“What are you going to do?” I nearly grab for him to keep him close.
With a sad smile, he gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He struggles to find words, and all he manages is, “Forgive me.”
As he steps away, I reach for him. “Lucan—”
Pia blocks me with a strong arm. “Give him space.”
I glare at her, but I don’t move. Not because of her command, but because this is clearly what Lucan wanted. Still, it feels as though a part of me is drawn toward him with an invisible string that tugs from my heart to his. Something far more powerful than what flowed between the Vicar and me.
Lucan strides to the far end of the courtyard before the Grand Chapel, far from anyone else. He looks small and almost insignificant amidst the cracking foundation of Vinguard and the glittering haze of Etherlight that seems to flow in reverse from the Font deep below. He shifts his stance and looks back to me one last time before Etherlight collects around him, swirling like a windstorm.
My lips part in a soundless cry, my heart thundering in my chest. I know what’s about to happen before it does, because I’ve seen it before.
“Lucan!” I scream as he is engulfed by thick black smoke and raging fire.
Wings unfurl from the vortex. Small at first, then growing to massive size. The smoke and flame condense back onto his form as scales of fire orange and smoke black. Two horns curl from his head by his temples, just above his ears. His eyes are completely orange, sparking with flame at their edges.
For a second, I can still see the man, even half-coated in scales and clothed in smoke and flame. But then he disappears completely as the fire burns away the remaining flesh. With sparks and embers, claws grow, scales cover, bones snap, and a scream of anguish rends the air as the large form of a dragon fills the square.
The ground feels like it’s tilting beneath my feet, and I reach out to hold on to Pia.
It’s him…The dragon from all those years ago. The one who attacked me.
Horror hits the back of my throat like bile. This man attackedmy city. I think of the bodies and the flames. Of the destruction.
But, then, the copper dragon lowers its massive face to us and stares right at me—rightintome.
His eyes aren’t the blazing orange I remember from six years ago. His pupils are not slits. He stares at me with familiar hazel eyes.
“Lucan?” I whisper.
A dip of his chin. It’s him. These are not the vacant eyes of the dragons that attack Vinguard. It’s the man within, just in a different shape. It’s like the flash I had of Saipha in her dragon but more solid and sustaining.
Lucan said he didn’t remember anything for a long time after the day of the attack. What if there is the personandthe beast? It’d be one thing the Creed got right. The dragon traps the people within when they transform. But something can bring them back, something I don’t yet understand.
One hand on my chest, over the scars against my heart, the other on his muzzle.
“It was you. It was always you.” The way he was drawn to me. The way that even when I found him insufferable, I couldn’t stop myself from staring at him. The way I was compelled to trust him over, and over, and over again.
The mark on my chest—thesigil, my father told me—he gave it to me. Etherlight flows between us like a dance. We are tied together in ways I can barely understand. I breathe, and he does the same, in tandem, as if we share one breath and one body.
“So. Amazing,” Myla whispers, breaking the moment.
Ember has dropped to her knees at her sister’s side. Tears stream down her face. “It is possible. It is possible,” she repeats over and over. “They can be changed back.”
“We need to move!” Dazni scans the walls. “A dragon is now in Vinguard.”
Pia nods in agreement and grabs my elbow. Dazni helps thetwins.
Lucan lowers his belly to the ground and relaxes a wing. Dazni begins to climb the wide, scale-coated muscle and bone that connect the membrane of the wing. Pia is next, and she extends a hand back to me.
I don’t hesitate. I take it and begin crawling up the wing. I might not know everything, but I know that even though the body might be the same, this is not the dragon that attacked me six years ago. This is Lucan.MyLucan.
Dazni, Ember, and Myla have made it atop his back, and Pia is not far behind when a shift in the Etherlight has my head jerking in the direction of a tower.
“Lucan, go!” I scream. “Go now!”
His monstrous head turns, and he sees what I do. With a mighty flap of his wings, he takes to the skies right as cannon fire shoots across the city, and I am helpless to do anything but cling to him.
