4. Arthur
ARTHUR
Morning had come gray and damp, much like my mood.
I sank onto the leather chair in my research room and let out a low, frustrated sound. Not quite a growl. Not quite a sigh. Something in between, held together by disappointment.
The chair creaked in protest. It had never liked damp tempers.
Beyond the tall windows, the cliffs were awash in pale morning light. The storm had passed, leaving the sea calm and the sky scrubbed thin and colorless.
It was too quiet.
No younglings practicing flight patterns at dawn. No reckless spirals. No shouted corrections. The airspace above the territory had thinned over the years—not suddenly, but steadily, like a tide receding inch by inch until one day you noticed just how far the waterline had retreated.
“The book was supposed to be there,” I said. “It was listed. Logged precisely between two titles I will not dignify by repeating. And yet, it was not there.”
Caliban didn’t look up from the stack of correspondence he was sorting. “So, it was missing.”
“It was not missing.” Missing felt too final, like I’d gotten so close to something I was so sure would be just what I needed only to be turned away. I couldn’t accept that. “It was… absent.”
He didn’t hide his smile well, which I chose to ignore.
“The worst part,” I continued, “is that I felt close. I don’t get that feeling often. But something stirred when I entered that library. A pressure along the old magic lines. A sense of proximity. Then I went to the shelf and—nothing.”
Caliban folded his hands. “Did you speak to a librarian?”
“Yes. She was…” I paused, searching for a neutral word and failing miserably. “Efficient.”
“Oh. You mean charming.”
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to.” He took a sip of his tea, looking far too pleased with himself. “So. Efficient and charming. Did she help?”
A memory flickered in my mind: her steady focus, her quick thinking, her patience when explaining the cataloging system to a man who had mastered six ancient languages but struggled with a basic computer.
Humans still unsettled me in ways I could not fully articulate.
My father had treated them as variables because they were unpredictable.
Soft in some ways, dangerous in others. He believed exposure bred risk, and risk bred loss.
I had learned to observe them from a distance and only interact when necessary.
I had learned to trust tradition, not people.
It struck me then that I hadn’t felt wary inside that building. Not once. And I think Artemis Ripley was to thank for that.
That should have concerned me more than it did.
“She tried,” I said simply. “But the book wasn’t checked out. It wasn’t in repairs, or on transfer. It simply wasn’t there. She promised to keep looking.”
Caliban nodded. “Good. In the meantime, I’ll contact some collectors.”
I pushed my hands through my hair. “Do you think one of them has it?”
“One of them has everything,” he said dryly. “They hoard more than dragons do. At least dragons appreciate what they guard.”
I sighed. “This book shouldn’t be in someone else’s hand.”
“No,” he agreed. “Which means whoever is hiding it has a reason.”
My jaw tightened. That was the part that gnawed at me—the idea that someone else had found the same trail I was following and decided to bury it deeper. But why?
Caliban reached for his correspondence folder. “I’ll draft the letters now. You… try not to spiral.”
“I don’t spiral.”
“You do, just silently, which is worse. Loud spiraling is at least easier to interrupt.”
He wasn’t wrong. I resented that.
I grunted. “I’m going to cross-reference Caballero’s other works. There must be threads I’ve overlooked.”
“And your advisory council meeting?” he asked pointedly.
The council had grown more restless in recent months because of the strain on our borders and the shrinking shields.
Too few hatchlings survived to quiet anyone’s fears for our collective future.
Hadrian handled those meetings better than I did.
He knew how to provide certainty, even when the facts did not support it.
He reminded my clan more of my father than I did, which comforted them. Familiarity and all that.
“It can wait.”
“Arthur,” Caliban warned.
“I won’t sit in a room, listening to men drone on about border management when I’m within reach of solving a centuries-old riddle.”
“You haven’t solved it yet,” he said.
“But I will.” My voice came out firmer than intended. “I have to.”
That quiet concern appeared in his expression again. “I know what this means to you,” he said. “I know why.”
I looked away. I didn’t want to think about my father’s fading magic and the exhaustion it had brought him. I didn’t want to think of him whispering that something was wrong with the world he loved.
“I need answers,” I said.
Caliban rose. “Then let’s find them.”
I moved on to another stack of notes. It contained ink-stained maps and genealogical tangles I’d redrawn a hundred times. As I sorted through them, I felt a small, useless ache. I wanted that book in my hands.
But beneath that ache was something I hadn’t expected at all: a faint spark of anticipation.
Artemis Ripley had said she would call.
And I hoped she would.
Hadrian didn’t knock when he appeared over an hour later. He never did. He simply appeared in the doorway with that infuriating mix of charm and judgment he’d perfected over the last century.
“There you are,” he said, leaning against the doorframe like he owned the place. “Do you know what’s unbecoming of an alpha?”
