Chapter 18 Valenna
Chapter eighteen
Valenna
Spring swept over Silvanlight like a pastel tidal wave, heavy with blossoms. The Royal cherries burst into bloom, their cloudy purple boughs snowing petals on the dracorium as it anxiously waited to hear who the next dragon master would be.
In her little attic room, Valenna fumbled with the pearl buttons on the front of her lavender muslin dress. Her fingers were clumsy today, her stomach burning like she’d eaten a hot pepper. She lost patience and traded the dress for a pink cotton frock with a sash and no buttons.
She tried three times to pin up her hair, but the locks slipped loose or bunched in odd places. Finally, with a cry of frustration, she swept the box of pins off the vanity, sending them scattering across the floor.
A sprite zipped through the open window and alighted on the desk.
Sprites came in all sizes, some, like this one, tiny as a hummingbird, some nearly as tall as a grown man.
All of them possessed strange faerie magic and could travel through the three kingdoms via faerie stones.
Because of this, they ran a lucrative postal service.
The sprite wrinkled her nose at the mess of hairpins and then at Valenna. “The head dracologist demands an answer,” she said.
Valenna straightened, smoothing out her dress.
In the night and day since they’d returned from the plains, Valenna had wrestled with fear and sense and honesty.
Evander insisted she keep her word to Haldir and make him dragon master, but Haldir stormed around the dracorium with murder in his eyes, and she knew if she left Evander to his mercy, he wouldn’t miss the chance to enact revenge.
“Evander Trevelyan will be the next dragon master.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Valenna felt lighter.
So she’d be sent home and would have to face her father? She was a grown woman now. She’d simply tell him, “I will not be your weapon of darkness.” Then she would jam a poisonous ire iris down his throat. Let his bloody caladrius bird try to save him from that.
Valenna sank into the chair and covered her face with her hands.
Ever since she’d spent a night safe in Evander’s arms, listening to his heart drumming close to her ear, her consecrated wrath toward her father seemed less like a holy war and more like a deformed dragon pup—beautiful only to its mother.
Evander inspired a gentleness in her that she’d never had in Sennalaith, and she’d begun to lose it since he left Largotia. When she was with him, she softened like an over-starched dress doused in clean water.
A second sprite darted through the window and whizzed to the desk, landing beside the first one and offering his compatriot a polite, businesslike nod. “The dracologist in Largotia sends word that Haldir Bournemuth is to be the new dragon master,” he announced.
“She just told me it was someone else,” the first sprite squeaked.
“I’m only carrying the messages,” replied the second messenger, holding up his little hands defensively.
They both looked inquisitively at Valenna.
Valenna's stomach twisted. “I said it would be Evander Trevelyan."
“There is only one application. The second one was rescinded.”
Valenna slammed her hand on the vanity, accidentally jarring the sprites off their feet. Seething, she stood and ran out the door, ignoring the angry prattling aimed at her back.
The spring festival crowded the grounds. It was the one day of the year the villagers were allowed to see the dragons up close as they prepared for the thrilling festival culmination: the paddocking.
Every spring, Cobblepine brought new yearlings from the sanctuary to be trained, and the trained dragons—usually three or four years old—were sent to Sennalaith.
The paddocking was absurdly dangerous—the big land dragons with their short legs and clubbed tails had to be brought into the open paddocks and muzzled; the little jewel-bright fighter dragons needed their wings clipped.
The Cobblepine trainees assisted, as a final test and an opportunity to show off their new skills to their countrymen.
Someone was injured every year, occasionally maimed, and sometimes killed, though Evander’s meticulously planned and executed paddocking last spring had been uneventful, earning him surprisingly low popularity with the villagers.
After fighting through the crowd to search the barn and the paddocks, Valenna found Evander in the giant metal aviary deep in the woods.
Hera stood in a ray of sunlight, chewing her cud like a goat, while Evander lay under her soft belly, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his cap pushed back on his tousled hair.
He was rubbing an oily substance into the hydra’s skin with a flowered kitchen towel.
“I looked for you in the barn,” she said.
“I wanted to get Hera away from the crowds.”
“What are you doing under there?” Valenna demanded.
The hydra’s heads turned toward her, bobbing like curious baby birds.
“Giving Hera her weekly oiling,” Evander replied, as though it were obvious.
