Chapter Eighteen
Daphne
The mountains feel different at night. Colder. Older. Like they’re keeping secrets.
Malachi rolls over and mumbles something about the trees being late to the party.
His hand rests on Excalibur as if he expects the dark to duel him.
Hart curls toward the embers of the fire, his mouth set in a stubborn line even in sleep.
Nash is the most fitful, with small twitches of his limbs as if he’s battling nightmares none of us can comprehend.
One diurnal soon, I’m going to banish his fears which I think are rooted in hurting me.
Our lives are forever intertwined with the wish he made under the stars of the night sky.
My heart beats for him. He would never hurt me. I have to get him to believe that.
His breathing deepens, and he settles as he bows to exhaustion.
The fire dims. The world holds its breath, and something tugs in my chest, low in my ribs behind my sternum. A thread drawn tight. This time, when I reach, it snaps its claws around me and drags me to my feet.
Theo.
I don’t dare speak. One of them will wake, and then they will insist on coming to protect me from something that was never meant for their hands. I know in my soul that I need to do this alone. Anything else, and we might lose him forever. He’s teetering on the edge of surrendering to the beast.
Not a chance in Blazes. He’s mine.
I ease from Nash’s grip inch by inch, then rise to my feet. I believe that’s the stealthiest thing I have ever done. I’d pat myself on the back, but I daren’t push my luck.
A shiver runs down my spine as I step away from the heat of the camp. I snatch Malachi’s let’s get freaky on the back of a horse cloak and wrap it around my shoulders.
Nash shifts, his hand reaching out to the ground where I was. My heart lodges in my throat, but he settles again, brow furrowing.
“Sleep. When I return, we will be whole once more,” I whisper before setting out on my quest.
The mountain path slopes downward, jagged and uneven.
My boots cause rubble to slide down the steep side.
“You couldn’t have gone wild in a nice flat meadow?
” I grumble, throwing my arms out for balance.
I descend, and by some miracle, manage to get to the bottom with only sixteen scratches and bumps.
But nothing is broken, and I’m still breathing. I declare it a success.
The air down here is different. Thick. Warm.
A metallic tang that settles on my tongue.
Snow covers the branches of the thin trees.
That’s strange; there wasn’t any snow on the mountain peaks.
My fingers trail along a low-hanging branch.
Instead of the icy kiss I was expecting, I find it to be grainy and warm to the touch. Ash.
I keep going, following my instinct no map could understand. The pine trees give way to splintered trunks, blackened and hollowed. The earth changes beneath my steps. Grass disappears. Soil hardens into something cracked and glassy where heat has kissed it too long.
The wind holds its breath. The brave wildlife who ventured into this dangerous land halt their nighttime choir as they wait to discover my fate.
Me too.
I step over the bleached ribcage of something small and unfortunate enough to wander into the line of fire. A fragile reminder that death does not discriminate.
The pull in my chest tightens. Closer, it demands. Don’t flee, it warns.
The ground dips into a vast basin carved by force. Charred trunks of once grand trees bend inward, paying homage to whatever claimed this space. In a circle, monolithic stones stand sentinel.
My fingers graze the closest one. I snatch my hand away and hiss as the heat burns.
There, a curved, dark silhouette moves. Slow.
Massive. A wing shifts, sending a low rumble through the ground like distant thunder trapped beneath the earth and not unleashed in the sky.
Claws bigger than my head scrape against the ground, creating burrows taller than me.
Wings shift, half-folded like broken shields.
His heavy, spiked tail snaps side to side, scales like hammered iron catching the faint moonlight.
Smoke leaks from his nostrils in uneven breaths.
Theo is enormous. My memory fooled me into making him less dangerous, perhaps because I have never felt threatened. Not until this moment.
A monster to most, a beast to battle, but that’s not what I see tonight.
He doesn’t emanate rage or fury. This dragon is consumed with grief.
My pulse stutters, and for a fleeting, foolish second, I consider turning back. Letting the knights wake. Letting someone else decide how to approach a creature capable of turning me to cinder.
But the thread in my chest pulls again, a plea for understanding.
“Theo,” I breathe. The name vanishes into smoke.
A huge gold eye blinks open, and the vertical slit zeroes in on me. His head lifts. Not startled, but slow and deliberate, as something ancient weighs up whether I am worth the effort of annihilation.
The gold eye narrows, the slit thinning to a blade. Smoke thickens at his nostrils, curling upward in lazy spirals. He sees me, but he doesn’t know me.
A low sound builds in his chest. Not a roar; a warning.
I run through the various safety talks I’ve not only been part of, but the driving force behind.
Drop and roll? No, I’m not on fire. Not yet.
Lie down and raise my legs? Only when I feel like I’m going to pass out.
Not there yet. Hold in cold water for ten tempos?
Nothing is burned. Again, yet. Jump scare? No hiccups are present.
The ground vibrates beneath my boots. Pebbles skitter. One of the standing stones cracks down its spine.
“Well,” I murmur with an eyebrow raised. “That seems promising.”
His head tilts, and he shifts forward. One colossal claw presses into the basin floor. The earth gives way like wet parchment. Another step and heat rolls toward me in a suffocating wave.
My cloak snaps behind me. The thread in my chest tightens.
He inhales, the unmistakable roar of gathering fire in his chest. No amount of screaming and running will prevent him from ending my life. So I stay.
“If you burn me,” I say, my voice steady despite my thundering pulse, “I will hold this against you in this life and the next.”
His pupils flare, and his mouth cracks open, showing me those razor teeth. In his throat, a ball of flames gathers.
I fold my arms and widen my stance. “I won’t be bullied. Give me my knight back.”
A warning blast hits the ground a few yards to the left.
“Very scary,” I taunt. “But I’m not leaving until you give me Theo.”
Another strike, two strides to my right. Stone liquefies. Heat slams into me, stealing the breath from my lungs and scorching the edge of Malachi’s ridiculous cloak.
I refuse to look at the flames. I keep my eyes on him.
“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 and ending 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.
“I knew you were still in there,” I murmur, fingers sliding along his jaw. “You stubborn, dramatic lizard.” His eye opens again to watch me. The gold is different now. Warm, not wild. I rest my forehead on his once more. “Come back to me.”
The night holds its breath, and somewhere deep within the dragon’s chest, something breaks. Something yields. And finally, something remembers.