Chapter 40
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KATALENA
Dappled sunlight played over my eyelids. A soft breeze brushed over my skin, and I stretched. My body ached like it had when I was training with the palace guards to defend myself. But this wasn’t from training, this was from?—
Mates.
I had mates.
Dragonmates.
The last day seemed like an impossible fever dream, and yet, when I cracked my eyes open, I saw Varí curled up on Endre’s chest. Zovai’s arm curled around my waist, and the world surrounding us was very very real.
Endre opened his eyes and smiled when he saw me. In the time I’d known him, even in our brief happiness at Skalisméra, I’d never seen a smile so easy. He reached out and took my hand. Kissed the back of it.
“It’s all real, right?”
“What’s real?”
I shook my head. “Everything that happened. It wasn’t a dream?”
Moving Varí so the little dragon splayed sleepily on a pillow, Endre rolled toward me. “It is no dream, mate.”
“I still don’t understand it.”
He tucked my hair behind my ear. “We were always told true mates were long gone. I don’t know how, but I am grateful. No one is permitted to harm a dragon’s true mate.”
Zovai groaned and stretched around me. “I imagine Idroal will have more to say to us now.”
At the end of the bed, Sirrus appeared in low-slung pants that showed off the fade to blue in his skin. The short length of his hair was messy, and he looked as bleary as the rest of us, but I couldn’t stop looking at him.
“I’ve called Idroal. They’ll be here shortly.” Then he winked at me. “Morning, Princess.”
I tucked my face down into the pillows, blushing. Everything felt new and at the same time it felt settled. I wasn’t about to die, and they were mine. “I have so many questions.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Pushing myself up to sitting, I winced at the pain and soreness, but I would take this gladly, because it was them. And I knew it would not last forever.
Sirrus pulled me to the edge of the bed to stand between my legs. “We weren’t gentle enough with you.”
“I don’t think there’s any human body that could take three dragons for the first time and not feel it,” I said with a laugh. “I am fine.”
The three of them looked toward the door and the billowing curtains beyond. I vaguely remembered the courtyard last night. “That’s Idroal. They have your things.”
Collecting the bag Belleo packed with all the clothes wasn’t exactly at the forefront of our minds when we left the Elders. But the bag was intact, and I was happy to pull on something light and comfortable the rich blue of a summer night sky. My necklace was once more a welcome weight on my chest.
Varíopened his eyes when I ran a finger down his spine. He tilted his head into my hand before standing and stretching his wings. “Are you all right?”
His only response was to climb up to my shoulder and curl there with his head tucked just beneath my jaw. I wished he hadn’t been there last night. If it had turned out any other way…
A table laid with light breakfast sat in the middle of the sun-soaked courtyard. Idroal was there, pouring themselves tea. But when they saw me, they stood and bowed. “Good morning.”
“I think it’s safe to say I’m no longer a princess, Idroal. There’s no need for that.”
“Maybe not in the human world. But you are the Heirs’ mate. And in our world, you are unquestionably royalty.” They smiled. “And I cannot tell you how much delight it gives me to watch the Elders be forced to accept a human as their offsprings’ mate.”
My breath stilled in my chest. The true reality of that hadn’t sunk in. I was not just the mate of three dragons, but to the Heirs of all dragonkind. No wonder they wanted me to burn.
“Now that she is our mate, I wonder if the restrictions that prevented you from speaking before are still in place?” Zovai asked.
“They have been lifted for you. It is hard to keep information from those who already know of it. You have questions?”
I sat down in a chair separated from the rest of them. The way my mates looked at me had me blushing, and I didn’t trust myself to make it through the questions when they did that. I would let them carry me back to bed and have their way with me. Perhaps they would let me continue the exploration I’d started on the beach. Because I wasn’t nearly finished with that.
Sirrus met my eyes and tilted his head toward the table in question. I nodded. He began choosing things and setting them on a plate before pouring a cup of tea. Something in my chest warmed. This is something they would have done before, had we had the chance, but them knowing I was their mate made it that much sweeter.
