He’d been terrified for me because the Destovian had cut me, and honestly, I’d been more than a little frightened myself. The man put a knife to my neck. He’d had no reason to want me alive and every reason to kill me, since I’d already saved Roland from his monstrous people once. It would have been most sensible of him to kill me right there, even if I couldn’t currently fly, if only because why would he believe that I couldn’t fly? The sensible thing for him to do was to make sure I couldn’t protect Roland from his people, and the only way he could stop me from protecting Roland was to kill me.
It was good that he knew that.
Everyoneshould know it.
Even sitting there at the table staring at the steaming cup of tea that had been laid before me, part of me wanted to go back out there and kick him. He’d kidnapped Roland. My Roland. Thinking to force him to marry some princess and make children with her, so his people could take over all Llangard.
Why did so many people think that land and money were more important thanpeople?
Nothing should be more important than people.
Carys and her sons knew that, quite clearly. The one who had been injured at Windy Pass and saved me from the Destovian, Dylan, treated me like we were fellow survivors of the same war. We were, it was true, but most people treated me like I had been some pitiful victim back then. Not as though it had taken any strength from me to get through it, but as though I’d been some pathetic broken creature who had only been saved by the grace of others.
It was true, without Roland coming for me that day, I wouldn’t have survived. But Roland had no more belonged on that battlefield than I had.
Or, as Roland had pointed out, no more than anyone at all.
War was always a shame.
A thing to avoid as much as possible.
Trying to avoid a fight didn’t always work, though.
Sometimes you tried to avoid a fight and Jarl Vidar dragged you to it as he forced his people to try to take over a country he had been thrown out of centuries earlier. Sometimes your people were fighting, so you had to go with them and try to keep them safe.
Sometimes people stole your Roland, and you had to retrieve him.
And finally, sometimes, the Destovians wanted to steal your king in a strange long-term attempt to take over your kingdom by making heirs you didn’t want.
It was a stark reminder, really, that humans and dragons would never be the same, however much we had in common.
Stealing Maddox and forcing him to sire a new clutch of dragons would never make those dragons the leaders of the Summer Clan. That humans thought such a thing would work was bizarre.
Even more bizarre, the notion that for some countries run by humans, it would.
But Llangard was not so easily conquered, something they had proven again and again. Llangard would not be taken, not even by its founder, against its own will.
Llangard, at its best, always gave.
Like Roland.
I looked back down at my newly healed arm, and suddenly, a strange haziness in my brain lifted, and I realized—“You healed me,” I told Roland.
He ducked his head, his perfect freckled cheeks flushing pale pink. He didn’t even open his mouth, just nodded, then took a sip of tea, like he was embarrassed and didn’t want to look us in the eye.
“Cavendishes have always had magic,” Carys pointed out, simple and matter-of-fact, as she always seemed to be. “Don’t know that I’ve heard of them being healers before, but the way I’ve heard that his aunt moves the earth, I can’t say I’m surprised that he’s got impressive magic himself.”
Roland bit his lip, clearly wanting to deny the observation, but also uncertain of how to do so without bringing up the dragon blood issue.
It was strange, though, wasn’t it? That he’d stopped drinking blood days ago at least, and this was the first time I’d seen himperform anything resembling magic? We had known each other for years. Surely if he had magic before, I’d have seen it.
He’d told me everything, shared everything . . .
Except about the blood, a snide voice in my head that sounded like Vidar reminded me.
But of course he hadn’t told me about the blood. Maybe at first because he didn’t understand, but then at some point because he knew me. He knew that the very idea of it would hurt me, and Roland had never once deliberately hurt me. He hated to hurt anyone, even people who were awful to him.
Still, he couldn’t want to discuss the blood issue with his people, and frankly, they wouldn’t want to know about it. They only wanted Roland to be perfect and healthy, because that meant they were safer, having a king who hadn’t nearly died of poisoning or battled his own demons.
