Chapter 42 #2
Genocide. I’m suggesting genocide. The complete and utter annihilation of an entire population, down to the last egg, the last hatchling, the last ember of their fire.
And I don’t feel anything but cold, practical necessity. The part of me that should recoil, should argue, should search for another way—that part has gone silent.
Maybe it died with the girl I used to be.
“I know.” Thauglor’s exhale is long and weary, the sound of a male who has carried this burden for longer than I’ve been alive, who has made this calculation a thousand times in the dark hours of sleepless nights and found the same terrible answer every time.
“I’ve been trying to avoid that for over twenty years.
Hoping time would solve the problem, hoping they would move on and forget. Foolish of me.”
He pauses, and something in his ancient eyes shifts. Softens, almost—but not into mercy. Into anticipation.
“But after we deal with the west, we need to figure out what we’re doing about Amadeus.” His lips curl into something that’s almost a smile, sharp and hungry and eager for the hunt.
“I say we torch him too.”
“I believe we need to formally draft a letter of intent to find out what his thought process was before we go wiping out an entire island.” I keep my voice calm, measured, diplomatic—the voice of a leader, not a warrior, not the predator inside me that howls for blood, that thrashes against the cage of my ribs, desperate to hunt, to kill, to protect.
“Give him a chance to explain himself. A chance to surrender, to make amends.”
A chance he won’t take, most likely. But the formalities matter.
“Worst case, the four of us will fly in and wipe the slate clean.”
My eyes find my father’s and Solaris. We have the strongest breath weapons of anyone in this room—fire hot enough to melt stone, to turn armies to ash, to boil oceans and blacken skies and reduce mountains to slag.
Between the four of us, we could end an island.
End a bloodline. End a thousand-year legacy in a single afternoon of fire and fury.
The thought should horrify me.
It doesn’t.
Mom would need to stay here with Corvus, Finlay, and Abraxis to defend the nests if it comes to that.
Someone has to protect what we’ve built, guard the hatchlings and the wounded and the innocent while the rest of us are painting the world in fire and blood.
Someone has to make sure there’s something left to come home to.
“Raven!” Mom’s voice cracks like a whip, sharp with warning, sharp with fear for me. She sees what I’m becoming—what I’ve already become—and it frightens her. Good. It should.
“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes, letting my wings flare behind me, the leather snapping taut as I stretch them to their full span.
Shadows dance across the walls, making me look larger, more threatening, more like the monster I need to be.
“You know, if you didn’t have ten million hatchlings running around, you would be with us. Don’t act innocent.”
You taught me this; I don’t say. You made me this. Every lesson, every story, every scar you showed me and explained—you were building a weapon, whether or not you knew it.
She holds my gaze for a long moment, her eyes searching my face for the daughter she raised, the hatchling who used to crawl into her lap during thunderstorms, who believed her mother could fix anything.
I don’t know if she finds her.
Finally, she nods. The corner of her mouth twitches, and I see myself reflected in that small, savage smile. Recognition. Acceptance. Pride, maybe, mixed with grief for something lost.
Like mother, like daughter.
“So what are you doing first, lass?” Solaris’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against the solid wall of his body.
His heat seeps through my clothes, chasing away a chill I hadn’t realized had settled into my bones, had wrapped around my heart like frost. His scent envelops me—cedar and wood-smoke and something wild and free, something that makes my dragon purr despite the tension coiling through the room like a serpent.
I feel his heart beating against my back, steady and strong and completely unafraid. An anchor in the storm.
“Following protocol.” I lean into him, letting myself have this moment of weakness, this breath of comfort before the world demands I be hard again, be sharp again, be the blade rather than the hand that wields it. “That way the other islands can’t say shit. Gotta cover our asses.”
I straighten, rolling my shoulders, feeling my wings settle against my back like armor, like a promise.
“Klauth and I will draft the letter later today, then send it by our fastest messenger. They have a week to respond—seven days to explain themselves, to beg for mercy, to convince us not to reduce everything they’ve built to memory and ash.”
I pause, letting the silence stretch, letting them feel the weight of what comes next pressing down on all of us.
“After that, we notify the other islands about what happened—make sure everyone knows we followed proper procedure, gave them every chance to explain themselves, extended courtesy they didn’t deserve.”
Another pause. The fire crackles. Someone shifts their weight, leather creaking.
“And then we can do what needs to be done with no interference.”
I look at my family gathered around this war table—ancient dragons whose names are spoken in whispers and curses across the known world, fierce mates who would die for me without hesitation, survivors, and warriors and killers united by blood and bond and the desperate need to protect what’s ours.
The weight my parents carried all those years settles onto my shoulders now.
I feel it pressing down, crushing, relentless, threatening to drive me to my knees.
The weight of command. The weight of consequences.
The weight of knowing that my decisions will determine whether hatchlings live or die, whether our nests thrive or burn, whether the next generation inherits a kingdom or a graveyard.
But I don’t buckle. My spine stays straight. My wings stay furled but ready, leather warm against my back.
I was built for this. Bred for this. Broken and remade for this.
I am my mother’s daughter, and my mother taught me well.
“Let’s plan for the worst and hope for the best.” Corvus’s voice cuts through the heavy silence, warm and steady as always, a beam of light in the darkness we’re all drowning in.
I turn to him, my mate, my anchor, my reminder that there are still things worth protecting, worth fighting for, worth burning the world to save.
I offer him a soft smile, and he returns it with one of his own—gentle, unwavering, full of a faith in me I’m not sure I deserve but desperately want to be worthy of.
He’s so positive all the time. Even now, even standing in a room thick with the promise of war and the stench of old hatred, even knowing what we’re planning, what we’re capable of, what we might have to become—he finds something to hope for.
I’m lucky to have him.
I’m lucky to have all of them.
And I will burn this world to cinders before I let anyone take them from me.