Chapter 18
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KATALENA
The dragons disappeared in a cloud of fury. Chills rolled over my skin, and I kept my arms firmly wrapped around myself.
“Would you like me to find you something else to wear?”
I startled, having forgotten briefly about the fourth dragon. Bright green eyes rested in a face that was at once hard and soft. Beautiful and harsh.
“My name is Idroal. You don’t have to be afraid of me. I mean you no harm.”
“I—thank you. I think I would like something else.”
With a look that quickly took in my whole appearance, the dragon turned and left the room, returning short minutes later with trousers and a shirt that clearly belonged to one of the Heirs. “Will they be angry I’m wearing their clothes?”
“No.” A laugh. “Based on their reaction, I suspect wearing their clothes will soothe their dragons. I shall give you a moment to change.”
While I was alone, I wriggled out of the dress. It wasn’t easy, considering how tightly Soza had melded it to my body, and the fabric tore in my attempt to get free. I no longer cared. Embarrassment still sizzled beneath my skin. Part of me believed I should have suspected this would be the case. I asked, and they lied.
There was no way for me to understand the truth, given the divide between dragons and humans, but it still stung. The similarities in the paint on my skin should have made me ask more questions.
I’d essentially offered myself to Endre in the same way. But being sent into it unawares felt different.
And still, despite that, the way they’d looked at me. I wanted that. Like they’d been so close to losing control that they would give in and give us what I couldn’t ask for and they had yet to take. Yet they’d looked at me nearly the same in the plain dress I wore this afternoon.
I smiled at the thought. It wasn’t merely a pretty dress that made them react this way. It was me. And nothing would change that, despite what I’d been set up for.
The trousers were far too large. I tore a strip from the puddle of fabric at my feet, tying it around my hips several times to keep them in place. The shirt was dark and soft. It smelled of smoke and embers in the gentle way of a morning’s banked fire. But also a darkness that made me shiver as much as it made me curious.
I picked up the dress and piled it in my arms, along with all the jewelry except my necklace. It was then the dragon returned. “I’ll take that.”
Staring at them, I couldn’t quite figure out why I kept having to look twice. They looked one way, and then I nearly swore their face changed. Or appeared differently.
“Do I have some of my last meal on my face?”
Blinking, I shook my head. “I apologize. You are… unlike anyone I’ve encountered. Your face appears to shift, and I do not understand.”
“It does not surprise me. I do not believe you have many of my kind among the humans. Or rather, you must, but they will never tell, and you shall never know.” Setting the pile of shimmering fabric on the table, they assessed me again. “Most of the world comes in pairs. Light and darkness. Sunlight and rain. Masculine and feminine. Most living things claim one or the other. I am neither. As a dragon, my form is more fluid than that of a human.” They laughed then. “It does as it pleases more than I would like.”
Now, as I looked at their face, I understood more. The dichotomy between soft and harsh that appeared and disappeared. “You are correct. I’ve never encountered a human like you.” I smiled. “Then again, I’ve not encountered many things.”
They glanced out the window into the sunset. “Not all of our kind disdains humans. I am sorry you’ve encountered ones who do so quickly.”
“The Heirs haven’t decided whether I shall live or die,” I said. “I can’t say I expected everyone to be kind.”
Laughing, Idroal looked at me. “Haven’t they decided?” Suddenly their head snapped toward the door, and they gathered the dress up again. “Come. The Heirs summon us.”
“How do you know?”
“I hear whispers. Through the stone of the mountain. It is one of my gifts, and also how I knew who was to blame. I heard the whispers and took them as nothing but idle gossip.”
We left the Heirs’ chambers and went down several spirals. My gut twisted, recognizing the open chamber we approached. The empty peak, open to the sky. The cells I’d been imprisoned in were across the space and through the darkness of that hallway. But on either side of the mountain, the mouths of the chambers yawned wide.
The setting sun burned orange, red, and yellow, reflecting off the stone. And against the entrance open to the sea, three silhouettes stood. I already knew who they were, despite having known them for no time at all. It was only after I realized they were standing, looking at me, that I saw two more silhouettes on their knees.
Idroal walked beside me, so I whispered. “I asked them not to hurt them.”
