Nadya sighs. “Are you going to tell me about your night, or are you going to keep it a secret forever?”
The corner of my mouth slides upward. “You don’t always tell me about your little night meetings.”
“You don’t really want to hear about them, do you?”
I laugh. “Not really, no.”
She drops her voice to a whisper. “Were you with Dante the entire night?”
I can’t hide my smile. “Yes. I don’t know if the gods would approve of half the things we did, let alone the king.”
She lets out a giggle and swats me playfully. “Oh, Your Highness,” she teases, “so very scandalous.”
“There’s only one thing I regret.”
“Honestly, Celeste, it only hurts for a minute. You just need to—”
“No! Not that.” My cheeks heat, and I have to laugh. It takes me a second to recover. “I had meant to tell Dante about my powers, but it… slipped my mind, given the circumstances.”
“Oh, that.” She giggles a little before continuing. “Well, it’s not like you won’t get a chance to speak to him again. The king can’t be watching you the entire time. Besides, you said you wanted to find out more about controlling the magic first. And it’s not like you’re keeping a secret from him.”
I worry my lip and nod. “That’s true.”
There’s a brief silence, the kind that hums with quiet comfort.
“Are you reading another one of your torrid love stories? The kind with knights in shining armor and fair maidens sighing in meadows?”
She laughs. “No meadows. No sighing. Did your parents ever read you the story about the sun dragon and the moon dragon?”
Thatgets my attention. I shift to face her more fully, curiosity tugging at the edge of my tired thoughts. “I seem to remember a bit of that, yes.”
“This is an account by an historian who translated accounts from a seer, making a case that the story has some true origins.”
“Really? Remind me how the story goes.”
“There were once two mighty dragon species,” she recites, her voice dipping slightly into a storytelling cadence. “The sun dragons—creatures of flame and light—and the moon dragons, born of darkness and shadow. They ruled the skies in ancient Terre Ferique, powerful andproud, but never allies. Always adversaries.”
I listen, intrigued despite myself.
“The tale says that whenever a great shift came upon the world—a changing of thrones, the rise of a powerful force—these two species would stir. Wake from their slumber as if called to take sides and champion a leader. But they were too destructive. Every time they fought, they left the world around them in ruins. So a curse was cast. It bound them to dormancy, locked them away.”
“Sleeping dragons,” I say. “That sounds familiar.”
Nadya’s voice lowers, the tone laced with eerie reverence. “And the curse said this: when the sun is blocked by the moon, the dragons would awake, and their final battle would begin. And then only one would survive. The other would perish forever. One cannot survive so long as the other lives.”
I tilt my head. “I vaguely remember it, but it was just a tale told to children. Unfortunately, dragons are extinct. Died out centuries ago.”
She shrugs, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Or maybe they’re just sleeping, like the story says, waiting to be awoken when the world shifts. When the moon blocks the sun. I don’t know. Stories have to start somewhere.”
“I guess we can’t count anything out.” I glance out the window again, watching the distant clouds unravel across the blue horizon. The tale sits in the back of my mind, strange and oddly persistent.
Sun and moon. Fire and shadow. Locked in a battle that could end the world.
The caravan comes to a slow halt on the outskirts of a quiet village nestled between rolling, green hills. The next leg of our journey will be over mountains too treacherous to conquer at night, so we need to stop and rest at an inn until morning. The evening air is cool, scented withdamp earth and the faintest hint of honeysuckle from the distant forest. Lanterns flicker to life along the cobbled main road, casting a warm, golden glow upon the inn’s timbered façade. The establishment is modest compared to the grandeur of Ivystone Citadel, but there is an undeniable charm to it—its walls washed in soft cream, the windows framed by dark wooden beams, and flower boxes spilling with violets and ivy.
The sound of carriage doors unlatching and booted feet striking the road fills the quiet, and I step down with care, smoothing the skirts of my black traveling dress. The fabric is wrinkled from the day’s wear, traces of sweat marking the seams, but I keep my chin lifted, remembering to play my part—not as a soldier, but as a princess. Sir Holden is immediately at my side.
The rest of the caravan begins to disembark in a slow, practiced rhythm. Guards move into place, alert but not tense, and attendants begin unloading satchels and cases from the backs of the wagons. The creak of leather, the clink of bridles, and the low voices of nobles fill the air with a kind of buzzing quiet.
