“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 it to me. Explain to me how my partner, the soldier who has killed more dragons then anyone his age in the history of St. George, suddenly decided that he couldn’t kill this dragon. Explain how he could turn his back on his family, on the Order that raised him, taught him everything he knows and gave him a purpose, to side with the enemy. Explain how he could stab his own partner in the back, to save one dragon bitch who…”