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.
