Page 35 of Mountain of Dragons and Sacrifice

“Thus the huge blanket you keep in your pocket.” I tugged the blanket I was currently using a little tighter over my shoulders, remembering the cold of that night.

“Yes.” Evander pushed away from the mantel and finally sank onto his seat once again, though the defeated slump to his shoulders remained. “I try to find each girl a good home, either in the fae village or in the villages in the Human Realm on the far side of the mountain. They—and you—can’t return to your own village. You’d likely be killed.”

I curled into a tighter ball in my seat. Even now, knowing the truth about the sacrifices, I couldn’t go home. “I see.”

Evander regarded me with eyes so filled with compassion it hurt to meet his gaze. “You don’t have to decide today. Take your time. Most of the girls are able to visit their parents often enough to convince them to move as well. Or if you can’t, you can stay in the fae village and sneak visits to them at night. You’ll have to take a guard with you—the forest isn’t safe. Too many fae monsters roam these parts—but you’ll be free to visit whenever you wish.”

That was why the family of the sacrificed usually disappeared a few months after she did. They were moving to be with their daughter, leaving behind the village that had treated their family so cruelly.

A pang shot through me. Bapi and Mama would never leave the olive grove. Nor would I want them to, not even for me. That olive grove was our family’s heritage.

A heritage that would end with my parents since I couldn’t return.

“Thank you for giving me time. I don’t really know what I want to do now.” I hugged my knees. The visit with my parents hadn’t given me clarity.

Though, perhaps it had. Just not the kind of clarity I’d been seeking.

Tomorrow, I’d talk with Clarissa. She had been living in the Fae Realm for the five human years since she’d been sacrificed. Maybe she would have advice.

Still hugging my knees, I glanced up at Evander. “If you don’t want the sacrifices, then why all the mystery? Why didn’t you just tell me all this right away instead of keeping me in the dark, and going through all the testing with the candle?”

For it had been a test, of a fashion. Just not the test I had been expecting.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t explain more earlier. I’m sorry for all the fear.” Evander held my gaze, his mouth caught somewhere between a wry smile and a grimace. “Would you have believed me if I’d told you right away?”

I opened my mouth but paused before I said anything. He’d told me I was safe. That the others were safe. That the dragon wouldn’t hurt me. And I hadn’t believed him even that much.

Would I have believed him if he’d told me the whole truth? Or would I have reasoned it away as lies, desperate to make his words fit what I’d been taught? I probably would have gone into a terrified panic, much as my parents had done earlier that night. I hadn’t been ready to see the truth until I lit that candle.

Finally I shifted in my seat, leaning my head against the back of the chair. “I don’t know what I would’ve believed.”

“It isn’t your fault. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more.” Evander rubbed his thumb over his other palm. “It’s always hard to know with each maiden how much to hide and how much to reveal. Most, like you, are so sure of your purpose that I have to be particularly careful in presenting the truth. I’ve bungled the reveal a few times, and the maidens were never quite the same again. There’s something very shattering about being forced to see a truth a person isn’t ready to acknowledge.”

“Thus the candle.” I snuggled deeper into the warmth of the blanket, my eyes growing scratchy as the night grew later.

“Yes. At least through that process, I can eventually explain the truth.” Evander ducked his head, clasping and unclasping his hands before him. “Some of the maidens are so beyond terrified that I don’t interact with them at all. Phoebe mothers them until we can safely relocate them to the human villages on the other side of the mountain.”

I shivered, even with the warmth of the blanket and the fire, at the memory of lying there on the stone, believing I was about to be eaten by a dragon. I hadn’t been far from that stark, unreasoning terror.

“The defiant ones are especially tricky. I’ve been attacked several times. One maiden stabbed me after I freed her from the stone.” Evander rubbed a spot on his chest that was concerningly close to his heart, assuming dragon’s hearts were in the same spot in their fae bodies as human hearts were.

“That’s…” I trailed off, struggling with the words to respond. My mind still whirled at all the reveals of this whole night, and now Evander was nonchalantly saying he’d nearly died. I finally settled on, “Horrible.”

Evander waved that away. “I don’t blame her or any of them for lashing out at me. In their minds, I’m a monster from their worst nightmare. I can’t help but applaud the ones who set out to try to kill me to free the village.”

Yes, the bravery of those maidens to attempt to end the sacrifices by killing the dragon was admirable. But they would have been killing an innocent if they had succeeded. Would the village elders even believe a girl if she returned to the village, claiming to have killed the dragon? Or was the superstition so strong that it would continue with or without an actual dragon to back it up?

Something I would have to ponder after I’d had some sleep and a chance to process all of this.

I rubbed a hand over my eyes, blinking to try to stay awake. “So to sum up, you never wanted maiden sacrifices, but every time you tried to end them, you just made them worse. You find the maidens good homes every year, once they stop being afraid of you.”

“Yes, that’s it in a geode.” Evander sprawled back in his chair, lines etched across his face. “I’d give my whole hoard to end the sacrifices, if I could.”

I finally understood that slightly harried edge to him. While not the same as what we maidens went through, he, too, was worn down, trying to fix everything as best he could. Given the way time moved between the realms, no sooner would he get one maiden squared away in her new home than the next one would be sacrificed, and he’d have to start all over.

“There has to be a way to end them.” I clenched my fists in the blanket and stared at the fire. The dragon didn’t want the sacrifices. The village didn’t want them. Surely there was a way to do something to stop them.

“Perhaps. I’m willing to try anything, as long as it doesn’t risk triggering the elders to go back to killing the maidens.” Evander’s head hung. “I already have one death and so many uprooted lives on my conscience. I don’t want more.”

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