“Sir.” He saluted sharply, and Martin returned it. “Welcome back. The soldiers are...”
He trailed off, seeing me for the first time, and his eyes went wide. “Sebastian,” he whispered, his voice laced with shock. There was a single heartbeat of silence, and then his mouth curled in a snarl. “You son of a—”
“Williams!” Martin snapped, stopping him midlunge. Williams froze, still glaring at me with darkest hate, one hand halfway to his sidearm. “Stand down, soldier,” Martin ordered in a low, firm voice. “I brought him here. Sebastian is with me.”
“Sir.” Williams turned to Martin, aghast. His mouth opened, probably to snap at his superior officer, before he seemed to remember himself and straightened. “Permission to speak freely, sir.”
“If you must.”
“Sir, why is the dragonlover here?”
Martin gave a wry curl of his lip. “That’s more of a question, soldier. Are you questioning me?”
“No, sir! But—”
“Sebastian is here for a reason. That’s all you need to know right now.” Martin’s dark gaze remained fixed on the other soldier. “I will not have a riot in these halls, nor will I have Sebastian come to harm while he is here. You will keep yourself under control, and you will trust that your superior officer knows what he is doing. Is that understood, soldier?”
“I...” Williams shot one last, murderous glare at me, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Martin turned from the soldier, dismissing him, and glanced at me. “Let’s go, Sebastian.”
We left Williams glowering in the hall and entered the assembly room through the back door, stepping onto the stage. As Martin and I walked to the front of the platform, I looked over the floor and saw the surprised faces of my former brothers turn to outrage as they recognized me. Furtively, I scanned the room, taking stock of who was there, looking for someone in particular. It took me only a moment to spot him. On the far side of the room, leaning with his back to the wall, Tristan St. Anthony raised his head and met my gaze, dark eyes narrowing to slits.
“You all know who this is.” Martin’s voice wasn’t a question, carrying into the tense silence.
“The fucking dragonlover!” someone in the back shouted.
“Yes,” Martin agreed, though his eyes narrowed in the direction of the shout. “We all know our former brother, Garret Xavier Sebastian. And we all know what he has done. However...” His voice dropped, becoming low and commanding. “I brought Sebastian here—he is under my protection and the protection of this chapterhouse. Which means,” he went on, his expression hardening, “no one under my command will do him any harm whatsoever. Sebastian is not a prisoner. He will be allowed to move about the base freely, and he will not be treated any differently than anyone else. If I hear of anyone throwing so much as a spitball in his direction, they’ll be spending the rest of the day in a cell. I hope I have made myself perfectly clear on this.”
A stunned, angry silence followed his announcement. Many of the soldiers were staring at Martin like he had gone insane, and the others were glaring at me with undisguised loathing. “Sebastian is here for a reason,” Martin went on, taking advantage of the shock, or choosing to ignore it. “Because he has been among the enemy, he has information that you all need to hear. I suggest you listen to what he has to say and reserve judgment until you’ve heard the entire story. Sebastian?” He half turned to me, nodding. “It’s all yours.”
I stepped forward, meeting the angry glares head-on. “Talon is coming,” I said over the angry murmurs of the crowd. “They have an army, and they intend to use it to destroy the Order once and for all. Their plan is to attack every St. George chapterhouse in a single night and strike a crippling blow against the Order. One that we’ll never recover from.”
“You’re full of shit, Sebastian,” called a soldier, perhaps the same one who’d shouted at us earlier. “All the chapterhouses in a single night? Talon doesn’t have those kinds of numbers.”
“Yes, they do,” I insisted. “I’ve seen them myself. They have an army of dragons, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, enough to attack every St. George base around the world and burn it to the ground.” A disbelieving, horrified silence fell as I let those words sink in. “They’re coming for you,” I went on quietly. “And if you’re not ready for them when they get here, everyone in St. George will be slaughtered.”
“Lieutenant Martin, sir!” another soldier called, and waited for Martin to acknowledge him before he went on. “Sir, how do we know Sebastian isn’t lying? He’s been in contact with the lizards themselves. How do we know Talon didn’t send him here to set us up?”
“We don’t,” Martin said calmly. “I have no idea what Sebastian has been doing in the time he has been gone. But I find it hard to believe that Talon would send him to warn us of an imminent attack. Even if he is lying, is that really something you want to risk?”
“I’m not lying,” I said, facing my former brothers again. “Talon is coming for you. There is an army of dragons on its way to massacre the Order. And with the chapterhouses so isolated and fractured right now, the rest of St. George won’t be able to help. You can’t survive this alone.” I paused, taking a furtive breath, then added, “But I have friends who can help.”
“Friends,” a soldier said scornfully, his voice pulsing with hate. “You mean dragons, don’t you, Sebastian? Lizards.”
“Yes,” I replied simply as the room began to erupt again. Soldiers were swearing at me, protesting, sneering at the very idea of accepting help from dragons. Tristan stood in the corner, watching all of this, but his expression was unreadable. “Listen to me,” I urged the rest of them. “I know this goes against everything we’ve been taught, but there are dragons out there who are not affiliated with Talon. Who have broken away and are in hiding from the organization, from their own kind.”
“So what?” someone demanded. “One evil soulless lizard is just like another. What does it matter if they’re not part of Talon anymore?”
“It matters,” I said firmly, “because they don’t want Talon to succeed any more than you do. Because Talon is trying to kill them off, as well, and any dragon who is not part of the organization. But they can’t stand against Talon alone.” I looked over the sea of angry, disgusted faces and hardened my voice. “And neither can you. To have a chance at surviving this attack, we have to work together.”