Chapter 3 Aisling
THREE
AISLING
Three days since I woke screaming in a strange bed.
I’ve reorganized the infirmary twice.
The first time was survival—my hands needed occupation that wasn’t clawing at my own skin. The second was improvement. Now the bandages are sorted by width, the herbs alphabetized, the surgical tools gleaming in designated drawers.
The healers didn’t ask for an inventory list. I made one anyway. Four pages, color-coded. Green for adequate stock. Yellow for monitor. Red for critical.
Nothing is red. I’ve checked three times this morning alone.
My mother would laugh if she could see me now. Aisling and her lists, she used to say, half-fond and half-exasperated. You’d organize the clouds if you could reach them.
She meant it as criticism. I took it as a compliment.
Lists saved Biscuit—Mrs. Callahan’s ancient tabby who’d eaten something toxic and should have died on my operating table.
Lists meant I knew exactly where the activated charcoal was at three in the morning, knew which IV line to grab, knew the dosage without fumbling for a reference book.
Mrs. Callahan cried when I called to say he’d pulled through.
Brought me scones every week for a month afterward, still warm from her oven.
Wonder if she’s noticed I’m gone yet. Wonder if anyone has.
I straighten a row of glass vials. Smallest to largest. Labels out.
Three weeks in that mountain. Days of blood and darkness and a voice like crushed glass telling me I was useful. And no one came looking. No frantic calls to the Gardaí. No search parties. No—
Stop.
I adjust the vials again. My hands are steady. They’re always steady. Even when the rest of me is shaking apart inside, my hands stay steady.
It’s the one thing they couldn’t take from me.
The door opens.
My body reacts before thought catches up—Loss shifting, hands curling, fire flickering to life beneath my skin.
I hate that this is my default now. Hate that every unexpected sound sends me spiraling into fight-or-flight.
Hate that I can’t remember what it felt like to hear a door open and feel nothing but mild curiosity.
Selene stands in the doorway, two ceramic cups balanced on a wooden tray. Steam rises between us.
“Tea,” she announces. “Before you say you don’t want company—I’m not offering company. I’m offering caffeine. There’s a difference.”
The distinction is so perfectly semantic that I feel my mouth twitch despite myself.
“Is there?”
“Absolutely. Company implies conversation. Caffeine implies two people sitting in the same room, drinking hot beverages, occasionally making eye contact.” She crosses to the small table I’ve claimed near the window.
“Eye contact is optional. I won’t be offended if you’d rather stare at your beautifully organized shelves. ”
“They are beautifully organized.”
“They really are. The healers are terrified.” She settles into a chair, tucking her legs beneath her. “Apparently their previous system was ‘wherever there’s space’ and they’re convinced you’re going to discover their sins.”
“Already did. It’s on my list of things to address.”
“You have a list?”
“I have several lists.” I don’t sit, but I drift toward the table anyway—drawn by the steam, or the company I didn’t ask for, or the simple fact that Selene doesn’t look at me like I’m broken.
“Lists of supplies needed. Lists of organizational improvements. Lists of questions I don’t have answers to yet. ”
“That last one sounds exhausting.”
“It’s the longest.”
She laughs—bright and startling in this stone room that’s heard nothing but my quiet footsteps for three days. The sound catches me off guard. Makes something loosen in my chest that I didn’t realize was clenched.
“Sit,” she says. “The tea’s getting cold, and I climbed three flights of stairs because the lift in this place is—and I cannot stress this enough—a literal stone platform operated by pulleys.
Medieval nonsense. I’ve told Drayke they need to modernize, but apparently ‘tradition’ is more important than ‘not dying in an elevator accident.’”
“It’s not an elevator if it’s operated by pulleys.”
“Thank you! That’s what I said!” She gestures emphatically at the empty chair. “See, this is why I like you. You understand the importance of accurate terminology.”
I sit. The chair is solid beneath me—real in a way that feels grounding. I wrap my fingers around the remaining cup and let the warmth seep into my palms.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you reorganized a medical facility in three days while recovering from trauma. I know you made color-coded lists for people who didn’t ask for them.
I know you’re sitting in this room alone instead of screaming or crying or setting things on fire, which—speaking from experience—would all be completely valid responses.