I didn’t look up from my notes. “If you say research—”
“Missing a full advisory council meeting.” His tone was warm and light, almost as if he expected me to laugh with him. “Arthur, they sat there for twenty minutes waiting for you. Twenty minutes. Do you know how long that is in dragon years?”
“I’m fairly certain time is time, Hadrian.”
He grinned. “Not when Elder Vaelor is doing the talking. Every minute becomes an eternity.”
I paused in spite of myself. “All right, that part is fair.”
Hadrian stepped into the room, eyes sweeping over the maps, notes, sketches, and pages of cross-referenced lineages littering my desk. He whistled under his breath. “You’ve been busy.”
“I’m close,” I said. “Closer than I’ve ever been.”
“To losing the faith of the clan? Yes, I’d agree.”
I finally looked up at him. We had the same hazel eyes, but his was sharper, more calculating. We also had similar builds, but he was broader in the shoulders. Hadrian was also more practiced in the effortless confidence I’d never mastered.
His expression was still light, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. He was measuring the room like a commander deciding a battle is already lost.
He was, in every way, the kind of leader dragons revered. The kind my father believed an alpha should be. My own strengths had always irritated him. Thought was slower than fire. Understanding less impressive than command. I learned early that silence disappointed less.
Which was exactly why his approval mattered more than I liked to admit.
“It hasn’t been that long since your father passed,” Hadrian said, his tone softening. “No one expects that much from you. But you can’t disappear. Your people need to see you.”
“I’m trying to save them,” I said simply.
That stopped him. His posture straightened. “Save them from what?”
I gestured at the papers. “Dragon magic is fading. You know that. Everyone knows that. But it’s happening faster than reports suggest. If you chart the decline per decade, the pattern is unmistakable.
Birth rates—down. Viability—down. Our shielding fields are shrinking by literal inches every year. Two feet gone since my childhood.”
Two feet my father had insisted were inconsequential and dismissed as fearmongering. He trusted what he could see and break and fight. The rest he deemed unnecessary.
Hadrian’s brows pulled together like they used to when we solved riddles in the training cliffs as hatchlings.
“And you think this ties back to history?” he asked.
“I know it does.” I flipped a page, tracing the outline of my notes. “The drop begins around the same two-century window across all noble lines, when ours began to increase. Our decline starts much later, after a three-hundred-year gap in our family records.”
Hadrian nodded slowly. “Okay...”
“They’re entirely missing. Intentionally erased. And that window aligns perfectly with the earliest signs of magic fracture.”
Hadrian crossed his arms, looking thoughtful, and some of the tension in my chest eased. “What are you saying? That someone in our line… caused it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if they did, it means someone in our line can undo it. And that means I need answers.”
His gaze sharpened—not in suspicion, but in sympathy. “Arthur,” he said, “you’re doing everything you can. Truly. But you can’t carry all of this alone.”
There had always been something layered beneath Hadrian’s concern. Not cruelty or arrogance, but a quiet certainty that the burden of leadership might sit more comfortably on his shoulders than mine.
He had never said it outright. He didn’t need to—it was obvious in the way elders turned to him when discussions grew tense, and how easily he filled silence with decisive answers.
I opened my mouth to respond, but my phone buzzed on the desk, lighting up with an unfamiliar number. I stared at it, brain catching up one beat too slow. Phone. Right. Mortals used those to communicate.
The device still startled me when it demanded attention. My father had forbidden them, claimed they rotted vigilance and made dragons dependent on conveniences meant for lesser beings. Unfortunately, they worked.
On the other side of the room, Caliban cleared his throat. “Answer it, Arthur.”
“Oh. Yes.” I picked it up, swiped at the screen, then held it to my ear. “Hello?”
A soft voice rushed through the speaker, so bright and breathless that it sliced through my composure like a spark through dry tinder.
“Hi—this is Artemis. From Tarrytown library. I, um… I found your book.”
My heart—my actual, rarely moved heart—lurched in my chest.
“You did?” My tone was too relieved for someone trying to remain stoic. “You found it?”
“Yes. It was hidden in a back archive. I thought you’d want to know right away.”
She delivered the information like it mattered to her. A sense of trust surged through me before I could argue with it.
Caliban’s eyebrows shot up. Hadrian’s mouth curved in a knowing smirk. Of course, he noticed the shift in my tone and the straightening of my posture.
I ignored them both.
“Thank you,” I said, pulse kicking. “I knew you’d find it. I’ll be there immediately.”
“Oh—okay. Great. Uh, see you soon,” she said.
I ended the call and met Caliban’s gaze. “She found it.”
“I heard,” he said, amused. “You lit up like a lantern.”
Grinning, Hadrian clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well then, cousin. Go. Recover your relic. Save the world. And maybe try smiling at the nice woman helping you.”
I tried not to react to that, but I failed dismally.
And in the smallest corner of my chest, the dragon inside me gave a slow, unmistakable stir—like recognition.