“Asha!” He puts down his tools and hurries toward me. “You’re okay!” Then he looks past me. “Galeia?”
I hold up my hands, a placating gesture. “She’s safe. She’s well. She’s… healed.”
My gesture shows him that I’m wearing a medallion, and it stops him in his tracks.
All of the tension leaves his shoulders. “You helped her.”
“I did.”
“Thank you.” He gives me a small smile that contrasts sharply with the fierce physical traits of the dragon whose soul he claimed. But his smile fades as he refocuses on me, suddenly searching my eyes. “Asha?”
My voice is a strained whisper. “I know how to stop it.”
His hands drop to his sides, and his broad shoulders seem to grow heavy again. The way he looks at me tells me he knows what it will cost.
His gaze lowers to the floor before he takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye again. “I will never forget what you said to me when we first met. You told me you wouldn’t hurt me because you only kill monsters.”
I exhale quietly, attempting a smile. “And you asked me: What if I am one?”
He nods.
Then, without hesitation, he crosses the room, picks up the toolbox I left on the pedestal there, and brings it back to me. “My hammer and medallions are inside. I put them away after you left.”
“Thank you.” It is the smallest thing I could say after everything that has led us to this point. All the threads connecting our destinies that had been weaving years before we were even born.
I force myself to turn away, preparing to leave, but he stops me.
“Asha, wait. There’s one more device.”
I pause, sharply aware that the device that currently rests within Thaden’s chest is also constructed from dark metal.
So, too, is Galeia’s heart.
I have already chosen not to take her heart. It wasn’t even a question in my mind. She can’t live without it. Removing it would kill her.
I have to believe that Malak’s tools and Thaden’s tools and all the dark magic those tools contain will be enough for me to create the object that will banish the darkness.
But as for the device in Thaden’s chest…
He’s suddenly right behind me, his presence as powerful as fire. “Will you make me human?”
My eyes widen at his request. “What?” I turn back to him, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice. “You would giveaway all of your power, all of the dragon’s strength, never to use it again?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Real power is overcoming the past. Strength is finding my purpose. I don’t need magic or a dragon’s soul to do either of those.”
I consider him carefully, even more afraid of his request than I was of healing Galeia. She is a child with a brain and body that will develop with her nature, but Thaden is a fully grown man with entrenched beliefs and decades of memories.
His voice lowers. “Even if I didn’t believe with my whole heart that I am meant to be human, there’s no other path that keeps Tamra and the people of this village safe. Graviter Rex believes I killed his son, and I can’t tell him otherwise. Once the darkness is gone, he will be able to come for me. I will go out to meet him, try to lead him away, but I fear for my people.”
Thaden catches his breath, and I understand his concern.
A fire dragon’s rage is without constraint.
“If you strip me of my power,” he continues, “Graviter Rex may consider justice served.”
I take another moment, thinking it through. “I don’t know what you looked like,” I say, as if his appearance is my biggest concern.
“I think you do,” he says, his lips pressing into a grim line. “Milena told me how much I looked like my father.”
