Tilly Ann (Refined)
I turned back to the arena, my hands gripping the railing so hard my knuckles went white. Chase was approaching Emperor, and the dragon was watching him with eyes the color of molten gold. One wrong move and those jaws would close around him. One sudden movement and those claws would tear him apart.
I told myself I didn't care.
I told myself it would be a relief.
I told myself so many lies in the space of a single breath.
Chase mounted the dragon with the casual ease of a man who'd been riding since before he could walk, and the crowd—the crowd—actually cheered.
Stupidity on display, and they actually cheered. Including his father.
It seemed like I was the only one holding my breath. Others cheered like it was heroic, something to applaud. I just saw a million ways he could break his neck.
It was a moronic move. But he made the climb and he sat on Emperor.
I crossed my arms and glared.
He didn't hesitate. He settled onto Emperor's back like he'd been born to it, and for a moment, the dragon went still. The crowd went still. The whole world went still.
Then Emperor launched.
The dragon's wings snapped open, and they were in the air, a blur of copper scales and wind-tangled hair, climbing toward the clouds like they had something to prove. The crowd gasped. I didn't. I couldn't. My hands were frozen on the railing, my heart somewhere in my throat, and I hated myself for every second of it.
He was going to die. He was going to fall. He was going to—
Emperor banked hard, and Chase leaned with him, his body moving in perfect sync with the beast beneath him. He didn't fall. He didn't die. He rode. Around the arena, cheers erupted, but I barely heard them. I was watching the way he moved with the dragon, the way he seemed to become part of it, the way his laugh—his actual, genuine laugh—rang out across the training grounds.
He looked free.
He looked like he'd been waiting his whole life for this.
He looked like someone I didn't recognize.
The flight lasted three minutes. Maybe four. It felt like an hour. It felt like a heartbeat. When Emperor finally touched down, dust billowing around them, Chase slid from the dragon's back with a grin so wide it transformed his whole face. The crowd was on its feet. Electra was cheering. Even Father was clapping, a surprised smile on his face.
I didn't move.
Chase's eyes found mine across the arena. For one heartbeat, two, he held my gaze. His grin softened into something almost real. Almost vulnerable.
Then he looked away.
He was surrounded before I could blink—the blonde girl from before, a brunette with a cloth, a cluster of nobles all desperate for his attention. He laughed at something someone said, his hand finding the blonde's waist, and just like that, he was gone. Swallowed by admirers who had never wished him dead, not even for a second.
I stayed at the railing, my hands still frozen, my heart still somewhere in my throat.
"He's not dead," Electra said quietly beside me.
"No," I managed.
"You were scared."
"I was not."
"You were white as a sheet, Tilly."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because she was right. I had been scared. I was scared. Not of the dragon, not of the fall, but of what it would mean if he didn't get back up. If I never saw that infuriating smile again. If I never got the chance to—
To what?
To punch him? To scream at him? To kiss him?
I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore.
"Come on." Electra tugged my arm. "Let's get you some wine. You look like you're about to faint."
"I'm fine."
"You're lying."
I let her pull me away from the railing, away from the crowd still cheering Chase Dubois's name. I didn't look back. I didn't need to. I could hear him laughing, could picture the blonde's hand on his arm, could feel the jealousy curdling in my stomach like something poisonous.
He was alive. He was laughing. He was surrounded by women who had never called him a whore, never punched him in the face, never wished him dead.
And I was standing at the edge of the celebration, pretending I didn't care, pretending I hadn't been terrified, pretending I was done with Chase Dubois.
I was a very good liar.
But not good enough to fool myself.
---
Then the main event started.
The first event was speed. Chase won, naturally. His dragon tore across the course like it was born to it, and the crowd—the same crowd that should have been laughing at a wolf on a dragon—went wild. I told myself I wasn't impressed. I told myself anyone could ride fast if they had no sense of self-preservation.
The second event was precision. He won again. I stopped telling myself anything.
Each victory was met with more cheers, more swooning, more ridiculous posturing from a man who already had more attention than any one person deserved.
And through it all, he didn't look at me.
Not once.
He was polite when our paths crossed at the refreshment tent—a nod, a murmured "Princess," a brief flash of those dark eyes—but no more. He was the same with everyone. The blonde from earlier. A brunette who asked for his riding tips. A redhead who laughed too loudly at something he said.
The same. With. Everyone.
I wanted to throw something at his perfect, infuriating face.
"You're doing it again," Jovina murmured, appearing at my side with a cup of lemonade. "The glaring."
"I'm not glaring. I'm watching the competition."
"You're watching him watch other girls."
"I am not—" I stopped. Swallowed. Jovina's face was soft with something that looked dangerously like pity. "I don't care who he talks to."
"Of course you don't."
"I don't. He's a rake. He's the whore of Troita. He's—"
"Tilly." Jovina touched my arm. "It's okay to be jealous."
"I'm not jealous."
"You're white-knuckling your lemonade."
I looked down. The cup was trembling in my grip, the liquid sloshing against the rim. I set it down carefully, my heart pounding, my face hot.
"I don't mean anything to him, Jovina," I admitted quietly.
"You don't know that—"
"He told me himself." I looked up. Briefly, our eyes met across the crowd. He looked away. "Now he's showing me. Publicly. Now everyone knows my husband-to-be is a rake who flirts with everything in a low-cut bodice. And I am…" The words caught in my throat. "He thinks I'm…"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't say it out loud. Couldn't say that Chase Dubois saw me as a whore.
Couldn't say he was mine for a few minutes in the storeroom and the reading table when clearly and publicly he wasn't.
Couldn't say he touched me like I mattered when I was clearly just another girl in a long line of girls.
Jovina squeezed my arm. "Talk to him."
"No."
"Tilly—"
"No. I hope he breaks his neck. Really."