“You don’t know about the curse?” He dragged a hand through his hair, looking stunned. “Gods, you mortals are…. We don’t fight for the queen for the hell of it. If we don’t go through the Trials, if we don’t bond with a dragon, we burn.”
Whatever else the curse was, it was a fairy tale—at least for me. It would have caught me already since I was too old. “There’s no reason to think the curse applies to mortals.”
“Don’t be foolish.” He took a step forward just as my back bumped a hard wall; I hadn’t realized I was backing up from him. He put out a steadying hand, but stopped short of touching me. A wise choice. He sounded so reasonable as he said, “You have to come. There are laws.”
“There are laws?” I let out a hard, bitter laugh, surprised by his change in tactics. “It’s not thelawsforcing me to go.”
“I wouldn’t betray your secret if I had a choice.” He seemed affronted, as if I should trust him. “But I’m not going to let you burn.”
I shook my head. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll risk it.”
“You don’t get a choice,” he said, and my gaze snapped up to his, surprised by the harsh tone he took, his patience apparently breaking. His every word came out forceful, staccato, like a series of blows. “The dragons take what belongs to them, one way or another. You’re marked to shift, so you will, or you will die.”
His clothes were stained with blood and reeked of ichor, and his face was tired beneath that tousled dark hair. If there were gods, that done-with-mortals expression was pretty much what I imagined they must feel when they looked down at our world.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I disagreed.
He didn’t even acknowledge my statement, as if it were too stupid to waste breath. “There’s one choice you get to make. And that’s whether you go say goodbye to your family, or I just take you.”
“Don’t you dare.” I was furious, but there was a desperate pleading that broke through my voice too. I was powerless, and we both knew it. “You’ve cost my family enough today.”
He lookedboredby my rage. “As I said, it’s your choice. If you go with me, you can say goodbye. Pack a few things.”
“If I go to the Trials, I’ll die,” I bit out. “I’ve never trained, and I’m mortal. It seems easier to just leave my effects at home.”
“Efficient,” heagreed, deadpan.
Emotions threatened to overwhelm me. My vision was red at the edges, my hands folded into fists—fists that I knew didn’t matter. I could hit him; he’d just be annoyed at my dramatics.
I fought my feelings down. Desperately. Swallowed the hate that felt like a knife in my throat. “I hate you.”
Any connection I’d imagined between the two of us must have been purely in my imagination. I felt so stupid now. I’d wanted Fieran; I’d wanted to be one of them just as much. But in a dreamy way.
“I know,” he said, and he didn’t sound as if he cared very much at all. “But I’ll help your brother, and you’ll survive the Trials as the first dragon-marked mortal, and you might just change the kingdom.”
I went back to get the Wheelers’ horse only to find the horse a victim, guts spilled out over the cobblestones and the cart smashed. I stared at the blood that was drying in the gaps between the stones.
“Your horse?” Fieran asked.
“No.” My voice sounded distant, as if someone else was speaking. “Our neighbors use their horse and cart to take produce to the market in Bevest. They take ours, too, since we don’t have a horse. Fine thanks for them.”
Now I’d be gone, with no chance of paying them back; my family would struggle enough without my income from the pub. The garden’s leaves would gray as winter fell without Lidi’s magic.
Fieran stuck his hands into his pockets. “Are you going to be outraged if I give them a new horse and cart?”
I scoffed out a laugh before I glanced at his face. “No. Please do.”
There wasindependentand then there wasfoolish, and I didn’t intend to fall on the foolish side of the line.
“I will do that. I want to make things right,” he told me, and there was a faint mischievousness about the way he swept his arm toward the road that told me he had another scheme. “You said they’re your neighbors. So lead on.”
The bastard. I couldn’t get away from him. But I did want to make things right with the Wheelers, so I walked toward home with Fieran by my side.
“That’s their house,” I said when we came to it first, pointing at the undisturbed white cottage, with smoke curling from the chimney; it looked so peaceful, as if nothing had happened today. “Will you go settle with them?”
I’d like to be spared the shame of facing Wheeler, who had generously handed over his horse.
“I will.” He looked around meaningfully. From here, we could see my house and the gates covered in flowers; there was also the farmhouse across the street, with laundry snapping in the breeze on their clothesline between two trees. “And then your home is…”
