Fire glints in his eyes. “You’re not alone. Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re by yourself. As for the rest, I’m sure you’ll find out someday, and then we’ll see how your stars align.”
I stare at him, all sound except his slightly accelerated breathing becoming a low hum in my ears. “Why would you be sure? It’s been two hundred and twenty-six years. I think I’d already know something about my origins if I was ever going to.”
He sits across from me, perching on the edge of another lounging chair. His knees come up too far, and he looks uncomfortable. Terraces like this were built for the human population of the mountain to get outdoors and enjoy the fresh air. “Life is long, Idallia. There’s still time for surprises—good and bad.”
Huffing, I turn away from him. “Cryptic and depressing. I see you haven’t lost your touch.”
His low growl washes over me, raising goose bumps. I probably shouldn’t talk to Bale the way I do. He’s my king and my team leader. My inability to be passive or blindly obedient didn’t do me any favors at school, but it got me into the Elite Wing. Bale has never told me to bite my tongue, so I’ve just kept saying what I wanted and swinging for blood. This might be the first time I’ve come close to truly insulting him, though, and guilt rises along with embarrassed heat.
I turn back to him, my lips rolled in.
“I’ve been called a lot of things, but cryptic and depressing is a first.” He doesn’t look pleased.
“I call you cryptic all the time.” I pause. “In my head.”
Bale’s dark eyebrows creep up his forehead. “In your head?”
Oh, damn the stars. Did I just admit to thinking about Bale more than I should? “You know…passing thoughts. What’s for dinner? Where are my swords? Bale’s cryptic…” Ugh, I’m just making this worse.
“And depressing,” he adds wryly.
I sit up straighter. “You just smiled. I saw it, and you can’t take it back.”
His white teeth flash just before he turns his head. “Maybe there’s another kind of people in Ellonrift.”
Dragon shifters, humans, vampires, werebeasts, and fae. “Wait.” I swing my legs off the lounge chair and face Bale. “What if whatever I am survived the meteors? What if my lineage goes back to the first dawn of Ellonrift?” Cealastra doesn’t just create. She burns to the ground. “Bones still turn up sometimes from before the destruction. They all look human, but maybe they were whatever I am?”
Bale shakes his head. “And where would this whole group of unknown beings have been hiding for all this time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe wherever I’m from.”
His expression darkens. “You’re from Torridaig. Why isn’t that ever enough?” His rough tone surprises me, and he abruptly stands.
“That’s easy for you to say. You know exactly who you are.” I stand, too, and gesture wildly with my arms as if showing him every last corner of Torridaig. “Your grandfather was the first starborn ruler of the dragon-shifter clans. Your father came after him and united the people at the heart of Ellonrift. Then you came—very late in your parents’ lives, just when everyone was starting to panic about there not being a starborn heir—and got to draw the lines of your own kingdom. It’s all recorded history. Where’s my recorded history? I want to know!”
“So easily angered.” Bale reaches out and pins my still flailing arms to my sides. I gasp when he steps right up to me, and I tilt my head back to find him staring down at me with hard eyes. “Why don’t you save your flapping hands and endless abandonment rage for someone who deserves it. All I did was give you a job and a home.”
“Give me?” I snarl back. “Didn’t I earn my place?”
His whole face shuts down. “And your other home is Glarraden. You want your recorded history? It starts there, and maybe you don’t want to know anything else. Maybe there’s no one left to find.”
My jaw drops as he lets go and turns away from me. In an eddy of shadows, he shifts and leaps over the wall. His tail thumps the air near my face, and I flinch away from it. There’s no way he didn’t control that precise action and wouldn’t have hit me, but I feel the sharp warning cut through me nonetheless. When we dig too deep, sometimes all we uncover are bones.
I stumble back and sit again, shaken. Endless abandonment rage. Tears prick my eyes.
Abandoned? Or the last of my kind?
And why do Bale’s angry guesses always sound like information I should already have?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IDALLIA
After dinner, I flop down on my bed, arms out, an apple in my hand. It rolls from my slack fingers and thuds to the ground.
Fyrestar is the first to poke his beak out of the roosting wall. “What did you do now?”
I lift my head. He looks sleepy. None of his feathers glow. “Why is it my fault?”
