However, Reeve was the only person in Renard Hall who didn’t bow to her when he saw her coming. And though his presence here was becausehewas the one skilled at research, only one dayinto what felt like exile had Faron dangerously close to smashing one of the walls of the house just to have something to do.
“Find anything interesting?” she asked. Reeve was curled up in the same armchair with a giant tome in his lap and a lukewarm cup of peppermint tea at his feet. “Or even anything helpful?”
Reeve made a curious sound, slowly dragging his eyes away from the page. “What?”
“I’m bored.”
“Of course you are.” Reeve debated with himself for a moment before waving her closer. “It depends on your definition of ‘interesting’ but come and look at this.”
Faron had been hoping to lure him from the library to entertain her, if anything, but she reluctantly did as she was told. The library was such an oppressive space, and books were so dry and boring. Her restlessness increased to a physical itch across her skin, begging her to go back outside and find something todo.
But she didn’t leave.
Reeve’s book was still open in his lap. She saw stylized pictures of dragons and shadows, of flames and blood. One page was half-covered by a paper and pen. Reeve had filled most of the paper with notes that she couldn’t read even though they were written in patois. His spelling left a lot to be desired.
“This is one of the only books I’ve found so far about the first dragon Rider,” Reeve said, turning back to the beginning of what she assumed was the chapter. “Sort of. It’s a version of the Langlish legend about the Gray Saint, but almost everything you told me lines up with it.”
He lifted the book so that Faron could examine the gilded portrait of a man who was wearing an iron helmet that obscured hisface and holding a golden sword above him. The open maw of a dragon waited above, poised to descend over his head. Flames rose on either side of the mountain he stood on, but there was no hint of tension in his shoulders to suggest fear. Of course, it was just an illustration of an event that likely hadn’t happened, but Faron still found it oddly inspiring. Humans had been overcoming dragons for centuries, in one way or another.
“‘The First Dragon crawled free from the tip of a volcano long thought to be dormant,’” Reeve read. “‘The people were scared, but the Gray Saint wasn’t. With nothing but a golden sword and his own courage, he went to face the dragon to save his people.’”
Faron snorted. The words, she noticed, were written in Langlish, which at least explained the glowing terms they used to describe this Gray Saint. They worshipped him the way they worshipped their dragons, but this was her first time hearing that title.
“‘Everyone thought he would die for his arrogance. A few people thought maybe he would manage to slay the beast. But instead, he returned home riding on the dragon’s back as if he were a winged horse. Somehow, some way, he had not only tamed the dragon but befriended him. Through him, the dragon learned speech and empathy. Through the dragon, he learned strength and magic. And the Gray Saint and the First Dragon—now considered the original Langlish deities—passed the knowledge of bonding down to their people, so that every dragon that crawled free of their realm of fire and ash would have a Rider to protect it.’”
Reeve turned the page to another picture, which featured the same dragon and man from the previous page being swallowed by shadows. “But the Gray Saint and his mount were lost to history. No one knows quite what happened, but afterward every dragonbegan to choose two Riders instead of one. This book claims it’s so they could share the burden of the loss of their dragon together.”
Faron yawned, drawing it out even more when Reeve glared at her. “So what’s interesting about that?”
“What’sinterestingis that your gods were right. The Gray Saint is the closest thing we have to a supreme being, venerated as the one who taught us to bond with dragons. It doesn’t say anything about him opening any doors and freeing the First Dragon in the first place, admittedly, but if the Gray Saint and your voicearethe same person then there are more books we can—” She yawned again. Reeve ran a hand over his face. “Never mind.”
He returned to scribbling on his paper, his shoulders hunched in a way that suggested he wanted her to leave. Faron, of course, now wanted to spend all day in the library if it was going to bother him this much. The entire time he’d been talking—and even now, when he was adamantly ignoring her—she hadn’t felt as if she were going to crawl out of her skin. Her issues with the gods, her inability to help her sister with all the power at her fingertips, seemed distant compared to her issues with Reeve. At least the latter was something that she could handle.
Faron sat on the floor next to his armchair and leaned her head against the wood. “You hate me, don’t you?”
“What?” The scratch of Reeve’s pen against the paper was loud in the hush of the library. “I don’thateyou. I just don’t like you sometimes.”
“Right.” Faron rolled her eyes. “Well, I know why I don’t likeyou, but why don’tyoulike me?”
He had a point, though. A few days ago, she would have been able to list a handful of reasons for why the sight of him made herfurious. He was the face of the enemy, no matter which enemy she was rankled by that day. His blue eyes and pale skin marked him as of Langlish descent. His sharp jaw and the reddish tint to his dark brown hair marked him as a Warwick. And the dragon’s-eye relic lying dormant beneath his shirts reminded her of the war beasts she’d fought. It had been impossible for her to separate him from the worst days of her life, and she hadn’t trusted him at all.
Until she’d seen him talk to the father who wanted him dead just to protect her sister.
Now she didn’t hate him. Not anymore. But she didn’t like him, either. She could work with him, for Elara’s sake, but she didn’t have to like him.
Reeve closed his book. “Why do you care what I think of you?”
“Idon’tcare. I’m just bored.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were trying to ward off an incoming headache.
“I think,” Reeve said, each word pointed and deliberate, “that you can be selfish and self-centered. I think that as much as you complain about being the Childe Empyrean, it’s deluded you into thinking that everything revolves around you. Elara’s in trouble, and you can’t even open a book to help her. You haven’t been to the temple to talk to the gods since yesterday. Faron, you’re sitting on the floor, talking about howboredyou are, instead of finding something useful to do when yoursisteris indanger.”
Faron shot to her feet. It felt as if he’d punched her in the chest, and ithurt, and she wanted to hurt him so badly, it was like an animal instinct. “And reading myself into a coma, staying up until I’m incoherent, is supposed to help her? Don’t act as if you’re not clinging to your books because it’s the only thing you know howto do, whether it’susefulor not. What use is a mind with no relevant information?”
“At least I’mtrying,” said Reeve, and now he was on his feet, as well, his book abandoned on the seat cushion. “All I ever do is try, and all you ever do is judge, as if you could do better—”
“You’re calling me judgmental when you’re always looking down your nose at me, treating me like I’m inferior—”
