“Isola?” Thorne’s voice shouts after the door is knocked three times. I run over, pulling it open and he is stood with three books in his hands and his head tilts to the side.

“Are you going to let me in?” he asks, almost cheekily.

“Are they for me?” I ask, as he walks past me into my room and drops them onto my bed.

“Well sort of, I’m going to teach you tonight. Remember?” he asks and I remember what my uncle said about him teaching me something. There goes my plan to sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

“What exactly are you going to teach me about?” I ask, scrunching my face up at the idea of studying all night.

“Politics,” he says and smiles at my pulled face.

“Really? That’s what you have to teach me?” I ask, groaning.

“Yes, really. You want to rule, yet have no idea of the councils and five selected that rule the five parts of Dragca,”

“I’ve never even heard of them,” I say honestly and he shakes his head, opening one of the books and sitting on the rug on the floor. I go and sit next to him, leaning over his shoulder to see the picture less book written in another language.

“It’s written in Latin, but I will read it to you,” he says.

“You can speak Latin?” I ask, watching as his hazel eyes turn to lock with mine.

“And French,” he says, leaning a little closer and picking up a piece of my hair, twirling it with one of his fingers.

“Tes yeux sont comme de beaux trésors,” he says softly as he lets my hair fall onto my chest.

“What does that mean?” I ask and he looks away breaking that contact between us.

“Just that your eyes are bright,” he says, but I have a feeling he is lying to me, not that I can prove it.

“Okay so what are the five selected?” I ask, changing the subject onto what we should be doing.

“So you know each major town, all five of them in Dragca, have councils. In each council, there are four members and they vote for one of them to become the selected. The selected has the final say, more power and speaks directly to the king with any issues,” he explains.

“That makes sense,” I nod.

“Here it explains that the council have open meetings every Friday, where anyone with an issue can come and speak,” he pauses for a second “I went to one once,” he tells me.

“What did you go for?” I ask.

“I went to get justice for my adoptive parents, against Elias,” he tells me, his anger looks like it is almost vibrating through him until I move closer and rest my hand over his. He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t move his hand away from mine. I know I shouldn’t comfort him, he is a dragon guard, yet here I am. I never said I was smart.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I say and he leans back, putting the book down on the floor with his free hand.

“I might as well tell you before Elias tells you the twisted version,” he says and I stay quiet. I don’t think Elias would bother making up any excuses, he seems like the type to own the deaths he has caused. The dragon guard do kill, and I’m sure Thorne has killed to get to where he is now.

“My adoptive parents, my father to be exact, helped his brother to kill someone very important but he was made to do it,” he shakes his head.

“Who?” I ask, wondering how his uncle killed and why his father would be killed for helping.

“It doesn’t matter, what matters is that he shouldn’t have been made to help and Elias was ordered to find him, and kill him for it. My mother killed herself because of the loss of her mate two days after his death,”

“I’m so sorry,” I say and he looks over at me.

“So am I, I wanted to save them but I couldn’t. I hated feeling weak.”

“I felt that way when I saw my mother dead, when I saw Jace dead. I’m never there to help them, always late,” I whisper and he nods.

“How old were you?” I ask.

“It was two years ago he was killed. I was training and didn’t know they had been found. They had been on the run for years,” he explains.

“Can you help me with something else?” I ask him after a lot of silence has passed between us.

“Sure,” he smiles sadly.

“I have this plant and I wondered if you could take me to the library, so I could find some books on it?” I ask.

“Yeah, let’s go now, I’m not in the mood for studying,” he says, jumping up and holding a hand out for me. He pulls me up before walking to the door and opening it for me. We walk down the quiet corridors, only passing a few students the whole time. The library is right at the end of the longest corridor in the castle, and it has big dark wooden doors.

“This is the library, I can wait outside for you if you want,” he offers and I nod, walking a little away from him before stopping and walking back. I gently wrap my arms around his frozen body, hugging him and walking away before I look back at his reaction.