Prologue: Liz
Humans have filled billions of pages—diaries, novels, poetry collections, and countless essays—on the subject of love. As far back as Virgil, two thousand years ago, humans proclaimed, “Omnia vinci amor!”
Love conquers all.
It’s an inspiring concept, especially if you’re a teenager whose parents don’t approve of the tattooed miscreant you’re dating, if you’re frustrated by the bigotry of your family or friends, or if you’re dealing with discrimination in the workplace. In those circumstances, it’s probably just the push you need to hold firm.
But when you’re in love with a beast whose entire being is at odds with the future of your species? It feels a little trite. Can love conquer the forces that are hard at work against me? Can it restore Azar’s memories? Can it force all humanity to give the two of us a chance? Can it convince his father that the human, err, human-adjacent person, who killed his wife isn’t the enemy? Can it vanquish a horde of demons who have burned for millennia and probably now want us dead?
As I survive another day and then another week, against all odds, it feels like our enemies are just piling up, and none of them care about Virgil or the power of love. It leaves me wondering more often than I’d care to admit whether love can actually conquer anything.
Because I’m afraid—very afraid—that Virgil was an epic moron.
I’m worried that, at the end of the day, love is pretty fricking useless.
Chapter 1
Azar
I don’t specifically recall hatching, but I do remember spending extended periods of time under water. When I asked Euphrasia later, she told me it was because until I could maintain one form for an extended period of time, I couldn’t be allowed to spend any time out of her care.
Looking back, I can scarcely imagine the risk she took to protect me—or why she would do it. I asked, but she always just smiled and told me I was worth the risk. It must have been hard on her to make it habitable for me underwater, and it must have been terrifying that she might be caught and held accountable for her actions, but she did it.
There may have been a lot of close calls, but I only recall one.
I was several years old. I could fly, and I could hold my red scaled form for long enough to be out and about. Euphrasia was taking me to Father’s lair at his request, and I was scampering along behind her, chanting my mantra: stay red, stay red, stay red. She scowled, because I wasn’t supposed to think it out loud, but sometimes it was hard to keep quiet. Once I managed to stay red, I also just happened to see the blessed she had said was my father, and that’s who we were going to see. I couldn’t help my glee. I wanted him to be impressed with how large I had grown, and how red I was, so I dashed ahead of her to try and catch up to him. . .
And slammed into a huge, red-scaled leg.
I can still recall the sound, the weight, and the heat of the exhalation that crashed over my head. I recall looking up, up, up until I saw a face looming over me, a giant, angry red face. More than anything else, when I think of that memory, I can still see with perfect clarity the fury in those black eyes, glinting at me.
A shiver shot through my entire body. Even then, I knew I was about to die.
The enormous red blessed above me drew in a ragged breath, clearly preparing to roast me before smashing me, or stomping on me, or eating me. Before he could incinerate me, another red-scaled blessed shot past, snapping me up with his giant claws.
Hyperion wasn’t young then, but he wasn’t old either, at least, not compared to Thunar. Don’t want to make Father wait, he broadcast, and then he sped up even more. It’s a good thing he did. I imagine, with what I know now, that had it been easier to destroy me or the two of us, Father would have done it.
I can’t think of another blessed who could have saved me from Thunar, who held a position second only to Father within the blessed, then and now. From that day on, I thought of Hyperion as my friend. I was an idiot, clearly.
But we were certainly tied by prophecy, even then.
If Hyperion was our people’s doom, at least there was a savior, and he had no intention of letting that savior die, even if keeping me alive felt like an all but impossible task. It doesn’t surprise me, after I hear Thunar’s distinctive portaling sound, that Hyperion almost immediately trumpets overhead. Of course he heard it too, and of course he’s already waiting on me, ready to stand beside me.
Or often, right in front of me.
The problem is, our proximity to Father saved us back then. Once Hyperion got us to Father, Thunar’s opportunity to destroy us was at least delayed. But here on Earth, where Father doesn’t want to come? Anything can happen.
In fact, it already has.
I died, or at least, my Azar half did.
So if Thunar kills me here, he has more than plausible deniability. He has the perfect excuse. He could blame the humans. He could blame the circumstances. He could probably just tell Father he was upset about my incompetence and leave it at that. Which means today, with Liz bonded to me, I’m probably as at-risk of death-by-Thunar as I’ve ever been.
Maybe more.
And there’s no Daddy nearby to run to.
As much as I appreciate Hyperion’s ongoing loyalty, he can’t save me here either, not without portaling home, and if Thunar’s here, it’s because Father sent him.
