“If you touch Haldir, you’ll all be executed.”
Elspeth passed, and Samara fell silent, gazing at the ground and wringing her hands. Hera swallowed the last of her lunch,and Evander pulled her big middle head down, tickling her brow until she opened her jaws, then he leaned his head and shoulders inside. His voice echoed in her cavernous mouth. “Thank you for convincing them not to kill me.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I know your wife turned us over to Cadmus, and so does everyone else. I did it because you can teach us how to survive a battle, and Haldir cannot. But this is still your fault, and we have long memories.”
Evander’s jaw tightened as he inspected Hera’s teeth, standing on his toes to avoid being cut by her fangs.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Getting betrayed by someone you trust …”
“I’m sorry, Samara!” Evander burst. Hera shied. Her tooth caught on his shirt, and she shook her head, knocking him out of her mouth. He landed on his back on the sandy ground, startled at his sudden anger. He’d lost his temper. Evander Trevelyan, the coolheaded, the unflappable. He lost his temper, and it nearly got him gutted.
“Be careful!” Samara shouted. “You cannot get yourself killed before this battle! We need you!”
Evander got up, strode across the paddock, and leaned against the fence, watching as the conscripts soared into the clouds.
“I haven’t seen my wife yet,” he admitted, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “I don’t know if she’s in the manor house or chained in some basement in the dark. It’s driving me mad.”
“After what she did …” Samara sniffed and lifted her chin. “Maybe she deserves to be chained in a basement.”
“She wouldn’t have done it if Ariadne hadn’t pushed her to it,” Evander remarked.
Samara bristled and opened her mouth to object, but Evander held up his hand to silence her. “You’re here because of me. Leave Valenna out of it. But you’re also here because of Ariadne. I’m not faulting her. She’s paid dearly for her stubbornness.”
“I don’t understand, though. What did Valenna have to gain from betraying us to Cadmus?”
Evander debated how to answer this and, deciding she’d know soon enough anyway, opted for the truth. “Valenna is Cadmus’s daughter.”
“WHAT?” Samara would have toppled off the fence if Evander hadn’t grabbed the front of her jacket, pulling her upright again.This was like parenting a toddler.
Samara straightened her jacket, her cheeks burning. “Are you really dumb enough not to see when you’ve been played for a fool, Trevelyan?”
He scowled. “I don’t understand …”
“Your ‘wife’ convinced you to lead her to the sanctuary so she could turn its location over to her father. She was using you this whole time.”
“That’s not true, Samara.”
“Fine, then maybe you were in on it, too. It’s awfully convenient, you getting a captain’s posting in a day.”
“I could have run.” Evander sighed. He often wished he had run. “But I stayed. To help you.”
“Why should I believe that? You never cared about us.”
“Yes, Samara, I did,” Evander said. “If I didn’t, I would have been soft on you. I would have let you play about with fighter dragons. But I taught you how to pilot a dreadnought in Silvanlight. Or at least I tried, but none of you would listen.”
Samara huffed, hopped off the fence, and stalked toward the barracks, mumbling profanities under her breath.
Evander watched the girl until she rounded a corner and disappeared from sight, his eyes aching with weariness. When he turned back to Hera, her right head was lowered, inches from his face, her yellow eyes slitted.
“Don’t judge me,” he scolded.
Training didn’t improve as the day waned. The conscripts were belligerent at best, aggressive at worst. They ignored his orders, complained behind his back, and cut murderous glances at Haldir as he stood off to the side, watching from under his heavy brow.
Beyond camp, the manor house stood a stone bulk against the cloud-mottled sky. Evander’s eyes wandered toward it while he taught, unraveling his line of thought. Images tormented him of his wife shut up in there, wrapped in her own thorns, her skin flayed and bleeding. Or Cadmus berating her, beating her, starving her. He had to get to her, somehow. He had to save her. Why was he here, teaching students who didn’t want to learn, when he should be scaling the manor house walls, racing to Valenna’s rescue?
By sunset, Evander’s nerves were frayed. Every time a trainee asked him a question, he had the overwhelming urge to slap them across the face.
Somehow, he had to see Valenna, or he was going to lose his mind.
