Page 12 of The Healing Dragon
I shake my head. “Not in one game. You know I’m quite good at cards.”
“I know,” he says. The hint of a smile on his words.
“I won enough to buy the bare bones. I have slowly worked on fixing it.”
“It looked complete,” he sighs.
I don’t say that the walls need paint or that the little items around were things I got secondhand from village vendors. That would be oversharing and opening up a lot more than I need to. Jesse doesn’t care to know more than what would explain my whereabouts. That’s the only reason he asked all these questions, after all.
“And the man that arrived just as we were about to leave?”
I sit up and finally meet his gaze. “A neighbor.”
“That’s all?” he asks.
“That is all. We aren’t friends, if that is what you are asking. Not the way we are.”
I reach for the words as they leave my lips, wishing I could take them back and never let them out, but it’s too late. They are out there.
“We are not friends.” Jesse turns away from me. “Can I truly do anything other than hate you?”
I shake my head. I want to say that he is right, but the words get stuck in my throat. I say nothing and allow the noise of the forest to fill the silence.
I lie there, unable to sleep for a couple of hours. It's uncertain whether I’ll be walking into my ending. I’m going to seek the very people just a couple of months ago I couldn’t get away from quick enough. Their reactions to my presence could be anything.
A scenario that finds me with little to no choice is the one that I am hoping will never happen. My father might attack at the sight of me. I need to be ready to react. The thought takes away my sleep because, despite it all, I love my father.
I’ve lost count of how many times his eyes have shown loveand appreciation for me. It was never free to take but priced at my worth. I wish I could turn off the switch that seeks that love, but it’s not that easy.
I turn to my side and watch Jesse’s profile as he sleeps. I am glad at least one of us won’t be sleep-deprived. His chest rises and falls so peacefully. He is adorable like this. I want to take a mental picture to remember this. Nowadays, I only get glares from him. Well deserved ones.
I don’t have a high moral code or delude myself into seeing me as a good person. It’s not that the lives lost at the Black Castle didn’t matter to me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I also didn’t do enough to stop it. I knew how my father felt about the King and the Oscuros but never thought he would take it this far. I spoke up in meetings and disagreed with ideas. I thought that would be enough at first.
Pushing some common sense and practicality into those men’s heads only caused me to be kicked out and left out of crucial information. If I had stayed quiet and listened more, I could’ve prevented the attack. I would’ve learned about his plans in time.
But would I? I’d like to think so. To believe myself that brave, but I never told Jesse, the one person in this world I love, about my father’s disloyalty. And all because of fear.
I knew I loved Jesse as a child. I knew it as easily as I knew I possessed magic. A knowing deep in my bones. I wish I would’ve said something and spoken up, but wishes will only get me long, hopeless nights. I need to act, and my time to do so has come.
As much as I would like to say that I’m doing this for the realm, for my bloodline, and for the people I let down, the selfish part inside knows I’m not doing this just for me and my magic. I’m doing it for him. Because even though thepossibility of not making it out alive looms over me, I am not turning back.
For the past two months, I have been on my own. I love the freedom I gained. In that short time, I thought of me and only me. The only time I have ever been able to do that. My time is up.
CHAPTER FIVE
JANELLE
The sun finally breaks through the mountain peaks an hour into the remainder of the trip. If the markers I memorized are correct, we’re getting close. The forest in this area is more wild. I’m on high alert as the vegetation is dark and my footing is unclear.
I look at Jesse behind me. I’ll know we are close when he feels the presence of magic return. Despite being alert to his surroundings, he doesn’t look any different. I’ve been keeping an eye on him. Then Jesse stops walking and stares at his hands.
“You feel it?” I ask, referring to the magic tingling in his skin.
He nods.
I spot a large bush at a distance and rush to it. If I’m correct, there will be a clearing on the other side and the farm not too far after that. I peek through the gaps and see the white structure of an old farm.
“He’s in there?” Jesse asks, looking through a gap above my head.
