It did not feel like being claimed.
It felt like coming home.
31
ARTHUR
I had been awake since before dawn, rehearsing my speech to an empty room.
A month had passed since Atlantis. Since the bond had rewired my entire existence in the gentlest, most terrifying way possible. Every day since then, something in the world had felt… brighter. Like the universe had finally remembered how to breathe.
Dragon magic was coming back.
It began subtly. A little more heat in the air around the hearths. Wards that no longer flickered when storms rolled through. Healers reporting that hatchlings were surviving their first fragile weeks at rates we had not seen in generations. Our shielding fields, the ancient enchantments that kept our havens hidden and safe, were knitting themselves back together.
We were healing.
Tonight was the fall equinox, the most sacred night of the year for our people. It was a night of balance, of reckoning and gratitude. It was when truths were spoken and futures were claimed.
I was supposed to stand before all of them and tell them everything.
I hadn’t exposed Hadrian’s treachery in detail. I’d told them he died trying to save us, and that he’d believed what he was doing was right. That wasn’t entirely a lie. It was just gentler than the truth. The clan didn’t need another wound.
Artemis had helped me write the speech. She took my scattered thoughts and turned them into something coherent and kind. She did it while drinking too much tea and muttering about historical precedents and how “honesty without cruelty is just good editing.”
I adored her.
Courting her had been the best decision of my life. We took walks. We argued about books. We planned future trips. Every day I found new reasons to be in awe of her. She listened and saw patterns where others saw chaos. She looked at me like I was something worth choosing.
We walked to the celebration together, the path lit with floating lanterns that bobbed like captured stars. The air was cool and damp with mist from the waterfall. My mother’s café was at the edge of the clearing, glowing with warm light. Laughter spilled out of its open doors.
The waterfall roared behind it, throwing a fine shimmer of water into the air. Dozens of my clan were gathered in the clearing, dressed in festival colors, talking and laughing together.
My mother stood near the entrance, greeting people with that bright, unbreakable smile of hers. When she saw me, her face softened.
“Oh, Arthur,” she said, pulling me into a fierce hug. “Look at you. You areexactlythe alpha we needed to solve this problem.”
That made my heart lurch.
She was still sad. She always would be. My father’s absence was a quiet ache that never left her, but she had built a new life anyway. A café. A community. Here, joy coexisted with grief instead of being erased by it.
She kissed my cheek, then took Artemis’s hands in hers. “You,” she said, eyes shining, “are a miracle.”
Artemis flushed. “I alphabetize things.”
“Exactly,” my mother said with a bright smile.
When it was time, I stepped onto the platform near the waterfall. The lanterns reflected off the water, turning the whole clearing into something out of a story.
I took a breath.
“My family did terrible things,” I said. “We also did extraordinary ones. We built havens. We protected our people. We failed them. And we tried again.”
I told them about the bargains, and the cost of it. I told them how we had finally broken free.
“I could have taken more power,” I said. “I chose not to. Because power without people is just loneliness.”
They listened.Really listened.
