She comes out of the back door in a whirlwind. We leavewithout saying goodbye and emerge onto the cramped streets of Vinguard.
The sky is clear.
So…strikingly blue.
It makes the dragon’s roar echoing over the rooftops all the louder. As if the clouds manage to muffle them somehow. They don’t normally attack in clear, daytime skies.
But the beast streaks overhead, trailing cinder and smoke like a cursed falling star. It rounds and hovers, as if looking for me. Mum pulls me aside and into an alcove of a doorway.
“Stay here, Isola. You’ll be safe here,” she says.
Is anywhere safe? I want to ask, but she’s gone before I can, running off into the street.
The dragon roars again, closer, louder. Fire lights up the sky and stings my cheeks. Flames catch on the shutters of the buildings down the street. I turn and bang on the closed door. “Let me in. Let me in,” I beg. But the door doesn’t budge. I hear people inside, but they don’t dare open it.
Looking back onto the street, I see people running, their clothes ablaze. They’re… No, it’s not screaming. It’s a guttural, horrible sound like a dragon’s roar. A dying breath as their skin blackens.
Tears well in my eyes. I bounce from foot to foot, clutching my shirt. The dragon roars again, and I flinch.
I don’t want to be alone. I go to find my mom. If I’m with her, she’ll keep me safe. She’ll know what to do. Mum always knows what to do. She’s brilliant like that.
Dragon fire explodes before me, hot enough to melt stone. Most of those fleeing are killed instantly. But I hear the screams of those who aren’t. I smell them. There’s so muchfire and black smoke. Claws scrape against roof tile, and I see a flick of a dragon’s tail.
I run. The chaos pushes me down a narrow alley—I think I saw Mum go that way.
“Mum! Mum!” I scream, coughing up smoke to the point that I’m nearly sick.
So many screams. I get turned around, and soon there’s only one way forward. Fire behind me. Burning rubble in front of me. A single iron stairwell that goes up.
Up is death. But so is fire. Maybe there’s a rooftop door or hatch?
I crest the flat rooftop, between more rubble and bodies—remnants of some family enjoying their afternoon—and as I search for a way back down, the monster lands. Right behind me. Metal wrenches as the stairs I ran up break away from the stone that cracks under its weight, and I’m trapped.
My stomach is in my throat. My legs tremble. I stagger and fall, trying to scramble back. The bodies around me, singed, barely recognizable as human, now look like a promise. The building groans under the weight of the beast.
How would you like to die? its molten gaze seems to ask me.
Be it by crumbling building, dragon fire, or being eaten alive, I will not survive.
The dragon leans forward and huffs, clearing the dust and smoke enough that I can see the details of its face. Copper scales, dotted with gold, turn rusty and black around its glowing eyes. Curls of thick smoke trail from its nostrils. Teeth as large as my arm cut from its gums.
It reaches a clawed hand forward. I press my eyes closed and brace for what comes next. I expect it to grab me.To lean forward and devour me with a massive bite and sickening crunch. But it doesn’t. Instead, that claw scores my chest. It burns so sharply, I’m certain it has punctured my breastbone. I scream.
Then…light.
“Does it hurt?” Lucan jolts me from my thoughts. He’s standing before me at the bedside. I was so distracted, I hadn’t even seen him approach.
Lowering my hand from my sternum, I bring my attention back to him, banishing the memories to the recesses of my mind. “No, it doesn’t hurt. Sometimes, it feels as though there’s wire corded around my heart—like it cannot fully beat as it should. The scar itches, and that can send tiny, invisible bugs across my skin. Or every part of me feels too stiff. It’s all uncomfortable, but not painful. And fortunately inconsistent.”
I can feel the warmth from his body and shift backward on the bed. He must take this as an invitation, because he settles into the space I’ve left on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. I resist leaning into him.
“May I see it?”
Even though I usually hate showing people, something about Lucan feels…different. I don’t instantly grate at the question. More than that, I find I don’t mind if he sees. This scar is mine, yet part of it is shared with him—he was a part of that day, even if I’ve never known it. My hands move to the laces on my vest, loosening them. I pull down my neckline, but it’s still comfortably above my smallclothes. Even so, I’m less fastened up than I’ve been in ages in front of someone else, and I’m unable to resist taking a deep breath.
Lucan’s eyes drop to my chest, causing heat to rise up my neck. He’s not looking at me romantically. I know he’s not. Despite this, his attention feels different than any other who has everbeheld the mark that made me Valor Reborn.
The scar is a splintered web of shattered skin fused together by white, gnarled scars. Its thickest point is between my breasts, at the center of my chest. But it extends to just under my collar bones.
