“Just for tonight, can we forget about everything?” she asked.
“Just for tonight.”
She wilted into his arms, and he pulled her close, laying his hand on the side of her head. She curled against his bare chest. Drawing her with him, he leaned against the wall and rubbed circles on her back. Valenna began to shiver.
“It’s alright,” he whispered into her hair. “We’re both alright. We’re both safe.”
“I can’t make that man dragon master,” she said, her voice shaky. “He’ll get you killed.”
“Oh, Haldir’s such a fool, he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get himself eaten the first day on the job.”
She turned her face into his chest, and he felt her hot breath against his skin. “This is a nightmare.”
“Hush,” he said. “Try to sleep.”
Valenna slid sideways and nestled under his arm, her long eyelashes soft against her cheeks. Guilt rose, an ugly weed, reminding Evander how cruel it was to hold her like this, knowing what the future held. He cursed his selfishness. But he couldn’t let her go. She needed him tonight. So he allowed a little selfish comfort and fell asleep with Valenna wrapped in his arms.
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 hadwrestled 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.
