Chapter 5
Everly
The fire swept straight through to my soul.
My skin was untouched, my body unblemished, but the flames burned into my mind, dancing lights and shadows that formed hazy, ethereal images.
A female skaldwing stood in a cave, obsidian wings braced against an onslaught of flame not unlike the one that I had faced.
My mother.
Much of her dark hair had tumbled free from her warrior’s braid, flying behind her like onyx flames as she braced for another endless inferno. Ash stained her cheeks and forehead in sweeping patterns, as if she’d tried and failed to wipe it away.
Terror curdled in my stomach as I watched her face down the Dragon’s wrath. But she looked so determined. Her features pinched, but resolute, her emerald eyes desperate and furious.
Why are you here?
The words echoed through my mind just as they had so many times since I had entered the cave, but they were further away now. A memory, just like she was.
My mother clenched her fists, lifting her chin.
“I’m not leaving until you give me a way to keep her safe.” Her voice was rough, like it had been overused. How many times had she asked for this? Demanded it?
A deep growl echoed off the cavern walls, one I felt in my bones more than heard. “Binding her power will not keep her safe.”
My mother stepped forward, her chest rapidly rising and falling as gleaming talons broke free from her nails.
“She will die if I don’t.” She bit out each word. Each one more desperate than the last.
A hollow silence filled the air as her words faded into the stones. For several heartbeats, there was no reply. No sound or flame. No shadows moving along the walls or ground. Just my mother’s words hanging between her and the Dragon.
When he did answer, it was a single, clipped, emotionless word.
“Yes.”
My mother squeezed her eyes shut, her fists clenching hard enough for her talons to draw blood. Then she squared her shoulders.
“Dragons protect their own,” she said, her voice more raw than before.
The silence that followed was deliberate and measured. It weighed heavy in my chest, and I held my breath as I watched my mother hold hers until the sound of the Dragon’s voice echoed again.
“Even dragons cannot escape death.”
“Then give me a way to delay it!” she shouted into the void.
Her words faded as both she and the smoke cleared from my mind.
While I was still reeling from everything I had witnessed—from the sheer weight of my mother’s desperation to save me—the Dragon came into view once again.
His ethereal features were utterly unreadable.
“You’re the one who told her how to bind my mana,” I said flatly.
He blinked, once, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. Sardonic disdain dripped from his simple expression. “Obviously.”
“Why?”
My mother had been right; Dragons did protect their own, but they also hoarded power. It didn’t make sense that he would be so willing to strip his line of its primary legacy.
The Dragon studied me carefully, his cruel amethyst eyes somehow boring through me, past me, ahead of me, like he could see into my future if he wanted.
I resisted the urge to shudder under the weight of his stare.
“I had a vested interest in protecting this line.”
“Well, at least we’re on the same page then,” I said bitterly, though I hadn’t missed his use of the past tense.
Had he lost interest, then? Or would he keep me alive just long enough to breed so he could do whatever the hells he wanted with the next heir? And did that mean he wouldn’t help me now, when my life was at stake once again?
“Are we?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling through my bones. “When you’re so willing to throw your life away for the very people who despise you?”
Each word dripped with cynical disdain.
My breath caught in my lungs as I considered. Was he right? Would I be willing to sacrifice my life for Winter alone?
I thought of the half-eaten corpses strewn across my sister’s estate, the villagers who had dragged themselves to the palace to escape the monsters, and the orphaned child who had come to me for protection.
A child who would cower from me if she saw me like this. In my true form, with claws and wings and talons.
“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” I said quietly.
The Dragon scowled, his teeth flashing white against his bronzed skin.
“A flimsy hope to stake your life on.” Violet flames danced behind his narrowed eyes. “When you burn yourself to ash, you will be even more useless than you are now. Do not think it will be a quick death.”
I couldn’t help the scoff that escaped me.
“Do you think that scares me now?” I asked, meeting the weight of his gaze with my own. I took a single step forward, the anger coiling in my veins giving me the strength I needed to continue.
“I have spent most of my life standing under a blade poised to fall. A lingering, painful death was always in the cards for me. As a Hollow, as an abomination, and with every single act of fate or circumstance that has happened from the moment I was born.”
Memories flooded me, from the mages who tried to spill my cursed blood to my escape into Winter. To the days and nights spent hiding who I was and the constant fear of death waiting in the wings. The inevitability of it.
“But I am still here,” I said.
Still standing, for now.
“The Shard Mother chose me for a reason,” I continued, keeping my head held high. “So, I have to believe that I will find a way to control the power.”
Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe it really would control me, destroy me… But if I could at least hold on to complete the Heartstone Ceremony… to give Draven that much so he could begin to heal his kingdom…
I thought again of the Korythid that had breached the wards. The ancient monster that was fighting them even now. Thought of the Tharnoks, the Mirrorbanes, the Wretches, all of them.
How the frostbeasts were consuming the land, and every last drop of blood they could find.
Draven needed this. He needed a way to end this. And with my mana, I could offer him that.
I swallowed hard, darker thoughts creeping in at the edges of my mind. If the mana did destroy me. If it claimed my life like my mother was so worried it would… then at least that would be helpful too, right?
At least then it would pave the way for Draven to find someone who could help him heal Winter in truth.
So, so many times, I had faced my death, but at least this way, it could serve a purpose.
The Dragon tilted his head, letting out a low, humorless chuckle. “That remains to be seen.”
Somehow I felt like he was responding as much to my unspoken thoughts as to my words.
Whether I could control my power remained to be seen… And whether my death would serve a purpose did as well.
Then his eyes ignited in a violet haze, and shadows cascaded from his body, stretching outward like wings.
Pale slivers of light reflected off of glimmering scales, a purple so deep and dark it was nearly the color of a starless sky.
The scales rippled as he towered higher above me.
I followed the movement for what felt like ages.
How had he kept it all contained in his other form?
My pulse thundered in my ears, fear curdling low in my gut as I stepped back even further to avoid being crushed.
Horns arched back from its head in sweeping ridges that nearly scraped the cavern’s jagged ceiling, and his tail stretched back so far it could have coiled around the Gravemoor Towers twice over.
This was the Dragon I had come to see. This was the creature who held my life and my death in his hands. And looking at him now, I had no way of knowing which one he would choose.