Page 110 of The Last Dragon
“No,” I interrupt her, darting my eyes between them. “He’s right. At this point, I’m willing to take the head of whoever mentions this to anyone.” I glare at Alex, who’s playing around with a knife.
He takes a deep breath. “Thiswhoeverjust happens to like his head, thank you very much.”
I turn to Sam, pressed into the corner, his eyes fixed on the map. He looks distraught, though he’s trying hard to mask it. A million scenarios must be racing through his head as he scrambles to piece together the contingencies. Everything—the events of last night, Alex being here, to the lit candlelight.
Eryca catches me staring at Sam and turns to give him comfort Meanwhile, Ilian finally gives up on his argument with Alex.
“Sure,” Ilian says, returning to his map. “Anything for being on the winning side.”
Eryca’s gaze darts to me and then back to Alex, her eyes narrowing. “Wait a minute,” she says, her voice low. “What do youmean,knowing what you know?”
Shit.
Alex scoffs. “Wait, you’re telling me you haven’t told them?” He shifts his eyes between me and Nida, and a sinking feeling settles in my gut. I brace myself.
“Told us what?” Eryca asks.
“Don’t—” I blurt out.
“That there’s two Redsnouts. Yeah, the one that attacked the Third? It’s female. The other one is male. And these two didn’t tell you.” Alex scoffs, pointing at me and Nida, before I grab him by his crewneck.
“You little shit—”
“Hey, don’t blame me for it, you’re the one who got us into this mess.”
“If you kept your mouth shut—”
“Too late for that.” He grabs my arms, pushing them away from his neck. “Maybe you forgot that a unit shouldn’t keep secrets from one another. That’s how you get yourself fucking killed.”
Eryca slowly turns to us, her eyes narrowing as she shakes her head. “You knew,” she growls. “You knew and you didn’t fucking tell us!?”
“It was too much of a risk,” I say, closing my eyes as those words leave my lips.
“Risk?” Eryca exclaims. She scoffs, and I open my eyes to meet the betrayed look spreading across her face. “If you had told us there weretwo Redsnouts, we could’ve guessed more dragons were out there, and Raumen might still be alive!”
“I didn’t have a choice!” I snap.
“You always do!” Her voice is filled with rage. “And you made a choice not to say anything.”
“Eryca, it was just too dangerous,” Nida says, her voice soft. She places her hand on Eryca’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down.
“Dangerous? That’s a common excuse from both of you,” Eryca seethes, brushing Nida’s hand away. “And what if you got caught? What doweget? Ursa Wain coming to tell us that our Tracker and Hunter are dead.” Her dark brown eyes are sharp as daggers. “Byunknowncauses.”
Ilian takes a deep breath. “Two Redsnouts,” he says. “Alright.”
“There could potentially be more, if there’s a male and a female,” Eryca says. “Not to mention the damn Stonetail that appeared out of fucking nowhere, killing Raumen! Now the entire Corps is falling apart.”
“If there was a Stonetail, we can only assume there’s more,”Sam says, hidden in the corner at a table with his books and notes. “All of them. Wingtails, Blightclaws.”
Silverscales.
I have to confirm what I saw.
“Nida,” I say. “The Redsnout from today, what gender was it?”
“This one?” she takes a breath, before squeezing her eyes shut. “This one was male.”
“Shit,” I whisper. I knew it. It cocked its head.
