“She will die if I don’t.” She bit out each word. Each one more desperate than the last.
A hollow silence filled the air as her words faded into the stones. For several heartbeats, there was no reply. No sound or flame. No shadows moving along the walls or ground. Just my mother’s words hanging between her and the Dragon.
When he did answer, it was a single, clipped, emotionless word.
“Yes.”
My mother squeezed her eyes shut, her fists clenching hard enough for her talons to draw blood. Then she squared her shoulders.
“Dragons protect their own,” she said, her voice more raw than before.
The silence that followed was deliberate and measured. It weighed heavy in my chest, and I held my breath as I watched my mother hold hers until the sound of the Dragon’s voice echoed again.
“Even dragons cannot escape death.”
“Then give me a way to delay it!” she shouted into the void.
Her words faded as both she and the smoke cleared from my mind.
While I was still reeling from everything I had witnessed—from the sheer weight of my mother’s desperation to save me—the Dragon came into view once again.
His ethereal features were utterly unreadable.
“You’re the one who told her how to bind my mana,” I said flatly.
He blinked, once, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. Sardonic disdain dripped from his simple expression. “Obviously.”
“Why?”
My mother had been right; Dragons did protect their own, but they also hoarded power. It didn’t make sense that he would be so willing to strip his line of its primary legacy.
The Dragon studied me carefully, his cruel amethyst eyes somehow boring through me, past me, ahead of me, like he could see into my future if he wanted.
I resisted the urge to shudder under the weight of his stare.
“I had a vested interest in protecting this line.”
“Well, at least we’re on the same page then,” I said bitterly, though I hadn’t missed his use of the past tense.
Had he lost interest, then? Or would he keep me alive just long enough to breed so he could do whatever the hells he wanted with the next heir? And did that mean he wouldn’t help me now, when my life was at stake once again?
“Are we?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling through my bones. “When you’re so willing to throw your life away for the very people who despise you?”
Each word dripped with cynical disdain.
My breath caught in my lungs as I considered. Was he right? Would I be willing to sacrifice my life for Winter alone?
I thought of the half-eaten corpses strewn across my sister’s estate, the villagers who had dragged themselves to the palace to escape the monsters, and the orphaned child who had come to me for protection.
A child who would cower from me if she saw me like this. In my true form, with claws and wings and talons.
“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” I said quietly.
The Dragon scowled, his teeth flashing white against his bronzed skin.
“A flimsy hope to stake your life on.” Violet flames danced behind his narrowed eyes. “When you burn yourself to ash, you will be even more useless than you are now. Do not think it will be a quick death.”
I couldn’t help the scoff that escaped me.
