“You already lost me once. Are you certain you want to test your aim?”
The dragon stills. His nostrils flare again, but this time, the inhale is different. Testing. Scenting.
He lowers his massive head, bringing that molten gaze closer. Close enough that I can see my reflection in it, small and stubborn and utterly bonkers. But I would risk everything for these knights.
He rumbles, and the vibration rolls through my bones. His tail lashes, knocking one of the monolithic stones to the ground.
“Now you’re wrecking the garden,” I mutter. “Watch where you put that thing.”
I take one step forward. His claws dig deeper, carving trenches. The growl sharpens. This is the closest I’ve been to death. True death.
Another breath gathers. This one is bigger. Not a warning, but a declaration.
“Theo.” I don’t shout or beg. It’s an offering to return to me. The name lands. His eyes flicker with understanding, and I detect a hitch in the rumble.
Smoke stutters from his nostrils in uneven bursts. He prowls sideways instead of forward, circling me. Each step measured, predatory. The basin becomes a cage, and I am the smallest, most ill-advised creature within it.
He is testing whether I am an illusion or a memory. Observing from all sides for trickery. He won’t find any.
I turn with him, keeping my gaze on that gold slit. “If you’re going to eat me, try to make it symbolic.”
His growl deepens, no longer violent. It’s confused.
“Here lies Daphne Stone. She fought the stars to return, but the idiot dragon double-ended her,” I grumble. “Not one for the history books.”
Something like a rusty laugh starts before he cuts it short.Hello, Theo.
He stops in front of me, close enough that heat rolls over my face in suffocating waves. The fire in his throat dims to embers, and he lowers his head another fraction and pushes it closer. Close enough that the air between us shimmers.
I lift my hand in measured movements, as though approaching a wounded beast. Which I am. His lips peel back, revealing rows of teeth designed for munching on damsels andending kingdoms. My fingers kiss his smooth as tempered steel scales on his snout, and I glide them in a caress toward his eyes.
“I know what you’re feeling. Lost, crushed, weighed down with grief and guilt for a future you dared to hope for. But I’m here. I’m breathing, alive, but I’m not whole. Never whole without you. I need my knight, I need my dragon, and I need you to stop being a fucking baby about it.”
Another smoothing of my hand as he growls. I shake my head, finding my confidence with each passing tempo. “Your brother plucked me from the stars. The same ones you try to burn each night with your fury. I’m no longer up there. I’m standing here before you, no magic, no tricks, no expectations.”
I continue to breathe, and he, for now, listens, but the understanding is just out of reach.
“Now is the time you have to be stronger than you’ve ever been before. You have to give over complete control. Stop fighting him. Let him see me, and I guarantee this world will once more make sense.” I press my face to the side of his head and blow out a breath containing all the grief and pain I’m keeping safe while the knights heal from my absence. “I can’t do this without you. So burn me where I stand so I can stop feeling this void, or take the leap. I promise I will catch you.”
For a long, suspended moment, nothing happens. I can feel his pulse beneath the heated scales, the way it quickens under my touch. The fire gathers once more in his chest, vibrating beneath my palms.
He could end this, and there’s a huge part of him that wants to. He wants to burn away the echo of hope so it can sleep in peace.
His jaws part. A growl tears from him, not at me, but through me. A sound of war. Of something being dragged across the inside of his ribs. The fire flares before it falters, like a torch plunged into rain.
The tremor beneath my hand changes. Not rage. Resistance.
His massive body shudders. Wings flex wide as though to launch, to flee, to tear the sky apart rather than face what I am. What I represent. He’s terrified, as am I.
“Look at me,” I whisper, my forehead pressed to him as a hot tear escapes. “Choose me.”
The gold eye squeezes shut. A sound leaves him then that no monster could make. Broken. Raw.
The fire dies, and his wings lower. The raised spikes on his back flatten. His head descends until it lies on the earth before me. The length of his body follows in a ripple of surrender, tail curling inward instead of lashing out.
The most terrifying creature in this realm folds himself at my feet. Not to a maiden or a queen. Not to an architect.
My throat tightens.
