Bellowing, I tightened my hold, my muscles tensing against the chaotic power. In that moment of raw struggle, my focus narrowed on taming the frenzy before me and inside me and whatever might echo throughout the very world around me.
Tugging on my mind’s reins, I made the mythical creatures slow. Only as I took control did the looming beast falter. It paused, cocking its head, watching me.
Judging me.
The fates knew I had so much left I must pay for.
In that instant, I saw my reflection in the beast, the part of myself I’d despised and struggled to overcome. I’d done horrible things, even if at my core I did them to protect others.
I confronted the darkest parts of myself. While churning through my regret and guilt, I found something unexpected—a glimmer of compassion and kindness I'd overlooked. It was like discovering a hidden strength within myself, a part of me that only now unfolded to shine like a jewel in the light.
A green, pabrilleen stone much like those mined within this very mountain. Like the spire and the pendant I still clutched in my hand.
I sifted through each painful memory, exposing them all, and one truth emerged. Beneath the shame hid a core of kindness I’d forgotten existed.
A revelation hit me. The forgiveness I hadn’t realized Isought needed to be found within me, not from those around me.
It was time to extend grace to myself.
The king had not extinguished the goodness inside me. It blazed as strongly as ever, a fierce blade I could wield with the strength of my inner compassion.
As the beast paused and waited, watching me, I knew why.
My heart swelled, pressing exquisitely against my ribs, and if I didn’t let it free, it would whip back and turn to ashes. Tipping back my head, I stared at nothing and everything, knowing that only one path awaited me, one filled with love.
I. Am. Worthy.
The beast disappeared, and the reins still biting into my palms disintegrated, evaporating from my grip.
A low hum echoed in the room, and light blazed behind me. I turned to face the spire, where thousands of tiny lights swirled within the small dome at the top.
I strode over to it and placed my hands on the cold surface. It sunk into me, both soothing and stabbing.
Itsoaredthrough me.
The lights splintered the glass and pierced my flesh.
I was dragged into the spire.
A jolt, and I found myself inside the cavern where Iasar had confronted me for stealing a handful of bone coins from Ivenrail’s bedroom. Like before, the dragon’s immense blue form rose above me, his scales shimmering in the cavern's muted light. My pulse hammered in my throat as I stood frozen, my eyes wide with terror mixed with determination. I knew he’d be angry, but I’d come here anyway. I had to showhim that I would not betrayhimeven if I had already betrayed Amronth.
I held out the handful of bone coins. “Take them. You know what to do with them.”
“You sssshould’ve left them there, boy,” he hissed, his voice dragging across my skin like a row of needles. “Now you’ve sssset ussss on a coursssse we may never esssscape from.” Tipping back his head and opening his mouth, Iasar unleashed a torrent of blue flames toward the ceiling. It didn't burn but throbbed with an eerie glow filled with magic unlike any I’d experienced before. Old magic. Power lost to time and to all of faerie. This wasn't any ordinary fire. It felt alive and overwhelming, capable of stilling all life in this world or unleashing something that would never be contained in all the others.
My very soul screamed at me to run, yet my legs refused to move as fear fused me to the cold stone beneath my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, defeat making my boyish shoulders sag. “I thought this would help.”
“I cannot wield them! Helping issss freeing my mate. Helping issss killing the one who sssstole them.”
“I can’t kill him. You know that.” If he died, so would I, and if I’d taken anything from my time in the dungeon where he’d tortured and killed my mother, it was the knowledge that I needed to survive. Her sacrifice should not be wasted.
I strengthened my resolve to live when she couldn’t.
It was only when I realized I might have to sacrifice myself to save everyone else, that I welcomed the death his would bring me. If I died, others might live.
“I’ll find a way to free Amronth,” I said.
