Chapter 3
Everly
What right does a half-breed fae have to anything at all?
My body was raw from the flames that stopped just short of searing into my skin, but it was my mind that felt flayed and fractured.
Crystals gleamed in my periphery, deep purple swirling with obsidian in the flickering light of the fire. Just like the one I had shattered the first time I met the Archmage because I was—
“Not just a half-breed, and not just a fae.” My chest heaved with the effort of talking, and I clenched my fists until my talons dug into the familiar scars. “Dragon, I am here as your heir.”
The flames receded, but didn’t disappear. Instead, they crawled along the top of the cave, bathing the vast space in shadows that were darker and more corporeal than they should have been, moving with a life unto themselves.
I blinked through the smoke and the haze, watching as the shadows converged into an enormous winged serpent that stretched across the ceiling. It glided to the ground, where I could just barely make out the edges of a rough opening that I assumed led deeper into the caverns.
Oh. Does the massive shadow dragon who keeps hurling fire at me want me to follow it even deeper into the cave of torture? Wonderful.
But I sure as shards hadn’t come this far to turn around now.
I took a single step forward before the shadows stilled. My breath caught in my throat as they shattered, coming back together in a form that was smaller but no less intimidating. The form stepped forward into the light of the flames, and I froze.
It wasn’t a shadow or a silhouette. It was a male fae. Or at least, it appeared to be.
The power that spilled from each measured footstep felt wrong for a mortal form, like something ancient and colossal wearing a body it could split at any moment.
Amethyst eyes locked on mine, gleaming against tawny skin that almost rippled at the edges with shadows. His hair nearly blended with the darkness, the strands falling along his brow curling slightly at the edges.
Every inch of him felt out of time. From his sharp cheekbones and ethereal stare, down to the pristine yet completely foreign clothes he wore. Like he had stepped through a painting of some faraway land.
He tilted his head, looking me up and down like I was a particularly bothersome pest that had dared to enter his majestic space. His gaze lingered on the lightly singed locks of navy hair flying around my face, then on my features, which I could only assume were as haggard as I felt.
Was he judging me for the state his shards-damned cave had left me in?
I lifted my chin, and he scoffed.
“Insolent, just like your mother was.” His tone was mocking, his voice cultured and edged with the barest trace of an accent that felt older than time itself.
Though this voice was almost casual compared to the thundering one that had spoken in my mind before, each word still echoed with a wave of power. The air froze in my lungs, my tongue going still with the raw force of the Dragon’s presence.
I wanted to ask him about my mother, wanted to demand the power I had come here for, to argue with his assessment of me, to do anything at all but accept the fate that I was beginning to suspect I had resigned myself to.
But it was all I could do to stay standing as his eyes narrowed and another shards-blasted firestorm swept through the cave.