They hummed softly. “You did. But this isn’t the human world. Their actions mean more than you can know. By using you, they have attacked the Heirs, and that cannot stand. Whatever their punishment, it has nothing to do with you, Princess. They made their choices and will bear the consequences, no matter what they are.”
It was true. If we were in the court of Rensara and someone had taken an action against me in this way, my father would have taken their life. It didn’t comfort me, but I understood it.
Blinking against the brightness, we approached. Soza and the dragon with the violet hair. The second stared at the ground, but Soza stared at me with undisguised hatred. I stopped when I saw her look. Idroal gently set their hand on my shoulder and guided me forward.
Zovai met us, stepping close enough that I had to look up at him. The way his gaze roved over me was filled with so much more heat than when I’d been dressed in nearly nothing. It was me looking at his lips this time, wondering what it would feel like to be kissed. Endre came so close, and I still didn’t know.
For one eternal moment I sensed that Zovai wanted to reach for me, but he didn’t. “It is our custom that the wronged observe the punishment of those who have committed a crime against them.”
My breath shuddered in my chest. “I would ask that you do not make me watch them die. Please.”
His eyes softened for the briefest moment. “They will not be killed. But neither will their behavior be tolerated.” Zovai paused, then sighed. “If it eases your mind, it is bigger than you. Even if you had been a dragon, they would be punished.”
“Idroal explained, but a dragon would not have been taken in by their own customs.”
He smiled, though his eyes were still full of fire. “It does not matter. Will you witness?”
“How do I know that witnessing this will not make them hate me more and do something worse next time? If I am alive long enough for a next time.”
Zovai went rigid. More than once I’d seen people attempt revenge in court for smaller slights than this. And given Soza’s glare, I didn’t doubt she would try.
“They have been bound by the commands of their punishment, in the way that dragons can be, and humans cannot.”
I looked over at Idroal, hoping for some clarity.
They knew. “Power, Princess. Dragons rule by right of power, closely followed by blood. A decree made by the Heirs cannot be defied by any but the Elders themselves.”
“And they will not touch you,” Zovai whispered, taking half a step toward me and stopping, only just catching himself. “I swear it.”
Swallowing, I met his gaze. More than this moment rested there. A drawing—like the quiet movement of a river beneath the surface, forever pulling to the center of the world. Toward them.
“Thank you,” I finally managed.
Zovai nodded, though his eyes lingered before he returned to the kneeling dragons, and I found both Endre’s and Sirrus’s burning gazes on me too. Had they heard?
Sirrus spoke first, confirming he had. His voice echoed through the mountain, laced full of power. “Not only the two of you, but all of Skalisméra. No one will lift a hand against our human guest, nor take action to harm her, directly or indirectly. If you have your doubts, you may speak them to the Heirs, and us alone.”
Endre turned his gaze on the violet-haired dragon. I didn’t even know her name. “Shift. Your wings only.”
Her head snapped up. “I cannot, my lord. I do not have that level of control.”
The smile on Endre’s face sent chills down my spine as much as it made me want to feel him close again. To brush with danger and not know how it all would end. My entire life had been nothing but safety, and with nothing left to lose, I found myself wanting recklessness and uncertainty. I wanted to play with fire.
“Who said you would be in control?” He extended a hand toward her, and this time his voice thundered with the power carried inside it. “Shift.”
Wings exploded from her back, nearly crashing into Soza. They were gray, the light of the setting sun shining through the delicate membranes. She stayed on her knees, though her body swayed, colors swirling over her skin. Her body was trying to shift fully into her dragon form and Endre wouldn’t let her. Their dragon forms were much bigger than the human body, and she was off balance, struggling. She hung in the net of power ensnaring her.
Sirrus walked toward her slowly, air visibly curling around his fingers, hardening into something that looked like ice. He passed behind her, only his silhouette visible through her wings.
All I saw was his arm lifting. Screaming shattered the air. I’d never heard a sound like that in my life. It was death in my ears and pain in my soul. My knees shook, the secondhand agony threatening to take me to the ground. I couldn’t look away, but I needed to know.
“What are they doing to her?”
