Chapter One
Emelyn
I struggled to orient myself. My chest tightened, a sharp pain flaring with each heartbeat as the realization hit me—I couldn't breathe. I was underwater, suffocating in its embrace.
I fought against the panic, my mind racing as much as my heart. Desperately, I tried to bend the water around me, willing it to propel me toward the surface, toward air. But it was like moving through liquid stone.
Just when I thought I might find the strength to break through the haze, something slick brushed against my leg. Leathery scales sent a jolt of terror coursing through me. I twisted, trying to see through the murky depths.
Then, movement swayed and a creature of considerable size loomed before me. My thoughts spiraled. I was convinced this was how I would meet my end: not on a battlefield or by bending, but in the jaws of some sea beast.
As it drew closer, the details of its form became clearer. It possessed feline-like features. The creature was easily the size of three large men. Jagged fins adorned its body, stretching from the crown of its head down to the very tip of its tail.
The colors of the beast shifted before my eyes, transitioning from a deep blue to a vibrant, warning red. It was a hue that screamed danger, one that nature often used to ward off those foolish enough to approach.
My body screamed for air and my mind cried out for mercy. But then when it didn’t do anything, there was a strange sense of recognition, an understanding that this creature wasn’t a threat.
It was a water lynx, and not just any lynx, I realized, but the one I had saved before.
He circled me once before he disappeared into the depths below me and then shot back up between my legs.
I clung to the creature's leathery hide as it twisted and turned beneath me, muscles coiling like serpents under its scales. Water rushed past us in torrents, a cacophony of bubbles and currents vying to pull me away into the void.
My lungs screamed in silent agony. Just as darkness started to close in at the edges of my consciousness, I felt the lynx surge upward. A powerful thrust from its tail propelled us through the water, faster and faster until we burst through the surface.
I gasped, the air sweet and stinging as it filled my starving lungs. My fingers unclenched from the beast's flanks, and I coughed violently, expelling water.
I squinted, pushing my drenched hair back from my face to peer at my surroundings.
The waters of Draynua stretched endlessly around us, but there, cutting a silhouette against the night, was Magni Island.
The lynx moved with an elegance that belied its massive size, swiftly closing the distance between us and the shore.
Kade . . . He had Hollowed me to Magni, knowing I'd be safe here since it was protected, but couldn't fully breech the barrier.
The shore approached, and I slipped from the lynx's back, my body collapsing onto the sand. Tremors racked me, every fiber of my being weak and spent from the fight for survival. I lay there, panting.
And then, the lynx was by my side, its presence a strange comfort. It nudged me gently with its head before using its webbed paw to roll me over. A rough, warm tongue swept across my cheek—an affectionate gesture that felt wholly out of place in this moment.
"Thank you," I whispered, my voice hoarse as I reached out to touch the creature's whiskered face. "I guess we're even now."
Hauling myself into a sitting position, I stared out at the calm waters.
Kade had saved me, yes, but at what cost?
Ace, my brother, had been left behind in whatever hell Kade had deemed necessary for me to escape, but not him.
He should have saved him too. And if not, then he shouldn't have saved either of us.
I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to him all because he’d been trying to save me.
And all the while, the secret Kade had kept from me festered like a wound: he was my mate. The revelation tore at me, fury and sorrow waging war in my chest. All this time, he’d known . . .
I screamed, a raw reaction that carried my pain and rage across the waves. Now that I wasn’t feeling both of our emotions, I had more clarity.
Tears streamed down my face, my sobs the only sound until another joined them—the ancient rasp of a voice I knew all too well. The night seemed to hold its breath.
“Oh, Emelyn.” He drawled out my name like he savored it. Each syllable rolled off his tongue with a weight that made my already heavy heart sink further into the pit of my stomach. I could hear the water dripping from his slick body to the sand. The Kappa was behind me.
I stiffened, my hands balling into fists in the damp sand. My throat felt tight, constricted, as if his words were tangible things wrapping around my neck. I wasn’t scared, just angry.
"Kappa," I managed to say, my voice soft but steady despite the whirlwind of emotions inside me. "Why have you come?"
