I'm so sick I want to die. My body, this massive draconic form that's supposed to be indestructible, feels like it's rotting from the inside out. My scales lose their luster. My wings, those great leathery expanses that can blot out the sun, lie limp and useless. My tail, thick and deadly, barely twitches. Fevers rack through me, covering me in sweat. I'm close to death. Closer than I've ever been.
But slowly, agonizingly, my body begins to win. The poison weakens. My magic returns in fits and starts, just enough to keep me breathing, to keep my heart beating in my massive chest.
And when I finally, finally manage to stay conscious for more than a few minutes at a time, when I can finally think clearly enough to reach for the bond—
She's gone. Adelaide is gone.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. I surge to my feet, my legs shaking, my wings dragging on the ground. I stumble through the castle, my claws gouging deep furrows in the stone floor. I search every room, every corridor, every shadowed corner where she might be hiding.
Nothing.
They took her. While I was dying on the floor, helpless and weak, they came and took her.
I didn't protect her.
The shame is unbearable, a beast with claws that tears at my insides worse than any poison. I roar my anguish to the empty castle, and the sound echoes back at me, mocking. Some protector I am. Some mate. I couldn't even keep her safe in my own home.
I have to get her back.
The journey to the palace nearly kills me. I'm still weak, still recovering, but I don't care. I shift into flight, my wings screaming in protest, and I follow the bond. That golden thread is faint, so faint, but it's there. She's alive, and I'm going to bring her home.
She’s so far away. It takes me days of flying to get to the castle they took her to. But as I get closer, as the palace comes into view with its gleaming spires and manicured gardens, I feel something through the bond that stops me cold.
Hope. She feels hopeful.
I circle higher, confusion warring with the desperate need to see her, to know she's safe. Hope. Why would she feel hope? Unless… unless she wants to be there.
The thought is a knife between my ribs, sharper than any arrow. I land in the forest beyond the palace walls and shift into my human form. It takes more energy than it should, and I have to lean against a tree to keep from collapsing. But I manage. I always manage when it comes to her.
I slip into the palace like a shadow. No one looks twice at another servant, another guard. I'm good at being invisible when I need to be.
And then I see her.
She's walking in the garden, alone, and she's so beautiful it hurts to look at her. The afternoon sun catches in her hair, turns it to spun gold. She's wearing a dress I've never seen before, something fine and expensive, something a princess would wear.
She looks like she belongs here.
I watch her from behind a hedge, my human heart pounding in my human chest, and I wait for her to look sad. To look trapped. To look like she needs rescuing.
But she doesn't.
She just walks, serene and lovely, through the roses and the carefully trimmed paths. Like this is where she's supposed to be. Like she chose this.
The bond hums between us, and I can feel her emotions. Complex, layered, but not despair. Not the desperate need for escape that I'm feeling.
She chose this. She chose the prince, the palace, this gilded life over the bond.Over me.
I should be angry. I should storm over to her and demand she come home, remind her that we're fated, that she belongs with me. That I am her home. Her safe place.
But I can't. Because looking at her now, seeing her in this place, I realize something that breaks me: maybe she's better off here. Maybe she deserves better than a monster in a castle.
Maybe I was never the hero of this story at all.
Maybe I was always the villain.
I leave. I shift back into my true form and fly home, and every beat of my wings feels like a death knell.
For three days after returning home, I try to accept it. I pace the castle halls in my dragon form, my tail knocking over furniture, my claws leaving marks on every surface. I tell myself she made her choice. I tell myself to let her go.
