It is Sunday morning, and I am home from Weapons...waking early in my own luxurious bed… pillows and soft sheets and thick blankets surrounding me like fat fluffy clouds. It is still dark when I open my eyes. I blink, yawning and stretching. It seems like any other weekend, but then a sudden fear grips me like a handle that turns only one way. Tomorrow I leave for Soldier Academy and Entho is surely downstairs. I haven’t seen him since the competition…since my blow up with Bello…since shooting an arrow at Siv Gareth.
Gradually, I sit up in bed, rise like a ghost…and then laugh at the thought. A Ghost. Like me. I reach into my closet and pull out a crimson cloak, throw it over my head and run my bare feet down the slate steps, clean and cold and hard…toward the kitchen. Toward Entho.
He is perched in his hard backed kitchen chair, sipping herbal tea and preparing for his day. As always. I stop for a minute and drink in the smell of bacon, herbs and medicine. And the slightest hint of biscuits. For a moment I think everything will be the same, as it always has been. He will go to his clinic and I will wander around the mansion, finding something to occupy my time.
But then I realize that everything has changed …from the second I launched an arrow at our nation’s leader…the second I shot a bull’s eye instead of faking it….the second I told my Weapons Instructor I hated her...and Weapons. It all changed.
I slump into a chair across form Entho, crossing my arms in front of my chest. Then, I look down at the floor, waiting for the scolding that is sure to follow.
“Want some tea?” he mumbles instead, his nose poking into a large, thickly bound healing book.
“Sure.” I stand up to start the tea, but he takes his hand, puts it on mine, his long slender fingers covering it like a miniature blanket.
He speaks simply, but his voice is strained, odd. “Sit.” He stands up, trudges to the cupboard, and pulls out a ceramic mug I have never seen. It has a flying green dragon on it, wings spread wide and fire breathing out of its mouth. I can’t help but gasp at the beauty of it. Entho fills the mug with hot water and steeps some tea into it, pouring in honey and a little bit of cream – just the way I have always liked it. Then he places some herbs and medicine in it and mixes it with a spoon. He mildly sets the cup on the table.
“This will help the pain in your neck.”
I wonder how he knows about my neck. “Thanks,” I murmur, placing my hands around the mug. The heat penetrates into my hands, and I pretend that it is the dragon’s fire warming me. I take a tentative sip, pursing my lips at the bitterness.
Entho sighs, slowly and deeply, his chest rising and then falling. He looks old. And tired. Why haven’t I noticed before? When he speaks next, his words are clear, succinct. “But it will do nothing for the pain in your heart.”
I shoot my head up, shocked at his words. “What do you mean?”
“I was afraid this day would come,” he starts, his voice warbling in my ears. “I’ve thought a lot about it, and I want to apologize to you.”
I open my eyes widely. Entho is not one to say he is sorry. “About what?”
“For not giving you a choice.” His brown eyes glisten, wrinkles beginning to form like little rivers around the edges. “I…I…” A tiny tear leaks out of one of his eyes. He sniffs, almost a snort. “I was so scared that day…”
It is silent. I stare back at Entho, too shocked to respond at first. “Me, too,” I finally get out. I know what day he is talking about. The day the Destroyers came to the school yard and took me away. Our eyes meet, and I see tenderness in his milky brown eyes for the first time in years.
“I foolishly thought if I sent you to Weapons, that you would always be safe…” His voice trails off again then becomes choked with emotion. He points his finger toward me, long and slender and white. “It was hers….the mug.”
“Mom’s?” I question, a lump instantly forming in my throat at the thought of my mother. I am suddenly dizzy and it feels as if gnats are flying around in my head. I miss my mom terribly at this moment, my heart squeezing in pain at the thought of her. Memories of watching her die, falling to the ground from her Emerald dragon when I was four years old wash over me, and as always when I think of her, tears threaten to spill out of my eyes.
He nods slowly, heavily. “She loved dragons. Losing her like that….I…I just couldn’t lose you too.” He breathes in, then out, like a billows, like he can’t get enough air in his lungs. “I never wanted you near a dragon.” His caramel colored eyes are soulful, sad. I have never seen him like this. I shift uncomfortably in my chair, grasping the mug as if it were a direct link to my mother.
Thoughts travel back to that day, when I was four years old. Of course Entho wouldn’t want me around dragons…after watching my mother die like she did. But Weapons? I think of all of the bruises from hand-to hand combat, of the punishments, of the isolation. The taunting and tormenting from my team mates. Of Reese. How could he think that Weapons would keep me safe?
My eyes lift as Entho reaches into his white robe, pulls out a box and hands it to me. “This was hers, too. I gave it to her on our wedding day.” A thin, flat smile forms on his lips, a rare sight. “She said that it helped her charm the dragons.” Then, as if washed over with an emotion too strong to understand, he hangs his head, dull blonde hair slicked back and tied into a small knot in the back. The healer’s knot. “She forgot to put it on that day…”
His words trickle away like a small stream flowing downhill. I open the box slowly, as if it were a gift from a king. My heart is pounding in my chest and my hands are shaking, repressed memories of my mother crashing into my mind.
Tentatively, I pull out a shiny golden bracelet and a wheeze escapes my lips. It is a charm bracelet and each charm is a dragon with miniature jewels for eyes. Every dragon is different. One has outstretched wings with red eyes. Another is stout and short with blue eyes, its wings pulled in. There are seven total. I have never seen anything more beautiful and wonderful in my life. I touch each charm, thinking of my mother…remembering her.
“Go ahead, put it on.”
I slip the bracelet onto my right arm, fastening it with my left. It jangles when I move, the tiny dragons bumping against each other like miniature circus clowns. I smile as I watch them clinking together. In my mind I hear music – mandolins and flutes.
“I am proud of you,” Entho interrupts, surprising me. “You did very well in Weapons. I think it will serve you well in life.” He rises.
“Oh,” he grins, another rare surprise, like a seashell you find on a desolate beach. “Your mother would want you to wear that while you are at Dragon Academy.”
Chapter 7