Traitor (12 page)

There were tears in the corners of her beautiful green eyes as she looked up at me again. Her lip was trembling as she spoke. “So do I, Jae. I can’t lose you. I should have listened to Mom. I should never have fallen in love with a dragonrider.”

“That’s not fair.” I wiped away one of the tears that was sliding down her cheek. “You became one, too. I’d call that a double standard.”

I managed to solicit a weak smile from her. “It doesn’t count if I’m not official.”

“Oh it definitely counts.” I laughed and tugged on her cheek playfully. “Besides, now you know how I feel every time I see you flying off without me.”

We both became quiet as we stood in the dark, with nothing but the sound of the wind howling outside the tower to fill the silence. I let my forehead rest against hers. She always made me feel braver than I knew I was. Her strength gave me strength. I prayed I made her feel the same way.

Because we were both going to need it.

I couldn’t sleep once I got back to my room. Everything was pitch black. Jace was sound asleep in his bed. Except for him stirring and wheezing every now and then, everything was completely silent. But my mind was restless with the possibility that my suspicions were correct. Was the god stone really the cause of this war? Was it so important to the gray elves that they were willing to risk all out war for two decades just to get it back? I didn’t see how it could possibly be worth all that trouble. There were just too many unanswered questions.

It took forever for me to finally drift off. And when I did, I only got a few short hours of sleep before it was time to get up and start working again. We all had to work extra hard to carry the load of Gold Squadron while they were away. That meant longer shifts for everyone, and even some different jobs just to pick up the slack.

Jace and I wound up working a second shift mucking out dragon stalls, which is gross anyway but even worse when you’re cooped up in a tiny room with not much ventilation. We worked all day, taking breaks only long enough to grab a gulp of water or a bite to eat. There wasn’t even much time to talk, not that anyone seemed to feel much like talking. The atmosphere was still just as tense as it had been when Gold Squadron departed. It was like we were all holding our breath and straining to listen in case the battle horn sounded again.

Two days later, at the end of yet another long workday, the tension had begun to ease off a little. Everyone in Emerald Flight was settling down at one of the long tables in the dining hall. Strong ale and hot food always got the men talking, so I settled in to listen and enjoy my meal. Sitting between Felix and Jace, I had a front row seat to the antics of my comrades. Fortunately, tonight I wasn’t the focus of their abuse.

One of the riders was busy teasing Felix mercilessly. I guess him being the newest between the two of us made him the target of choice. “So Long-Hair-And-Pointy-Ears tells us you’re a duke already. The duke of Farrow Estate, no less! A bit young for that, eh? Can you even lace your boots up by yourself?”

“Isn’t that what servants are for?” Felix just laughed, like he was taking it all in stride. That’s how he handled all their teasing—even when the subject was about how similar he and Prax looked. He just sloughed it off like it was nonsense.

It was a good thing, too, because that was becoming one of their favorite topics to taunt him over.

“I hear your lovely mother had quite an eye for dragonriders back in the day,” another rider chimed in. He was one of the younger lieutenants who had graduated only a year or two ahead of me.

That was a step over the line. We all knew it. It was one thing to compare them or tease them about having the same awful taste in liquor, and a completely different thing to bring a guy’s mother into it.

Those of us who could get away with it snuck him a punishing glare for even going there. He flinched and cursed, so someone must have kicked him under the table. I wished I were sitting closer so I could have kicked him, too.

Now it was a salvage mission. Everyone tried to keep laughing, but it was painful and obviously forced. We were all sitting stiffly, bracing for what had the potential to be explosive, unpleasant, and maybe even deadly.

Felix just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that one before. Jace beat you to it last year.”

“Bah! Jace isn’t old enough to remember it.” Prax’s booming voice was so loud it filled the whole dining hall. “Those were grander days, when the war had just begun. And I was a much younger, much better looking man.”

“It’s hard to imagine you ever being good looking,” Jace sneered, carefully trying to steer the subject away from Felix’s mother.

It worked, thank the gods. Prax started trying to defend his masculine beauty, whatever that was, and Jace baited him on. I let out a breath of relief and glanced sideways at Felix, who still looked blissfully unaware of what we all suspected was more than just a long string of bad jokes at his expense. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed just how much he and Prax favored one another. Maybe he really was brain damaged.

Despite Jace’s repeated warnings that I should keep my nose out of it, I wondered once again if I should tell him. On the one hand, Jace was absolutely right—it wasn’t any of my business. But then again, Felix was my best friend. Not telling him felt cruel somehow, almost as though I were betraying him.

I was at war with myself over it by the time we finished dinner and retired to our rooms. Since my life had fallen back into a comfortable, fairly predictable routine, I could move around and function without giving it much thought. Jace noticed I was distracted, though, and he called me on it while I was packing up a few things to take to the washroom.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said as he planted himself firmly in front of the door. “You need to let it go. A man’s personal life is his own business. Felix is more than capable of handling this without anyone else meddling in it.”

I frowned. “How did you know I was—?”

“Because you’ve had that same stupid scowl on your face this whole time,” he interrupted.

I didn’t like being chastened like I was still some sort of kid, especially not when it came to stupid scowls. Jace had no room to talk. “Well, you would know, I guess. I’m supposed to be partnered with you until death and I still don’t know anything about you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jace snapped. “Whatever or whoever I was before this is irrelevant.”

