Chapter 28 Keir #2
I rounded the corner of the formation, and my breath catches. Fragments of stone litter the black sand beach—jagged chunks of broken stalagmites scattered like the aftermath of an explosion. By the look of it, Raven broke the side open with brute force.
I swim to the back side of the island, moving through water that grows warmer with each stroke. The acrid bite of her acid stings my nose, mingled with the scent of burnt stone. Scorch marks streak the rocks, the edges melted smooth where she carved her entrance.
And there, in the absolute darkness of the hollow she created, I see it.
A giant white dragon skull.
It hovers in the void, disembodied, pale as bleached bone against the impenetrable black. For one heart-stopping moment, I think it’s a corpse—some ancient dragon long dead, nothing but remains.
Then it turns.
A sapphire eye catches the faint light, glowing like a cold blue flame in the darkness. The skull shifts, and I realize with dawning horror that the rest of her is there—invisible in the shadows, her black scales swallowed by the void. Only that ghostly white face is visible, ancient and terrible.
“Raven?” My voice comes out as barely a whisper, cracked and thin.
The skull rises. A growl rolls out of the darkness, so low I feel it vibrate through the water more than hear it. It rumbles up through my bones, settles in my teeth, sends every instinct I possess screaming at me to run.
I know that look in her eyes. The dragoness is in the driver’s seat. Raven is gone—buried somewhere beneath that primal, protective fury.
I blink out of existence a heartbeat before she can strike.
The in-between swallows me, cold and empty, and I hold myself there for one shuddering breath before snapping back into reality on the shore. My knees buckle the moment my feet hit sand. I collapse onto the beach, shaking so hard my teeth chatter, water streaming off my body in rivulets.
“What happened?” Corvus is at my side in an instant, wrapping a towel around my shoulders. The fabric is rough against my skin, grounding.
“Oh, you’re more right than you know, Thauglor.
” I can barely get the words out. My voice sounds distant and strange.
“She’s out there. In a nest she made herself.
” I pull the towel tighter, trying to stop the trembling.
“Looks like she broke the stalagmites and curled up in the middle. All I saw was the white of her skull and the glow of her blue eyes.”
I meet Thauglor’s gaze, and I see my fear reflected back at me.
“Her dragoness is in the driver’s seat.”
The words fell into silence. Heavy. Final.
“So, what do we do?” Hemlocke breaks first, pacing the shoreline like a caged animal.
Thauglor pulls out his phone, fingers moving across the screen.
“Being a true wyrm dragoness, she’ll lay her egg—or eggs—in about two days.
” His phone dings several times in rapid succession.
His eyes scan the messages, and I watch them widen.
“Mina just reminded me how Raven reacted to the last clutch she had when Raven was little.” He looks back toward the island, his expression grim.
“She damn near torched all of us for getting near her mother.”
“How do we feed her?” Finlay’s voice is tight with worry as he looks from the stone fortress back to Thauglor.
“Keir can try dropping a deer outside of the opening.” Thauglor suggests, but even he doesn’t sound convinced.
I shake my head, still shivering despite the warm air. “I have no way of holding it as my hound. Can we get Ziggy to try? He has tentacles.”
“What about Orpheus?” Hemlocke stops pacing, his dark eyes sharp. “Do you think she’ll attack her twin?”
My brows rise. Hope—fragile and desperate—sparked in my chest.
Before Thauglor can answer, I’m already moving.
I blink out of the cavern; the world folding around me, and find Orpheus in his chambers. He’s barely awake, black hair mussed, confusion clouding his features.
“Raven is on eggs. Or about to lay.” The words tumbled out of me in a rush. “We need to see if you can get close. Use the twin bond thing.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I don’t give him the chance. I grab his arm and blink us back into the cavern before he can draw breath.
“Who got my sister pregnant?” His voice is a snarl as he takes in the gathered group, his gold eyes flashing with barely contained fury. Then his gaze locked on the stone fortress rising from the center of the hot spring, and his anger shifts to something else. Something softer. Worried.
“We don’t know.” Corvus runs a hand through his silver hair, still pacing. “But what we do know is we need to figure out how to check on her without getting torched.”
“I’ll swim out with you.” I step forward, meeting Orpheus’s gaze. “Worst case, I'll grab you and bring you back here in a blink.”
I hope beyond hope she lets her twin close. I hope the bond they share—forged in the womb, strengthened through a lifetime of protecting each other—is enough to pierce through the primal fog of her dragoness.
Orpheus stares at the stone fortress for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Resolved.
“I’ll do it. But since she’s shifted, her dragoness will accept my basilisk faster than my human form.” A faint smile ghosts across his lips. “It’s how we slept as hatchlings.”
He shifts.
The transformation ripples across his body like water—bones reshaping, skin giving way to iridescent scales that shimmer silver and black in the dim light.
His face elongates, draconic features sharpening his jaw and brow, silver spikes crowning his head like a deadly halo.
His basilisk form is beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—elegant and lethal.
He slithers into the dark water without fear, his serpentine body cutting through the surface with barely a ripple.
I dive in after him; the heat embracing me once more. He slows his pace so I can stay close, and we move together through the mineral-rich water toward the stone fortress. My heart pounds against my ribs with each stroke.
When we reach the back side of the island, Orpheus makes a sound I’ve never heard before. It’s somewhere between a dragon’s rumble and a basilisk’s hiss—a call that resonates in my chest, ancient and instinctual.
That great white skull emerges from the darkness.
I freeze, treading water, every muscle tensed to blink at the first sign of aggression. But Orpheus doesn’t hesitate. He slithers onto the small black sand beach and rises to meet her, his black scales catching the faint bioluminescent glow.
They press the flat plates of their foreheads together.
The gesture is tender. Intimate. A greeting between twins who have known each other since before they drew breath.
She allows him into the darkness with her.
The skull recedes into the void, and Orpheus follows, his serpentine form disappearing into the nest she carved for herself.
I swim back to shore with shaking limbs and flop onto the sand, chest heaving. The grains are warm beneath my back, clinging to my wet skin. I stare up at the bioluminescent moss clinging to the cavern ceiling, its soft blue-green glow pulsing like a slow heartbeat.
“She allowed him into the nest with her.” The words come out between ragged breaths. Relief and exhaustion warred in my chest.
“All we can do is wait now.” Thauglor’s voice is heavy. “I’ll send Ziggy to hunt when you tell me.”
A second later, Ziggy pops into existence—all tentacles and displaced air—wraps around Thauglor, and vanishes with him before anyone can react.
It’s just us now. Just the five of us, waiting for the egg to be laid.
“I’ll be back.” Finlay’s voice is tight, his eyes burning with an inner fire I haven’t seen since we first bonded. He stares at an area on the black sand beach, and I follow his gaze to the space he marked off days ago.
Understanding dawns.
The phoenix is going to build a nest for Raven.