Page 23 of Dragon’s Ending

He wasn’t going to ask it outright, that was clear. Pride, perhaps. Or maybe it was defensiveness, taking care never to show vulnerability. Growing up with Rhodri as a father, that made sense.

That didn’t excuse his accusation.

“We’re only interested in history, not in seizing power or withholding information,” I told him firmly.

Something twinged in my gut as I remembered Evelyn’s instruction to report to her first about anything I discovered. I didn’t think she was trying to grab power, though. Her intent was more about stopping anyone from misusing whatever we were able to uncover. But wasn’t that the same, in the end? It was still manipulation.

Less certain now, I left that line of argument. “Look, the only reason no one knew about the red dragons was because they forgot over the centuries. You can hardly blame us for that.”

“And yet you remembered?” There was a silky quality to his voice that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Dominic would be a very dangerous enemy, I realised for the first time.

“History’s kind of our thing.”

He settled back, hitching a hip on the table and idly playing with the stack of paper next to him. He didn’t take his eyes from my face. “Funny no one’s heard of your family before.”

There was nothing casual about the way he said it.

If I told him, and Rhodri found out I’d been sharing information he’d been withholding… But Dominic was the heir. He had the right to know this, and he needed to know how things were changing in the dragon world.

“We were in hiding for centuries,” I said. “It was the only way to survive after being ousted from power back then, and I guess it became habit. Kept us out of the wars, anyway.”

I didn’t say which wars. Every dragon knew of the vicious conflicts between families. The ones that had resulted in the state we were in now, with Abimelech Mortimer taking the role as our leader because no one had the power to challenge him.

“Convenient,” he said.

“Practical,” I corrected.

He acknowledged that with the slightest tilt of his head. And my dragon, who had been on edge at the challenge in Dominic, settled again.

“Evelyn also wants me to see if any of those castle stones can be prised away from the older wall, so we can see if there are more markings behind them,” I said, kicking myself for not having thought of that when we were up there.

“You want to come and make sure I don’t vandalise the place?” I asked before I’d realised I was going to. But it made sense—I didn’t much like the idea of going onto contested ground by myself, even in human form.

He didn’t answer immediately, and for a moment I wondered if I’d misjudged. If I wasn’t going to be allowed back up there.

Then he pushed himself off the table. “Wouldn’t want you pulling down half the castle without supervision.”

Which, I suspected, was as close to agreement as I was going to get.

DOMINIC

The air outside was damp, the ground soft underfoot after the morning rain. Berstow walked beside me, not quite matching my stride but not lagging either.

Most people filled silence. He didn’t. Just like he hadn’t flinched when my dragon had surfaced. Most dragons did, even if they tried to hide it. They’d take a step back, look at me a certain way, like I couldn’t be trusted. Like I was dangerous.

It was a look I was used to. I’d grown to expect it as a child, people on edge around me, waiting to see what I was going to destroy next. Fair enough.

Berstow hadn’t, though. That maddening calm of his hadn’t been shaken in the least. Like nothing I did was worth reacting to.

I glanced sideways at him. He didn’t seem to notice, and I wondered if what I thought was lack of awareness, lack of imagination in him, was actually just supreme self-confidence. He knew who he was, and no one else was going to sway him in any way. Either that, or he was so caught up in his dusty old records that he wasn’t really present in the real world. Hell if I knew. And why the hell was I even thinking about him? I wasn’t interested… Well, okay, maybe I was, just a little. Because I wasn’t exactly a monk.

We reached the ruins without him once complaining about the climb, which put him ahead of most. And then he went straight for the wall with the markings, like I wasn’t there. Again.

I kicked at some of the fallen stones and wandered around for a while before following him. I should have known what I’d find—he was carefully, respectfully, testing each stone in turn to see if any of them were loose. At that rate, he’d be there till Christmas.

I yanked at a couple before it became clear there was only one option open to us if we didn’t want to get chisels and hammers from John’s store and make like archaeologists, uncovering an inch in a year. I was halfway through unbuttoning my shirt when he looked up.

“What are you doing?”