“It’s relevant to me,” I snapped back just as fiercely. “This isn’t just a job for me. It’s not just a payday, and I’m not here to be a tourist. Being this—becoming a dragonrider—is all that saved me from ending up in a mountain of charred corpses in some prison camp. I don’t expect you to understand that at all. But it does matter to me who I’m partnered with. The heart of the man standing next to me in battle always matters.”

When he didn’t retort, I picked up my stuff and stormed past him toward the door. I was muttering under my breath, wondering out loud why he had even chosen me to be his wing end in the first place. Just because I could do a few nifty magic tricks? So what. Big deal. My power had barely been enough to get us through the battle scenario. I doubted it would do much for me in a real battle.

Jace grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip to stop me before I could get out of the room. His eyes met mine, and there was an eerie stillness in his gaze. “I do understand that. We have a lot more in common than you realize. But unlike you, I choose not to wear it on my sleeve. Some things are better left in the past.”

I didn’t know how to take that. At least, not at first. But the words came to me suddenly, and I felt bolder in that moment. “There’s a difference, between wearing it on my sleeve … and not being ashamed of it.”

He let me go, and we stared each other down in silence. I could never tell what he was thinking. His gaze was as unreadable as the stars in daylight. But whoever he was, or whatever he had been before he became a dragonrider, he was apparently determined never to let that history surface. He’d buried it deep. I just wondered if he had done it out of necessity, or out of shame.

Once we had both settled in for the night and the tower had gotten quiet again, I found myself toying with my necklace as I lay awake. I started thinking about things I hadn’t in a long time—like the paludix turtle and how the gray elves had treated us after we had helped set them free. They had been kind enough to share their food, though I suspected that was only because we had stuck our necks out to save them from the slavers.

That had been my last face-to-face encounter with my mother’s people. It had been years ago, and yet the memories were still fresh in my mind. I remembered the way that young gray elf man, Kiran, had looked at my necklace. He’d acted like he recognized it, though I couldn’t imagine why. In all my years living with my mother in the gray elf ghetto, I had never seen anyone else wearing one before. To my recollection, my mother hadn’t even worn it. That’s why I’d never thought much of it in the first place. If it had been truly precious to her, wouldn’t she have worn it herself?

I was so caught up in my thoughts and memories that the sudden blare of a horn made me bolt upright. Across the room, Jace did the same. Through the darkness, we exchanged a meaningful look.

It was the battle horn blaring again.

I wish I could say that I was cool, calm, and collected as I gathered my armor and dressed for my first battle. But I wasn’t. My heart felt as though it had quit beating. I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking. Cold sweat poured down my back as I quickly dressed in the layers of weatherproofed padding. I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering as I buckled on each piece of my armor. I’d done this a thousand times or more, and yet now it was a struggle just to remember which piece went where.

When I thought Jace wasn’t looking, I checked to make sure Beckah’s good luck token was still in its usual place tucked under one of my vambraces. I always kept it with me now. Seeing it gave me courage. It was just a handkerchief—one she had embroidered with a blue and black dragon—but it meant the world to me. Especially right then.

I went to grab my helmet, but my hands were still trembling so badly that I dropped it. It went clanging across the room and I cursed out loud. The noise must have alerted Jace to what a wreck I was because he turned around and examined me up and down. Without saying a word, he walked over and began adjusting the straps to my shoulder pauldrons.

“T-thanks,” I stammered.

He made a disapproving sound and gruffly lifted one of my arms up to check the buckles on each side of my breastplate before he was satisfied. Then he picked up my helmet from where it had rolled partway under the bed.

“Stop thinking,” he said as he handed it back to me. “You’ll make yourself sick and now is not the time. Follow your training first. And if that doesn’t work, follow your instincts. Every ounce of sweat you spilt in the academy was in preparation for this moment.”

I took a deep breath to steady myself and nodded.

“You’re a dragonrider. And we are called to be bold when no one else dares to be.” Jace took a step back to pick up his weapons from where they always hung off the footboard of his bed. He carried a pair of short swords in a cross-shaped dual sheath that buckled onto his back.

I fastened my own weapon to my hip, letting my fingers graze over the pommel of the scimitar for a moment. Jace was right, as usual. Now wasn’t the time to start losing it. I had to pull myself together. I had a job to do.

We started for the door. But before we could leave, Jace paused. He turned to me with a strange expression. “You want to know something about me?”

I was too shocked to respond right away.

“My last wing end died because of me. I assumed he could keep up. I took a bid with him based only on what everyone else had told me about what he was capable of. They said he was fast enough. They said he could handle flying point. When he died, I vowed never to make that mistake again. I vowed that my next wing end would be someone I knew could match me in every way. It would be someone I had personally scouted and trained with. There would be no room for doubt about his ability. I wouldn’t leave anything to chance, and I wouldn’t take anyone’s word for it—not like last time.” His gaze was fierce, almost like he was thinking about punching me. But maybe that was just because talking about himself, his past, and his feelings made him really uncomfortable. “So now I live with the knowledge that his death was my fault. I have to carry that to my grave.”