The officer regarded the younger man in silence for a moment, then sighed. “You did what you had to do, St. Anthony,” he said in a stiff voice, making the other look up sharply. “In accordance with the rules of St. George. The Patriarch was guilty, and his actions called for immediate reprisal.” His voice didn’t quite match the look on his face, as if he would give anything to believe that it wasn’t true. “You did your duty, though the council might not see it that way,” he added, making St. Anthony wince. “But I will speak on your behalf and do my best to ensure you are not punished for it.”

“Sir,” St. Anthony breathed as, with the crunching of salt, the other officer walked up. He was older than either of them, with a white beard and a patch across one eye, and his face was twisted into an expression of hate as he glared at us.

“Know this, dragons,” he snapped, his voice shaking with rage. “You might have won the day, but you have not broken us. The Order will recover, and when we do, we will not stop until Talon is destroyed This war isn’t over. Far from it. It has barely begun.”

I smirked, ready to say something suitably defiant and insolent, but Ember lifted her gaze from where it had been glued to the soldier’s body and glanced up at the humans.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said in a soft, controlled voice. “Some of us want nothing to do with Talon, or the war. Some of us are just trying to survive.” She looked at St. Anthony, holding his gaze. “Garret realized that. Which is why he went to you in the first place, why he risked everything to expose the Patriarch. Talon was using the Order to kill dragons that didn’t fall in with the organization. St. George thinks we’re all the same, but that’s not true.” Her voice grew a little desperate on that last word, and she dropped her gaze, staring at the soldier’s body once more.

“We don’t want this war,” she murmured. “There’s been too much killing and death already. There has to be a way for it to end.”

“There is.” The human’s tone was flat. “It will end with the extinction of every dragon on the planet. Nothing less. Even if what you say is true, St. George will not yield. The Order will never abandon their mission to purge the threat your kind represents. If anything, this has only proved how treacherous you dragons really are. Perhaps this was Talon’s plan all along—to strike a critical blow against the Order by removing the Patriarch.”