LITMIR.BIZ

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      And I had realized…the Order was wrong. St. George taught us that dragons were monsters. We killed them without question, because there was nothing to question. They were alien, Other. Not like us.

      Only…they were. Ember had already shaken every belief the Order had instilled in me about dragons; that she’d spared my life was the final blow, the proof I couldn’t ignore. Which meant that some of the dragons I’d killed in the past, gunned down without thought because the Order had told me to, might’ve been like her.

      And if that was the case, I had a lot of innocent blood on my hands.

      “After the raid,” Tristan said, continuing to address the table, “Garret and I were ordered to follow Ember Hill in the hopes that she would lead us to the other targets. We tracked her to a beach on the edge of town, where she did indeed meet with two other dragons. A juvenile and an adult.”

      Another murmur ran through the courtroom. “An adult,” Fischer confirmed, while the rest of the table looked grim. Full-grown adult dragons were rarely seen; the oldest dragons were also the most secretive, keeping to the shadows, hiding deep within their organization. The Order knew

      Talon’s leader was an extremely old, extremely powerful dragon called the Elder Wyrm, but no one had ever laid eyes on it.

      “Yes, sir,” Tristan went on. “We were to observe and report if the target revealed itself as a dragon, and all three were in their true forms when we got there. I informed Commander St. Francis at once and received the order to shoot on sight.” He paused, and Fischer’s eyes narrowed.

      “What happened then, soldier?”

      “Garret stopped me, sir. He prevented me from taking the shot.”

      “Did he give any reason for his actions?”

      “Yes, sir.” Tristan took a deep breath, as if the next words were difficult to say. “He told me…that the Order was wrong.”

      Silence fell. A stunned, brittle silence that raised the hair on the back of my neck. To imply that the Order was mistaken was to spit on the code that the first knights had implemented centuries ago. The code that denounced dragons as soulless wyrms of the devil and their human sympathizers as corrupted, beyond hope.

      “Is there anything else?” Fischer’s expression was cold, mirroring the looks of everyone at the table. Tristan paused again, then nodded.

      “Yes, sir. He said that he wouldn’t let me kill the targets, that some dragons weren’t evil and that we didn’t have to slaughter them. When I tried to reason with him, he attacked me. We fought, briefly, and he knocked me out.”

      I winced. I hadn’t meant to injure my partner. But I couldn’t let him fire. Tristan’s sniping skills were unmatched. He would’ve killed at least one dragon before they realized what was happening. I couldn’t stand there and watch Ember be murdered in front of me.

      “By the time I woke up,” Tristan finished, “the targets had escaped. Garret surrendered to our squad leader and was taken into custody, but we were unable to find the dragons again.”

      “Is that all?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Fischer nodded. “Thank you, St. Anthony. Garret Xavier Sebastian,” he went on, turning to me as Tristan stepped away. His eyes and voice remained hard. “You’ve heard the charges brought against you. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

      I took a quiet breath.

      “I do.” I raised my head, facing the men at the table. I’d been debating whether I wanted to say anything, to tell the Order to its face that they had been mistaken all this time. This would damn me even further, but I had to try. I owed it to Ember, and all the dragons I had killed.

      “This summer,” I began, as the flat stares of the table shifted to me, “I went to Crescent Beach expecting to find a dragon. I didn’t.” One of the men blinked; the rest simply continued to stare as I went on. “What I found was a girl, someone just like me in a lot of ways. But she was also her own person. There was no imitation of humanity, no artificial emotions or gestures. Everything she did was genuine. Our mission took so long because I couldn’t see any differences between Ember Hill and a civilian.”

      The silence in the courtroom now took on a lethal stillness. Gabriel Martin’s face was like stone, his stare icy. I didn’t dare turn to look at Tristan, but I could feel his incredulous gaze on my back.

      I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “I’m not asking for clemency,” I went on. “My actions that night were inexcusable. But I beg the court to consider my suggestion that not all dragons are the same. Ember Hill could be an anomaly among her kind, but from what I saw she wanted nothing to do with the war. If there are others like her—”

      “Thank you, Sebastian.” Fischer’s voice was clipped. His chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back and stood, gazing over the room. “Court is adjourned,” he announced. “We will reconvene in an hour. Dismissed.”

      * * *

      Back in my cell, I sat on the hard mattress with my back against the wall and one knee drawn to my chest, waiting for the court to decide my fate. I wondered if they would consider my words. If the impassioned testimony of the former Perfect Soldier would be enough to give them pause.

      “Garret.”

      I looked up. Tristan’s lean, wiry form stood in front of the cell bars. His face was stony, but I looked closer and saw that his expression was conflicted, almost tormented. He glared at me, midnight-blue eyes searing a hole through my skull, before he sighed and made an angry, hopeless gesture, shaking his head.

      “What the hell were you thinking?”

      I looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”

      “Bullshit.” Tristan stepped forward, looking like he might punch me in the head if there weren’t iron bars between us. “Three years we’ve been partners. Three years we’ve fought together, killed together, nearly gotten ourselves eaten a couple times. I’ve saved your hide countless times, and yes, I know you’ve done the same for me. You owe me a damn explanation, partner. And don’t you dare say something stupid, like I wouldn’t understand. I know you better than that.”

      When I didn’t answer, he clenched a fist around a bar, brow furrowed in confusion and anger. “What happened in Crescent Beach, Garret?” he demanded, though his voice was almost pleading. “You’re the freaking Perfect Soldier. You know the code by heart. You can recite the tenets in your sleep, backward if you need to. Why would you betray everything?”

      “I don’t know—”

      “It was the girl, wasn’t it?” Tristan’s voice made my stomach drop. “The dragon. She did something to you. Damn, I should’ve seen it. You hung out with her a lot. She could’ve been manipulating you that whole time.”

      “It wasn’t like that.” In the old days, it was suspected that dragons could cast spells on weak-minded humans, enslaving them through mind control and magic. Though that rumor had officially been discounted, there were still those in St. George who believed the old superstitions. Not that Tristan had been one of them; he was just as coolly pragmatic as me, one of the reasons we got along so well. But I suspected it was easier for him to accept that an evil dragon had turned his friend against his will, rather than that friend knowingly and deliberately betraying him and the Order. You can’t blame Garret; the dragon made him do it.

      But it wasn’t anything Ember had done. It was just… everything about her. Her passion, her fearlessness, her love for life. Even in the middle of the mission, I’d forgotten that she was a potential target, that she could be a dragon, the very creature I was there to destroy. When I was around Ember, I didn’t see her as an objective, or a target, or the enemy. I just saw her.

      “What, then?” Tristan demanded, sounding angry again. “What, exactly, was it like, Garret? Please explain

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