. “What oath?”
Samara pushed up her sleeve and showed a tattoo of a dragon chasing its tail around her arm. “It’s a tradition in Cobblepine. We take a binding oath that we won’t harm any magical creature, no matter the risk, or suffer banishment and disgrace. If I ever break the oath, the tattoo will fade.”
“Evander has too much sense to take an oath like that …” his voice trailed off, and she whirled on him. “Wait … that’s not what the band on your arm is for, is it?”
Valenna had seen his tattoo first when he was in hospital, and several times after. A dragon trainer with a dragon tattoo was no rarity at a dracorium, so she’d never asked and he’d never explained its significance.
He grimaced.
“Vander!” she cried. “Why? You’re not even from Cobblepine!”
A wicked little grin spread over Samara’s face. “Oh, he spent a few weeks in Cobblepine when I was a child. Yes, he made himself very popular—throwing the dragons into a tizzy, upsetting the brooding females. Our governor kicked him out.”
“Did he?” Valenna said, staring coldly at Evander. “I didn’t know.”
It was as though her voice was coming through a fog bank. Evander pulled his glasses from his vest pocket and slipped them on. They didn’t help.
“We need to go,” Samara said. “Haldir is ready.”
“Haldir is coming?” Evander hadn’t been expecting this.
“What of it?” Samara demanded, her voice ringing.
“I’m sorry,” Evander said, enunciating carefully. His tongue felt heavy. “You can’t come.”
Samara’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“You’ll just get in the way. If Haldir is coming, I won’t need you.”
“But you promised …”
“It’s decided, Samara. You’re not coming.”
Samara’s eyes filled with furious tears. She turned to Valenna, as if hoping for support, but Valenna just offered a sympathetic wince. Samara inhaled sharply, like she wanted to shout, and stormed away, bumping Valenna’s shoulder as she went.
Once she was gone, Evander rested his arm on the stall door and pressed his forehead against it.
“Why are you antagonizing that child?” Valenna asked. “All the Cobblepine trainees hate you, and you’re a perfectly lovely person. You could show them more of your better nature.”
“I’m not letting her come,” Evander said without lifting his head, “because Haldir has had incidents with young underkeepers before, and I don’t want to risk it.”
“Then why does he still work here?”
“Because no one believes the underkeepers except me, and I don’t have the authority to fire him.
The last time a young female trainee came with us, I had to drug Haldir with drowserjaw so I could get some sleep without worrying about him straying into her room in the night.
By the time we returned, I was so exhausted from trying to push him in front of passing carts that I swore I’d never go on another expedition with him unless it was only the two of us.
Then I can murder him without any witnesses. ”
“You’re joking about that, I hope,” she said. “The murder part.”
“I hope so too. I’m not sure.”
Valenna considered this, then added, “Still, you could find a kinder way of putting her off.”
“I haven’t the energy to save her life kindly,” he mumbled.
“Does anyone here know about your condition?” Valenna asked.
Evander shook his head.
“Vander!” she exclaimed. “People need to know! You need to take time off when you’re like this!”
“I came here because no one knows. It would be counter-productive to tell them.”
“You can’t be riding around Allagesh in this state.”
Evander straightened, gritting his teeth. He would push through the pain, like he always did. He was stronger than this, and he would overcome it.
“I got you something,” Valenna said, holding out her hand. “So we don’t bring you back from the plains in a box.”
In her palm rested a small tin cylinder, one-third full of a creamy white substance resembling flour.
“Wyvern bone powder?” he asked. “Where did you get this?”
“I sold my soul to Roz,” she replied, handing him a tin mug. “I’ve already mixed it into your tea with cream.”
Evander’s heart fluttered. She remembered everything.
Even how he liked his tea. He took the mug and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
The floor pitched, and he feared he might pass out before the potion could take effect.
After three struggling sips, the throbbing diminished.
By the time he’d drained the cup, what had been blinding pain faded to a dull ache.
Valenna watched him as he drank, thoughtful and concerned. He didn’t like it when people worried over him—but Valenna was the exception.
His vision sharp again, he noticed that she was wearing trousers and a tailored waistcoat under a tweed jacket. “I thought you were staying a few days,” he said with a pang of disappointment.
“I’ve said so at least twice this morning.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t really hear.”
“I’m joining you on your expedition.”
Evander choked on his tea. “No, you’re not.”
“Look at you, Vander. You’re a mess. What if you collapse on the plains? I don’t trust Haldir not to leave you in a ditch. I’m honestly very worried about you.”
How was this woman, with her compulsory need to nurture, her stubborn love, her uncanny ability to tell when he was in pain, and then instinctively know how to fix it—how was she the fearsome witch that made Ashkendoric generals weep? He couldn’t reconcile it.
“Don’t be,” he said, standing and putting his glasses in his pocket. “I’m fine.”
“Well, at least Haldir can kill a vicious gawper tuber if we meet one.”
“We won’t meet one, but if we do, Haldir can’t kill it either. It’s a rule at the dracorium. If he does, he’ll lose his training stipend and can’t be dragon master.”
“Then I’m definitely coming. What if you’re set upon by some ravenous creature? Will you both sit down and let it eat you?”
Evander imagined spending three days with her, riding across the plains, eating meals, staying in the same inn.
But he tamped down his excitement. They couldn’t be together.
If he gave in to this longing, she would discover the truth, and the truth would destroy her. “I don’t like you being around Haldir.”
“Oh, Vander.” She smiled, casting him a cunning look. “Do you remember who I am?”
“It’s too dangerous,” he said lamely.
Valenna stepped closer to him, her arm looped behind her so her back arched. “Do you recall our conversation last night?”
“Yes, but …”
“I have survived battles you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.”
Evander let out a short laugh, but before she could parse it, he said, “Alright, then. Since you’re a princess, I suppose I can’t say no.”