“Get in line,” Kairos muttered.
“‘Food for your Dreadfae.’” Uther’s eyes flashed black. “I’ll make him eat those words. Literally.”
A startled laugh escaped me, too loud in the tense room.
Uther pointed at me. “The girl agrees.”
Elwen cleared her throat. “Can we focus?”
Uther exhaled hard, propping his boots on the table. “Fine. So we’re at war with everyone. Skaldir. Thalir. Caelir. What else is new?”
Kairos sighed. “Lunir’s on the fence. I need to write to Taressa.”
“I’ll help you draft it,” Elwen said, sliding into the seat opposite mine. “But first, we need to discuss the dragons.”
Everybody looked at me.
The weight of their stares pressed down on me. They wanted answers I barely understood. Elwen poured a glass of purple wine, pushing it in my direction. I wrapped my fingers around the stem, grateful for something to hold.
I inhaled a tight breath. “I heard them in Drøthmar, like…deep voices quaking the earth.”
“What else did you hear?”
“Screaming.” I sipped the sweet drink, and warmth slid down my throat. “The seal must’ve been weak.”
Lioren’s robes whispered across stone as he stepped closer. “It is remarkable that you heard anything at all. Have you communicated with dragons before this?”
“No.” I hesitated. “But…after the palace collapsed, I met one. In a dream. I was…somewhere. A strange world broken by time magic. Myndra.”
Elwen froze. Uther sat up straighter.
“A man approached me,” I murmured. “He called himself Lord Tazurel.”
Elwen grimaced. “The Peacock Tyrant.”
Uther raked a hand through his hair.
Kairos’s hand squeezed mine under the table. “What did the dragon want?”
I gripped it tightly as cold spread through my chest. “He wanted me to kneel. When I wouldn’t, he burned me.”
I drank more, trying not to dwell in the dark memory. I could still picture the way he’d stared at me, like I was an insect that needed to be crushed.
A shaky breath slipped out of me. “Twice.”
“Sounds right,” Uther muttered. “Demand worship, then throw a tantrum when you don’t grovel fast enough.”
I nodded, shame coiling hot in my chest. I’d given him exactly what he wanted because the other option was burning alive. And if a vision could hurt me that much…what would the actual dragon do when he was free?
“What was he like?” Elwen breathed.
“Intense. Beyond furious, like…he’s desperate to kill all of you for imprisoning them.” I bit on my lip. “He said I broke the first seal, and that he could reach beyond his prison.”
“And you understood him?” Lioren asked, his brows raised.
“Of course. Why?”
His silver eyes fixed on me with uncomfortable intensity. “Dragons don’t speak in a language most beings can comprehend. Only Speakers understand them.”
