Page 65 of Legion

Angrily, I shoved that thought from my mind as the jeep pulled through the gates of the Western chapterhouse, the guard saluting briskly as we went by. The Order was not home to me any longer, I reminded myself, feeling an ache of recognition as the familiar rows of buildings came into view over the sand. The chapel, the barracks, the mess hall. Places I knew by heart, where I had sat with my brothers and talked about killing dragons.

They aren’t your brothers, and this isn’t your place. You don’t belong here anymore.

No, I did not. But I would still fight to defend it. Regardless of the enmity between us, the fact that I was a traitor to my Order and my former brothers despised me, I would still stand with them against the slaughter I knew was coming. Because Talon could not win. Because if they truly shattered the Order of St. George, there would be no one left to stop the Elder Wyrm and Talon from sweeping over the rest of the world.

And because, despite everything, the Order still had good people within it. Tristan, Gabriel Martin, a few others I had trained with and fought beside. They were misguided—they had been indoctrinated like every other soldier—but they were not evil. They were just like I had been, before I’d met a fiery red dragon in Crescent Beach. If I could change, if I could see dragons for what they really were, surely there were others who would do the same. They just needed to be shown the truth.

The sun was a faint red smear on the horizon, the chapterhouse quiet and dark, as Martin pulled up to the assembly hall and killed the engine. He paused, hands on the steering wheel, then turned to fix me with a somber glare.

“I’ve called ahead and told my officers to gather the soldiers,” he stated. “They’re waiting in the assembly hall now. Are you ready for this, Sebastian?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know what they’re going to say to you, how they’re going to react. No one will shoot you on my watch, but it’s not going to be pretty. Everyone in St. George knows you’ve sided with the dragons, but you are from this chapterhouse, and these are the men you’ve personally betrayed. Think about what that means, Sebastian.”

“I know, sir. And I don’t expect any understanding or sympathy, but this has to be done.”

He nodded briskly and stepped out of the jeep. I followed him around the building to the assembly hall, thankful when we stepped through a side door instead of through the main entrance. A soldier I recognized, one of the squad leaders by the name of Williams, waited for Martin beside the door to the main hall.

“Sir.” He saluted sharply, and Martin returned it. “Welcome back. The soldiers are...”

He trailed off, seeing me for the first time, and his eyes went wide. “Sebastian,” he whispered, his voice laced with shock. There was a single heartbeat of silence, and then his mouth curled in a snarl. “You son of a—”

“Williams!” Martin snapped, stopping him midlunge. Williams froze, still glaring at me with darkest hate, one hand halfway to his sidearm. “Stand down, soldier,” Martin ordered in a low, firm voice. “I brought him here. Sebastian is with me.”

“Sir.” Williams turned to Martin, aghast. His mouth opened, probably to snap at his superior officer, before he seemed to remember himself and straightened. “Permission to speak freely, sir.”

“If you must.”

“Sir, why is the dragonlover here?”

Martin gave a wry curl of his lip. “That’s more of a question, soldier. Are you questioning me?”

“No, sir! But—”

“Sebastian is here for a reason. That’s all you need to know right now.” Martin’s dark gaze remained fixed on the other soldier. “I will not have a riot in these halls, nor will I have Sebastian come to harm while he is here. You will keep yourself under control, and you will trust that your superior officer knows what he is doing. Is that understood, soldier?”

“I...” Williams shot one last, murderous glare at me, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Martin turned from the soldier, dismissing him, and glanced at me. “Let’s go, Sebastian.”

We left Williams glowering in the hall and entered the assembly room through the back door, stepping onto the stage. As Martin and I walked to the front of the platform, I looked over the floor and saw the surprised faces of my former brothers turn to outrage as they recognized me. Furtively, I scanned the room, taking stock of who was there, looking for someone in particular. It took me only a moment to spot him. On the far side of the room, leaning with his back to the wall, Tristan St. Anthony raised his head and met my gaze, dark eyes narrowing to slits.

“You all know who this is.” Martin’s voice wasn’t a question, carrying into the tense silence.

“The fucking dragonlover!” someone in the back shouted.

“Yes,” Martin agreed, though his eyes narrowed in the direction of the shout. “We all know our former brother, Garret Xavier Sebastian. And we all know what he has done. However...” His voice dropped, becoming low and commanding. “I brought Sebastian here—he is under my protection and the protection of this chapterhouse. Which means,” he went on, his expression hardening, “no one under my command will do him any harm whatsoever. Sebastian is not a prisoner. He will be allowed to move about the base freely, and he will not be treated any differently than anyone else. If I hear of anyone throwing so much as a spitball in his direction, they’ll be spending the rest of the day in a cell. I hope I have made myself perfectly clear on this.”

A stunned, angry silence followed his announcement. Many of the soldiers were staring at Martin like he had gone insane, and the others were glaring at me with undisguised loathing. “Sebastian is here for a reason,” Martin went on, taking advantage of the shock, or choosing to ignore it. “Because he has been among the enemy, he has information that you all need to hear. I suggest you listen to what he has to say and reserve judgment until you’ve heard the entire story. Sebastian?” He half turned to me, nodding. “It’s all yours.”

I stepped forward, meeting the angry glares head-on. “Talon is coming,” I said over the angry murmurs of the crowd. “They have an army, and they intend to use it to destroy the Order once and for all. Their plan is to attack every St. George chapterhouse in a single night and strike a crippling blow against the Order. One that we’ll never recover from.”

“You’re full of shit, Sebastian,” called a soldier, perhaps the same one who’d shouted at us earlier. “Allthe chapterhouses in a single night? Talon doesn’t have those kinds of numbers.”

“Yes, they do,” I insisted. “I’ve seen them myself. They have an army of dragons, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, enough to attack every St. George base around the world and burn it to the ground.” A disbelieving, horrified silence fell as I let those words sink in. “They’re coming for you,” I went on quietly. “And if you’re not ready for them when they get here, everyone in St. George will be slaughtered.”

“Lieutenant Martin, sir!” another soldier called, and waited for Martin to acknowledge him before he went on. “Sir, how do we know Sebastian isn’t lying? He’s been in contact with the lizards themselves. How do we know Talon didn’t send him here to set us up?”

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