Twenty-seven years of trying to earn my place in the world. Of proving my worth through service, through sacrifice, through pain willingly taken. Of believing—deep down, in the parts of myself I never examined—that I had to be useful to deserve existence. That love was something earned, not given. That rest was weakness. That needing was failure.
And here was this ancient being, this Shadow Master who had sacrificed his very nature for a chance to save the world, offering me a room where I could simply . . . be.
The shadows in the nursery curled toward me. Welcoming. Warm. Like they'd been waiting for me, too.
"You don't have to decide anything tonight." Morgrith's voice gentled further. "Just rest. Let the Sanctuary hold you. We can talk more tomorrow, when we've both recovered."
I heard him turn. Heard his footsteps—slower than they should have been, heavier—retreating down the corridor. He was giving me space. Giving me time. Giving me something I'd never had before.
Choice.
I climbed into the nursery bed.
The blankets received me like arms opening. Shadow-silk settled against my skin, cool and soft, impossibly comforting. The weighted blanket pressed down with exactly the right pressure, telling my body it was safe, it was held, it could finally, finally let go.
The ceiling-stars wheeled slowly overhead.
I slept.
Iwasflying.
Not in a machine, not falling, not dreaming the way I usually dreamed—scattered fragments of memories and fears jumbled together without sense. This was different. This was real in a way dreams had never been real before.
I rode on the back of a vast dark dragon whose wings blotted out the stars. The world below stretched ancient and strange, landscapes I'd never seen and somehow recognized all at once. Mountains that glowed with inner fire. Seas that reflected the moons—there were two of them, hanging heavy in a purple sky. Forests of crystal that chimed as we passed, singing to the wind our passage created.
And through the bond between us—because there was a bond, there was always a bond—I felt the dragon's joy.
It poured into me like light, like laughter, like everything good I'd ever been denied compressed into a single emotion. Joy at flying. Joy at freedom. Joy at having someone on his back who belonged there, who had chosen to be there, who—
Who loved him.
The knowledge hit me right in the chest. I loved this dragon. Loved him with a depth that terrified me, that made me want to turn and flee, that felt too vast for any single heart to contain.
I felt my own joy rising to meet his. Felt belonging so profound it made my chest ache. Felt—
This has happened before.
The thought came from somewhere deep. Somewhere older than memory.
I have flown like this. I have belonged like this.
I have loved like this.
And I ran.
I woke gasping.
Tears tracked down my cheeks. I didn't know why. The dream was already fading, slipping away like water through cupped hands, leaving only impressions. Joy. Flight. Love so vast it terrified me. And underneath it all, an ache I couldn't name—not grief exactly, but something close. Something that felt like loss without knowing what had been lost.
The shadow-marks on my forearms were glowing softly in the darkness. Pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Or—no. Not my heartbeat.
His.
I could feel Morgrith somewhere in the Sanctuary. Not close, but not far. His heartbeat echoed in my chest like a second pulse, slower than mine, steadier. The bond between us thrummed with something that felt like questioning. Had he felt my dream? My fear? My tears?
I pressed my palm flat against my chest, feeling both rhythms—mine and his, twined together, impossible to separate.
Beneath it all, buried so deep I couldn't consciously reach it, something stirred. A memory that wasn't mine. An ancient sky. A magnificent dragon. A love so vast it had terrified a woman named Evara into running away.
