Tigen leaned over to look at her dragon and smiled.
She glared at the little boy who was a perfect image of his father.
He picked up his own char-stick and sketched on his parchment, using swift, sure strokes.
She pretended not to notice.
"Why didn't Lavalley send the dragons against Harthill to destroy it?" Gaylor asked.
"They'd never gone on the offensive," Skoch said. "It's assumed they didn't know how. They were a peaceful people, trying to defend themselves."
Gaylor snorted. "A stupid people, you mean. Look at them now! Subjects of Harthill. As soon as the dragons were slain they had no way of defending their city."
"Weak," Baeler added.
Tigen nudged Repentance and shoved his parchment toward her. He'd drawn a boy dragon—obvious from his square jaw, muscular arms, and large size—with one wing wrapped protectively around a girl dragon. The girl dragon had long eyelashes and puckered lips and long dark hair. The boy dragon had white hair. Underneath, they were named. Tigen and Repentance.
Angry, Repentance snatched the parchment from him. He was a small boy, but he might as well learn early that she wanted nothing to do with filthy overlords. Bending over the parchment, she colored over her dragon, making it all part of a bigger dragon—a giant girl dragon, crouching above the little Tigen dragon, with an angry tilt to her eyes and flames spewing from her mouth.
Repentance smirked and shoved the parchment back across the desk to Tigen.
And for the first time since she'd met him, he lost his smile.
"Yes," Skoch was saying, apparently in answer to something Gaylor had said. "The conquest of Lavalley did give him the power he needed to take the lowborns into slavery. With the Lavalley men in the front lines, his troops far outnumbered the lowborns."
Repentance jerked her attention back to the tutor. So it seemed the overlords made a habit of putting other people in their front lines. They were talking about Fawlin the Dragon Slayer—the monster who had married a lowborn and then beheaded her when she was unfaithful, but nothing had changed over the past 200 years.
"And we've had them as slaves ever since," Gaylor said, sneering at Repentance. "Dark and dirty. And all they're good for is scrubbing our waste stools."
She bit her lip. Fawlin the Dragon Slayer sired a son with his lowborn button mate before he'd beheaded her. Gaylor had lowborn blood in his veins. But she wouldn't remind him of that. She had enough trouble with the prince without antagonizing his son.
She glanced at the boy, wondering how she would survive day after day in school with him.
Gaylor jumped up, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her head back.
Repentance cried out.
"Don't you ever look at me." Gaylor said.
Tigen grabbed his brother's hands, trying to pry them from Repentance's hair. "Leave her be, Gaylor," he pleaded.
Gaylor backhanded Tigen, sending him flying. "Sit down, baby, and suck your thumb."
Giving Repentance's hair a jerk, he said, "You were giving me a dirty look. I want recompense."
Repentance moved her head, trying to follow Gaylor's hand as he yanked her hair.
"D-d-dis-m-m-missed," the tutor stammered.
Gaylor gave her head a final jerk, and released her. "My father will hear about this!"
Gaylor gave Skoch a dirty look, then sauntered out the door with Baeler and Rrow tagging along behind.
We are made for relationship and when we don't find it in the familiar places and faces, we must needs find it in the unfamiliar. Desperation drives us to humbly accept friendship from one we've all along despised.
~Meticulous Mudslide, An Old Man Remembers
Chapter 20
Tigen stood slowly. Blood dripped from his lip.
Repentance felt a stab of guilt. She shouldn't have been mean to him. He only wanted to defend her.
"My lady," Skoch said, "are you injured?"
She wanted to scream at him. Of course she was injured. The brat Gaylor treated her worse than he would treat an animal. Why would Skoch need to ask if that caused injury? But the last thing she needed was for the prince to think she was complaining about his sons. "I'm fine," she said. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have looked at him."
Repentance watched Tigen collect his char-stick and parchment from the table, hoping he'd smile at her again.
He looked up and saw her. "Why don't you want to be my friend?"
What a silly question. How could she have an overlord boy for a friend? Especially one with a father and brothers who would kill her as soon as look at her.
But he was just a little boy. He couldn't help who his father was. She reached out to wipe the blood from his chin.
He flinched and backed away.
"I'm sorry, Tigen. I was wrong. You remind me of my own brothers. They are kind and brave, just like you."
He gave her a shy smile and left.
The boys showed up to school the next day, Gaylor and Baeler acting as obnoxious as ever. No more, no less. Nothing came of Gaylor's demand for recompense. Apparently his father wasn't going to battle the king just then on whether or not the young princes were to be educated alongside a slave. Repentance took special care not to look at Gaylor or respond in any way to his constant threats and harassments.
The schoolroom was not her favorite place, though. Never knowing what would set Gaylor off put a huge strain on her, and by the end of the week, she was exhausted.
She took to slipping down, often, to the yak barn, to unburden her heart to the ever-patient Bramble. He never failed to calm her nerves.
On Friday morning, when she finished