“Tell us, please,” Endre said. “I have a feeling there is much we do not know.”
Idroal shrugged. “In one way, yes, and in another, no. It is not that you are missing so much information, but that, like what the humans have done to obscure their history with dragons, we dragons have done with our own. Time creates a fog that is difficult to see through, and without those who dedicate themselves to marking down the truth, things are lost or change on their own.”
Then they looked at me. “What do you know of the Fallen?”
“Almost nothing. It was always said they were dragons that fell from the sky. The ones who came to this world first, and all are descended from them.”
“That is what most believe, yes. Including many dragons. And though the absolutely truth of what happened has been lost for millennia, we know enough to know that the Fallen were not and never were dragons. They aren’t even alive, though it has become common to refer to them as such.”
“What?” I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Sirrus brought the plate of breakfast to me, not pulling away until he’d brushed a kiss to the top of my head.
“The Fallen are indeed responsible for this age of the world,” Idroal said. “We have nothing but scraps of a history before then. But they are not dragons. Dragons have always been here, though in a different form than our current one.” They focused their gaze on me once more. “Have you ever heard the word sheyten?”
“Not before last night.” Aeghi had screamed it as a part of the many crimes of humans.
Zovai leaned back in his chair. “They are the remnants of the Fallen. Large stones that resonate with power. One rests in the bottom of Skalisméra, where it crashed through a piece of the mountain.”
Idroal smiled. “But the details of this don’t even begin to answer your questions, so I’ll tell you this. When the sheyten fell on Viria, they changed everything. Charged with power that was not of this world, they fell and burned their way into the earth. As nature is likely to do, it called to what was similar. Dragons and their fire. Some humans too, whether they were near something burning or had a talent for molding flame.”
“Like a smith?”
“Yes. Like that. The sheyten’s power changed this world. They are the source of the small magics humans can perform through the natural arts, the source of the rare human mage, and the source of the dragons’ power. I suspect also they are the reason we have two forms. When the power ran through this world it bound everything together. Human. Dragon. Magic. Nature itself. We are all a part of the same system. Things which belonged to humans—your form—were given to us. Things which belonged to dragons—unnatural colors, immunity to fire, other small magics—were given to the humans.”
I pulled a piece of my hair away from my head to look at it in the sunlight. It was always strange, and people wondered. But it was so strange that people questioned it. “I am part dragon?”
They chuckled softly. “No, Lena. You are not. Your gifts are simply a remnant of Viria’s remaking. But because everything was mixed, matched, and pulled together, matings could then occur even across the species. It was discovered long before your own mates were born. Someone not unlike you was working with a dragon and was burned by dragonfire. A mating bond clicked into place. And though I was not alive either, I am told it was no better accepted than what you’ve seen.”
“I—” No words came. Instead I took a sip of the strong, sweet tea and tried to wrap my head around it. “But fire?”
Spreading their hands wide, Idroal shrugged. “I wish I knew the answer, but I do not. It’s possible the remnants of the sheyten are buried deeper within humans than dragons because of our fiery nature. Perhaps they hold more sentience than we know, and observed we needed a barrier before allowing dragons to mate and take humans.”
“How many?” Endre asked, voice ragged. “How many human mates have there been?”
“I do not know that either. But as I told you before. Even without a mating bond, unions between humans and dragons were not so uncommon before the war. It was a risk. Taboo even then, though we were allies. But there were plenty who did not care.”
“The war.” I said. “Is that true? How it began?”
“Yes. Humans began to believe dragons held too much power, and that they weren’t sharing the magic they could. It began with one man, a king. But he was persuasive. He made people believe the dragons were holding back because they wanted to keep humans beneath their feet, and not simply because there is magic humans cannot control.
“So they attacked a breeding ground and stole the eggs there, hoping to ransom the dragons’ children for magic.”
