Javan stood to the right of the headmaster, slightly in front of the first row of students. His place of honor for being the top of his class. He kept his body still, his chin lifted, but his heart thudded painfully against his rib cage as his gaze skipped from one family to the next, searching for his father.
Would the king’s shoulders stoop now? Would his long black hair have silver running through it? Twice, Javan was sure he’d seen him, but both times he’d been wrong. By the time the crowd was seated and quiet, the knots were back in Javan’s stomach, and he’d given up pretending that he wasn’t actively looking for his father.
The headmaster’s voice rumbled beside Javan, filling the room. Candelabras moved gently in the breeze from the bank of open windows to the west, their shadows dancing along the floor. Javan strained to see every corner of the room, his eyes racing from one row to the next until he forced himself to slow down and methodically look at every person seated before him.
His father wasn’t there.
The headmaster spoke Javan’s name, and applause filled the room, but Javan couldn’t find the will to force a smile. His chest ached like he’d run the entire perimeter of the academy, and the knots in his stomach had turned to stone.
He hadn’t come.
Ten years. Ten long, arduous years of sacrifice, duty, and honor. And his father hadn’t bothered to show up.
As the ceremony ended, and the crowd surged toward their children on the stage, Javan turned on his heel and walked away. Through the clusters of parents and grandparents, their smiles and tears salt on a wound Javan had never expected to be dealt. Past the pair of dark elves that stood sentry at the ballroom’s west entrance without sparing them a glance. Over the lush green lawn of the academy proper and onto the cobblestoned road that led away from the academy.
There he stopped as the sun sank into the western sky, a ball of fire disintegrating into darkness.
“Javan!” Kellan’s shout came from behind him, but Javan didn’t turn.
He’d spent a decade with the single-minded purpose of honoring his mother and earning his father’s regard. What was he supposed to do now?
Kellan came to a stop beside him, and they stood in silence for a moment. Finally, Javan said, “He didn’t come.”
The words were ashes in his mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Javan didn’t want to be sorry. He wanted to feel like what he’d done mattered. He wanted to smile and laugh and feel better than the boy who’d been left behind and then forgotten.
And he knew exactly how he was going to do that.
The ache in his chest became a flame of anger as he turned toward Kellan and said, “Is the invitation still open?”
Kellan blinked. “If you’re referring to girls, whiskey, and dancing, then, yes. Of course it is.”
Javan glanced once more down the road his father’s carriage should’ve traveled and then turned his back and met Kellan’s gaze. “I’m in.”
FOUR
THE RED DWARF was a low-slung gray brick building on the southern edge of town in the middle of a warren of crowded, twisted streets and narrow alleys. It had taken Javan, Kellan, and five of the girls from hall six nearly an hour to walk there. The slender fingernail of a moon did little to illuminate the roads, but the street lanterns were still lit, and there were plenty of people moving through the town in carriages, on horseback, or on foot.
Kellan and Javan had flanked the girls as they walked, their hands resting on the hilts of the daggers they’d strapped to their waists. Three of the girls had daggers too. None of them mentioned the dragon who’d attacked Javan, but they’d spent much of the hour-long walk craning their necks to examine rooftops and skylines, just in case.
The fact that they’d made it to the tavern without incident was slightly reassuring. If the Draconi had been acting alone, the injury it had sustained had kept it from returning. If someone had sent the dragon, the security on the academy’s grounds had kept any further threats at bay. Javan wasn’t sure how that would also keep the students safe when they left the academy’s property, but perhaps the headmaster had employed extra security throughout the town of Abhahan as well.
Javan shoved thoughts of the dragon to the back of his mind as he approached the tavern. Tonight was his chance to see what he’d been missing all those years of turning down invitations so he could study. His chance to have fun without worrying that he would somehow disappoint his father.
His jaw clenched tight, and he reached for the tavern’s door handle.
It was hard to disappoint someone who didn’t care enough to show up for the most important moment of your life. The fact that the headmaster had received a message that the royal coach would arrive to collect Javan in the morning was somehow worse than being forgotten completely. Maybe Uncle Fariq was wrong. Maybe the king’s letters had grown impersonal and infrequent because Javan had become nothing more than another duty in a long list of responsibilities weighing on the king’s shoulders.
Pushing thoughts of his father into the same corner of his mind where the dragon crouched, Javan opened the thick wooden door to the tavern and was hit with a wall of noise. Fiddles played a lively jig. Wood crackled in an enormous fireplace that took up most of the far wall, and a din of voices was raised in merriment. A quick peek confirmed his suspicions—most of the graduating class was inside. Holding the door open for the girls, Javan raised a brow at Kellan.
“I thought it was just going to be the two of us and the girls from hall six.”
Kellan grinned. “I guess word got around.”
Javan rolled his eyes. “Somehow with you, it always does.”
Kellan’s grin widened. “If you play your cards right, it will still be just us with the girls from hall six.”
The tavern’s door closed behind him with a soft thud, and Javan’s gaze swept the room. Square wooden tables filled half the floor, surrounded by chairs painted red, green, or black; and the other half of the floor already had a few couples dancing. Exposed wooden beams divided the ceiling into smaller sections, each lit with its own simple iron chandelier. To his left, a long counter separated the dining area from kegs of ale, racks of mugs, and bottles of whiskey. A swinging half door at the far end of the bar counter led to the kitchen.
Javan’s stomach rumbled as he followed Kellan to two empty tables near the fireplace. The tavern smelled of roasting pig, fried blackberry tarts, and the sharpness of fermented grain, reminding Javan that he hadn’t eaten since that morning. As Kellan pushed the two tables together, Javan held out a chair for each of the girls and then shrugged out of his cloak and settled into the one closest to the fireplace, his back to the wall, his eyes on the rest of the room.
Maybe he was just being paranoid about the Draconi, but there was no point in taking chances.