style="font-size:15px;"> “Get up. Step away from the dragons, now.”
St. Anthony complied immediately, though his movements were stiff as he rose and stepped away from Ember and myself. His face was carefully neutral as he turned to face the man standing behind us. Martin, I remembered the Patriarch had called him—Lieutenant Martin. He wasn’t a large man, or tall; he was older and had that commanding presence I’d seen in unit leaders and veteran slayers. St. Anthony stood rigid at attention, his gaze fixed straight ahead as the other regarded him with stony black eyes.
I watched intently, wondering if he was going to shoot the younger soldier right here. Execute him for killing the Patriarch, perhaps. Even though, in my mind, St. Anthony had done exactly what he was supposed to. The seconds were there to ensure the duel was fair, that no one interfered, cheated or swayed the fight in any way. Sebastian had won; the Patriarch had yielded and the duel was clearly over. Shooting Sebastian in the back wasn’t just extreme cowardice; it marked the Patriarch, beyond any doubt, as guilty, and St. Anthony had responded as he should have. Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction, and the realization of what he’d done was just now hitting home, but his response had probably saved both their lives from two vengeful dragons blasting them to cinders.
But I didn’t know St. George policies or politics, only that they were severe to the point of being fanatical. Maybe it didn’t matter what the Patriarch had done. Maybe killing the revered leader of St. George was an immediate death sentence, no matter the intent behind it. It wouldn’t surprise me.
By the look on St. Anthony’s face, it wouldn’t surprise him, either.
The officer regarded the younger man in silence for a moment, then sighed. “You did what you had to do, St. Anthony,” he said in a stiff voice, making the other look up sharply. “In accordance with the rules of St. George. The Patriarch was guilty, and his actions called for immediate reprisal.” His voice didn’t quite match the look on his face, as if he would give anything to believe that it wasn’t true. “You did your duty, though the council might not see it that way,” he added, making St. Anthony wince. “But I will speak on your behalf and do my best to ensure you are not punished for it.”
“Sir,” St. Anthony breathed as, with the crunching of salt, the other officer walked up. He was older than either of them, with a white beard and a patch across one eye, and his face was twisted into an expression of hate as he glared at us.
“Know this, dragons,” he snapped, his voice shaking with rage. “You might have won the day, but you have not broken us. The Order will recover, and when we do, we will not stop until Talon is destroyed This war isn’t over. Far from it. It has barely begun.”
I smirked, ready to say something suitably defiant and insolent, but Ember lifted her gaze from where it had been glued to the soldier’s body and glanced up at the humans.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said in a soft, controlled voice. “Some of us want nothing to do with Talon, or the war. Some of us are just trying to survive.” She looked at St. Anthony, holding his gaze. “Garret realized that. Which is why he went to you in the first place, why he risked everything to expose the Patriarch. Talon was using the Order to kill dragons that didn’t fall in with the organization. St. George thinks we’re all the same, but that’s not true.” Her voice grew a little desperate on that last word, and she dropped her gaze, staring at the soldier’s body once more.
“We don’t want this war,” she murmured. “There’s been too much killing and death already. There has to be a way for it to end.”
“There is.” The human’s tone was flat. “It will end with the extinction of every dragon on the planet. Nothing less. Even if what you say is true, St. George will not yield. The Order will never abandon their mission to purge the threat your kind represents. If anything, this has only proved how treacherous you dragons really are. Perhaps this was Talon’s plan all along—to strike a critical blow against the Order by removing the Patriarch.”
“Are you really that stupid?” I asked, and all three humans glanced at me sharply. “Is the Order so blind and rigid that it won’t even consider another way of thinking? Open your damn eyes, St. George. You have two dragons in front of you that hate Talon just as much as the Order. And if you believe this was some elaborate plan by the organization to off the Patriarch, you’re not thinking that through. Why would Talon want to kill the Patriarch when they were pulling all the strings and had the Order right where they wanted? We—” I gestured to myself, Ember and the motionless soldier “—had to expose this alliance, or Talon would have just kept using you to wipe us off the map. Maybe you should think hard about what that means.”
St. Anthony, I noted, was still watching Ember, who was kneeling by the soldier with his hand clasped tightly in her own. His eyes were conflicted, a tiny furrow creasing his brow. But then the man spoke again, his voice as hard and cold as ever.
“Take Sebastian and leave this place,” he said, stepping back. “The Order will not pursue, at least not today. But there will be a reckoning, dragon. And when that happens, I suggest you stay far away, or be consumed with the rest of your kind. Martin, St. Anthony,” he said, and walked toward the body of the Patriarch lying in the bloody salt a few yards away. The one called Martin followed immediately, but Tristan paused a moment, still staring at Ember before he, too, turned on a heel and marched off with his shoulders straight. Neither of them looked back.
I knelt, putting a hand on Ember’s arm and leaning close. “Wes is on his way,” I told her. “We’ll be out of here soon.”
She nodded without looking up. “Do you...do you think he’ll make it?” she whispered.
I didn’t want to upset her, but I didn’t want to lie, either. To give her false hope. “I don’t know, Firebrand,” I muttered. “He’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if that bullet hit anything vital, but...he’s not in a good place right now. I think you have to prepare yourself for the worst.” She closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek as she bowed her head. My dragon stirred, and a bitter lump caught in my throat. I remembered her words as the soldier lay dying in her arms, the whispered confession as the human slipped into unconsciousness. And I knew she would never say those words to me.
Unless he was gone.
Sickened with myself and the dark, ugly thoughts of my inner dragon, I rose and walked away to scan the barren horizon.
So. The Patriarch was dead. We’d accomplished what we’d set out to do—not kill the man exactly, but expose him to the rest of the Order and break up the alliance between him and Talon. The organization could no longer pull the Order’s strings, because their prize puppet was out of the picture. This would throw St. George into chaos, and they would want retribution for the death of their leader, but at least they would be distracted for a while. And while they were figuring out what to do, I could move my network even deeper underground so we’d be well hidden for the inevitable retaliation.
But that still left Talon to deal with.
A chill went through me as I watched the sun creep slowly over the flats, staining the horizon red. Something was coming; I could feel it. Talon was out there, and killing the Patriarch would cause them to react, as well. Maybe that had been their plan all along. I felt like a pawn in a chess match—one who had just taken out the bishop, but then looked up and there was the queen, smiling at me from across the board.
I shook myself, frowning. I was getting paranoid. Even if Talon had expected this, our plans wouldn’t have changed. We would’ve had to expose the Patriarch regardless, and everything would still have led to this, with the leader