” She takes a sip of her tea. “I know enough.”
The matter-of-fact delivery undoes something in me. No pity. No careful tiptoeing around the obvious. Just acknowledgment, simple and clean.
“Screaming seemed unproductive.”
“Sometimes unproductive things are necessary.” Her gray eyes study me over the rim of her cup. “But I get it. I spent my first week here trying to convince myself that if I just stayed busy enough, I wouldn’t have time to fall apart.”
“Did it work?”
“God, no. I fell apart spectacularly. Set Drayke’s curtains on fire. Twice.” She grins at my expression. “In my defense, they were hideous curtains. Burgundy velvet. In a stone fortress. It was practically a public service.”
“Arson as interior design?”
“See, you understand.” Her grin widens. “Though I’d recommend starting smaller. Maybe a throw pillow. Work your way up to window treatments.”
I surprise myself by almost smiling. Almost.
She notices. Doesn’t comment on it. Just settles deeper into her chair, creating space for whatever comes next.
“I hated him at first,” she says, voice shifting to something more conversational. “Drayke. All that growling and ordering and deciding things without consulting me. I threw a candlestick at his head once.”
“Did you hit him?”
“Glancing blow. Very satisfying.” Her expression softens beneath the humor.
“But eventually I realized that the things driving me crazy were the same things keeping me alive. He wasn’t trying to control me.
He was trying to protect me the only way he knew how.
Which was—admittedly—a very annoying way. ”
“How did that change?”
“He learned to ask instead of demand. I learned that accepting help isn’t—“ She pauses. Chooses her words carefully. “Accepting help isn’t the same as being helpless. Letting someone protect you isn’t the same as being weak. It took us both a while to figure that out.”
I turn the words over in my mind. They don’t quite fit—not yet—but I can see how they might. Eventually.
“Selene,” I set down my cup, “the war council yesterday. I heard fragments through the walls—Valdris, the Relics, something about my blood being a beacon.” I meet her gaze. “I need to understand what I’ve been dragged into. Not the sanitized version. The truth.”
Her expression shifts. The warmth doesn’t leave, but something harder settles beneath it.
“The truth isn’t pleasant.”
“Neither was having my blood drained into stone channels for three weeks. I can handle unpleasant.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then she nods, setting down her own cup.
“What do you know about dragon history?”
“Nothing. A month ago, I thought dragons were a myth.”
“Fair enough.” She draws a breath. “So. Crash course. Dragons have existed for millennia—longer than human civilization. Most of them live in hidden territories, following their own laws, staying out of human affairs. The Brotherhood—Drayke and his brothers—they’re Guardians.
Protectors. They maintain the balance between dragon territories and keep the peace. ”
“And the ones who took me?”
“Rogues.” The word comes out flat. Hard. “Dragons who’ve rejected the Guardian system. Some are exiles—criminals banished from their territories. Others are true believers who think dragons should rule, not protect. They answer to no one except whoever’s powerful enough to command them.”
“And someone is commanding them.”
“Yes.” Selene’s hands tighten into a fist. “Valdris. The Crimson Queen.”
The name hits me like ice water. I’ve heard it before—whispered in that mountain, spoken with reverence by the creatures who held me down while blades opened my veins.
“She’s the one who wanted my blood.”
“She’s the one who wants all Fire-Bringer blood.
” Selene leans forward. “Two thousand years ago, Valdris ruled dragon-kind as empress. Not a benevolent ruler—a tyrant. She treated Fire-Bringers as livestock, breeding us for our blood, using us as batteries for her power. Dragons who defied her were executed. Humans were prey. She believed dragons were gods and everyone else existed to serve them.”
My stomach turns. “What happened to her?”
“The founders of the Brotherhood rose against her. Drayke’s predecessors, and others who believed dragons could be more than conquerors.
” Selene’s voice carries the history she’s clearly learned recently herself.
“They couldn’t kill her—she was too powerful.
So they imprisoned her instead. Created four artifacts called the Dominion Relics and used them as locks on her cage.
Sealed her in a volcanic mountain with chains made of solidified lava. ”
“But she’s not dead.”
“No. She’s been sleeping for two millennia. Waiting. And recently—“ Selene stops. Swallows. “A rogue general named Veylor started the process of waking her.”