Before Idroal answered, I saw what accompanied the next scream. A spike of air, thrusting through the dragon’s wing at the apex. Where the bones came together at a point and then flowed apart once more. Blood spread from the wound, not slowing, and another appeared, lower, closer to the base.
She pulled her wings in like a reflex, trying to hide from the pain, the screams having turned into weeping.
Idroal now stood next to me, and their voice was both quiet and steady. “They are severing her wings.”
“He’s going to cut them off?” I gasped.
“No. But she will never fly again.”
Cold, brutal nausea crashed through me. This couldn’t happen. Not because of me. “Wait,” I said, but I couldn’t get enough air to be heard. Instead I went, sprinting for them. Zovai turned at the last second, catching me before I could run to Endre. “No.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “Their crime wasn’t worth this.”
Dragons were immortal. To be immortal as a dragon without flight? It was worse than death.
I tried to pull out of his arms, but he held me fast, shifting me against the front of his body and holding me there, facing the dragons. “We will decide what their crime was worth.”
“Please.”
Zovai said nothing, but Soza looked at me. Hatred still burned in her gaze, but a little less now. I couldn’t stop this, but I hoped she’d seen that I tried.
Before my eyes, the pierced wings of the dragon healed, the blood drying on translucent skin. But the cuts didn’t heal. The edges sealed themselves along the gaping holes. “Perhaps the Fallen will grant you grace when you return to the stars,” Sirrus said. “But you will receive none from us. You are bound to the earth for the rest of your immortal life.”
The dragon’s human form melted away, and she slumped to the ground, unconscious in her bestial form.
Endre turned to Soza, and I opened my mouth to speak, only to find nothing but air leaving my mouth. I whirled and found Zovai watching me. There was sympathy there, but not enough. He shook his head to tell me no, he would not intervene or let me. And when he moved to turn me back to the spectacle, I threw his hands off me.
“Shift.”
Soza’s wings were yellow, and I couldn’t watch. I covered my ears when it began, unable to fully block out the sound of her screaming. Somehow I was on my knees, and I didn’t remember how I got there. This took longer. It never seemed to end, and every time I looked to see if it was finally done, it was another piercing thrust through broken wing.
This time, when Sirrus spoke, it was not the same. “It is the first thing you learn. We fly together, or we die alone.”
“Not with a human,” Soza hissed.
I stilled. Surely she wasn’t throwing this in their faces now? They would kill her.
“Then not only did you not learn the lesson, you did not understand it.” Zovai stepped around where I knelt. “United we succeed and divided we fall. That does not hold true for only dragonkind. And you should know better.”
Soza fought the magic that held her, flames bursting out of her mouth toward me, like she would kill me even now. Even after it already cost her everything. “They killed my family. Shot them out of the sky and let them bleed.”
“Princess Katalena did not do that. Was not alive to do it.”
“They’re all the same,” Soza snarled, eyes wild. Her hair streaked over her face, and it wasn’t fully human anymore. “They all deserve the same.”
“I pray the Fallen do not grant you grace, Soza,” Sirrus said. “For you do not deserve that. You have been bound to the earth for your immortal life, and beyond that, you shall bear the mark of a traitor.”
His hands weren’t his hands any longer, instead the claws of his pale blue dragon. They shone so brightly they glowed. Burning like the hottest part of a flame. Soza struggled even more, the flames she poured out nearly reaching me. Endre stepped between us just in time, but I still felt their searing heat.
I could see just enough to witness Sirrus place his claws on her face. Draped over her cheekbones and down her neck like a veil or a mask. This scream was silent. Her body glowing from within before her skin sparkled softly. Pearlescent, like the shine of an opal, but the skin was mottled like a burn.
Her eyes found mine. “I regret nothing.”
She collapsed on the ground next to her friend, flesh giving way to dragon form. And in that one too, her dragon’s face was marred with the same beautiful and horrible scar.
“Let’s return upstairs,” Idroal said, lifting my elbow and helping me to my feet. I shrugged them off, still staring at Soza where she was unconscious.
Endre turned. His shirt was charred, burned away by the flames meant to kill me. And over his heart, crawling outward like veins reaching for every part of him, was another pearlescent scar.