Clearly, that hadn’t worked.
I’d never seen such raw grief as I saw now on Idroal’s face. “There are simply things humans cannot do with magic. Your bodies are not meant to hold it. We shared what we could, and would have shared more. But we were not holding back simply out of spite, no matter what the tales have been. We couldn’t give what was asked of us, and so they slaughtered those eggs, save the few they decided to take and breed into the monsters they have now.”
If someone truly asked me if I blamed the Elders for wanting humans to go extinct, I didn’t. Humans hadn’t proven ourselves trustworthy, and though I was relieved to be alive, I understood why they were unwilling to give us more chances. No matter if there were humans who felt like I did.
“I am sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
I shook my head. “For what my kind has done to yours.”
Idroal smiled sadly. “You do not bear the blame for that, Lena. No human alive does. And we are fools for not trying once more for peace. The world was better when we were friends.”
Breaking off a small piece of pastry, I fed a little to Varí before asking the next question. There were still so many, but my mind was muddled. More would have to come later. “The land is dying. Why?”
“The sheyten,” Endre said. “Two have been shattered.”
“Because they bound themselves to the world when they fell, the health of Viria and everything in it depends on them. After the war began, humans became convinced that the sheyten were a means to an end by the dragons, placed there to control them. They broke them apart and scattered the pieces. They’re kept in cities and towns, kept secret. But without being whole and keeping magic flowing through the land, it dies.”
I swallowed. “But it can be repaired?”
“We believe so.” Then they shrugged. “We haven’t been able to try. We hope so, or it is not merely humans who are in danger of extinction.”
So it wasn’t simply the areas where the sheyten were broken. If the circle wasn’t complete and whole, everything faded. The stones that were whole merely kept it going longer.
Varípurred loudly, and I fed him more of the pastry, alternating little bites between him and myself. This was a lot. “What happens now?”
Sirrus stood and came around behind me. He rested his hands on his shoulders and dropped a kiss on my head. “How do you mean?”
“Exactly that. What happens now? I’m your mate. I’m a human. Do we pretend all of this isn’t happening and go live in mated bliss in Skalisméra until I die? Do we try to win the Elders over by showing them that I’m not a human who wants to see the end of all dragons? Do we go to the humans with me as an ambassador and try to sue for peace?”
Silence reigned in the courtyard, and none of my three mates were looking at me. Zovai looked so tense he might snap, and Endre’s hands were curled into fists on his thighs. Even Sirrus gripped my shoulders hard.
“What did I say?”
“Until you die,” Zovai sounded strangled.
My mouth popped open, but no sound came out. “I—” I cleared my throat. “I’m mortal. Did that change because I’m your mate?”
No answer.
“Idroal?”
Their hesitation only made the tension worse. “I do not know,” they finally said, their face seeming more fluid than it had before. Like their own discomfort affected the shape they held. “But to my knowledge, there are no current human mates alive.”
All three of my dragons seemed frozen. As if they’d all turned to stone.
“Do you think there’s a way?”
“I don’t know. But I shall see what I can find.” They looked at my mates and back at me. “In the meantime, I shall see you at the festivities tonight. Varí, would you like to join me until then?”
Varíperked up and crawled down my arm before looking at me. I nodded and was glad when he fluttered to Idroal’s shoulder. My mates and I had some things we needed to speak about.
I stood, following Idroal as they led the way to the entrance of this massive house we were in. My dragons didn’t follow. “Festivities?”
“The Heirs have mated. It is an occasion worth celebrating.” Sarcasm laced their tone before they winked, their face shifting from one shape to the next. “But it is a chance for people to see you for who you are. Belleo packed you those clothes for a reason.”
“And that would be?”
They turned and headed down the shaded, open path down a gorgeous street I needed to explore later. “An interesting surprise, I think, for my fellow dragons.”
After last night, there were few surprises I couldn’t handle. But first, it was still early, and I needed to speak to my mates.