“And what if she decides her feet are tired and plops down on top of you?”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I’d get a great deal wider from side to side.”
“And a normal, sane person would be afraid of that.”
“I'm afraid,” he said. “Afraid that Hera's skin will dry out and I’ll have a furious, itchy hydra on my hands. Honestly, I’d rather be crushed.”
Valenna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Are you aware that sometimes you give me a headache?”
“Mhm,” he hummed.
“I want you to send a sprite to the master dracologist and tell her you’ve changed your mind!”
“Changed my mind about what?” he asked with infuriating innocence.
“Stop playing dumb, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Do I?”
“I was going to make you dragon master, despite Haldir and his blasted ultimatum. I was going to live with the consequences.”
“No need to do that, Val,” Evander said, dipping the rag in a tub of salve. “I’ve decided I don’t want to be dragon master.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’ve always wanted to be dragon master.”
“Haldir will be a fine leader. Have you seen him? Already drunk, and it’s ten in the morning.”
“Just tell Thomasina about the tuber,” Valenna urged.
The tub of salve slipped from Evander’s hands, and Hera shied like a startled mare, one of her feet nearly crushing his head.
Valenna’s heart jumped into her throat. “Get out of there!” she cried. “I can’t think when you’re down there.”
He ignored her and rolled onto his stomach, inspecting the foot that almost trampled him. He drew a file from his pocket and began filing Hera’s long talons.
“You’re doing that annoying thing where you pay more attention to animals than you pay to me,” Valenna said flatly.
Evander glanced at her over his glasses. “Yes, because if you step on me, you won’t turn my bones to dust.”
Valenna rubbed her temples. “Evander, listen. I’m a grown woman; I can take care of myself.”
“And I’m a grown man. I can take care of the people I ... lo … care about.” His hand slipped on Hera’s foot, and his color rose. He’d come very near to saying ‘love’, and she’d noticed him falter.
The dragons perched in the trees and hanging from the aviary walls grunted and squawked, and Valenna turned to see what had upset them.
Haldir was staggering through the netted aviary door, tripping on the shrubbery scattered around the enclosure. When he reached them, he leaned against a tree.
“I hear you did the smart thing,” he panted, his beautiful, cruel face smug.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Evander said placidly without looking up.
“You pulled your application,” Haldir said, rubbing his swollen nose. “Which means you are speaking to the new dragon master.”
Evander frowned. “You do realize the last two were eaten?”
Haldir slid off the tree, stumbled, and leaned against it again, trying and failing to appear sober.
“You’ll make an excellent lunch for Hera,” Evander said dryly. “She likes meaty prey.”
“It won’t last once the Cobblepinions hear you broke the oath and refuse to trade with you,” Valenna said.
Haldir leaned close to her, his breath rank with ale.
“They won’t hear about it, because you don’t want to end up back in Sennalaith, do you?
Why? What did you do to send you on the run?
” He hiccupped in her face, then reeled around.
“I saw Cadmus’s order,” he said, affecting a deeper voice. “Prepare the hydra for the paddocking.”
“What?” Evander cried, sliding out from under Hera and jumping to his feet. She shied again, and he barely managed to hop over her sweeping tail.
“You heard me, Trevelyan. Cadmus wants the hydra, and we’ll have to put a muzzle on all three heads. It’ll be quite the show for the village. Won’t I be popular?”
“Hera isn’t for sale,” Evander said. “She’s mine, and even if she wasn’t, hydra are too shy for combat. She’ll panic. She’ll attack her own side.”
“I don’t care what happens when she’s on the battlefield. I care about Cadmus’s money. That”—he stabbed a finger at Evander—“is how to run a dracorium.”
“Hera,” Evander gritted, “belongs to me.”
Haldir smiled. “Not anymore.”
“Be reasonable, Haldir,” Valenna said. “If she’s frightened at the paddocking, she could attack her own keepers. She could attack bystanders. She’s only this gentle because she trusts Evander.”
Pretending he didn’t hear her, Haldir spoke over her head to Evander. “Make sure your overfed elephant is ready tomorrow.”
He staggered out of the aviary and left Valenna and Evander in stunned silence. Evander stood rigid, a muscle in his jaw ticking, his hands clenched at his sides. Then he bent down and began to gather his tools.
Speechless, Valenna watched as he stuffed the towel, the salve, and the file into a leather satchel.