The air grew colder, the presence of the ancient being more palpable. I refused to let him see how his proximity unnerved me, how my skin prickled. So I remained still, waiting. There was a pause, a stretching moment where the world seemed to wait with me for his response.
Then the Kappa settled beside me with the ease of a creature both feared and revered. The lynx, still looming close, watched us with eyes that gleamed like moonlit pools. "The lynx thinks highly of you, and it was a returned act of kindness, so here I am," he explained, his voice a raspy caress.
He drew his abnormally long, lanky, slick legs to his chest, an oddly human gesture. With a long, taloned finger, he scratched beneath the lynx’s scaly chin, and the beast responded with a sound that vibrated deep in its throat, one that, despite everything, coaxed a fleeting smile onto my lips.
After a moment bathed in the serenity of our strange companionship, the lynx circled us once, an elegant animal bidding its silent farewell. It then turned and padded back into the embrace of the waters.
"I would offer you another truth, but it looks like you've found out all the most important ones," the Kappa mused.
"Are you saying there is more I still don't know? I'm not sure I can handle much more," I admitted, struggling to maintain my composure.
"I assure you, you can." He crooned the words.
"Of course," I retorted with a half-hearted scoff.
"I've only just discovered my mate has been lying to me and is the enemy prince, and now I'm conversing with a Kappa on a protected island.
And my brother has been left with the enemies.
My threshold for what I can handle seems to be expanding by the minute. "
He let out a sound that could have been a chuckle, a gurgling ripple. Was I joking around with the Kappa? A beast that no one else had ever survived an encounter with? I had expected something worse to come of the sarcasm.
“Remember, truth is like the ocean—it ebbs and flows, but it never ceases to be.”
"Very poetic," I said, arching an eyebrow. "But if you're done dispensing cryptic wisdom, I'd appreciate a straightforward answer for once."
"Where would be the fun in that?" He flashed a wide, sharp, toothy grin that had once been terrifying to me. But now it just seemed like a returned smile from a friend. "Besides, I find flustering those I meet entertaining. It is the only fun I truly get to have being a know-it-all ."
"Delighted to amuse you," I muttered, though the corner of my mouth betrayed me, curling up ever so slightly.
"Embrace the unknown, Emelyn. It's where the true adventure lies." He unfolded himself gracefully and stood to his full, impressive height, casting a long shadow over the sand.
"Easy for you to say," I shot back, pushing myself up despite the tremble in my limbs. "You’re all-knowing. You see what awaits you on your adventure."
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms in an attempt to anchor myself to the present. "I don't know where to go from here," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know what to do."
The Kappa's eyes glinted with something I couldn't place. Pity?
"Well, we are on an island with dragons just over the way there," he said, nodding toward the dense foliage. "I think you know exactly what to do."
He began to make his way to the tree line, the leaves brushing against him as though parting for royalty. "The rebellion is in the western mountain range in Woodhaven. If you leave soon, you could make it there in a day."
His words felt like a lifeline thrown into the treacherous waters that had been my thoughts.
"Why did you give me that information?" I asked, brows furrowing with suspicion. "I didn't fill your cap." Nothing came free from the Kappa, especially not information.
A slow, unsettling smile crept across his face. “Maybe the lynx and I have something in common, my jewel ." He dragged out the last word, and it sent a shiver down my spine.
The Kappa's form, slick and glistening, turned from me and began to move toward the forest’s edge.
"Farewell, Peacebringer," he called.
"Wait!" The word escaped my lips before I could tether it. My hand reached out toward him. I saw his back, broad and draped in a cloak of dampened shadows, as he was readying to leave the sandy shore.
"You never told me your real name." My voice was steadier than I felt, daring to demand something so personal from a creature whose very existence was shrouded.
He stilled, and for a moment, all that could be heard was the gentle lapping of water against the shore and my own uneven breaths.
His head tilted slightly as he considered the request. Then slowly, he looked over his shoulder at me, a glimmer of something unfathomable flickering in his deep-set eyes.
"Names hold power, Emelyn," he finally started. “Especially for someone like me. My true name . . . is Awataro. You are the only living creature to know it from my tongue, so when you need it, use it responsibly.”
The silence hung heavily between us. I opened my mouth to speak, but before a sound could escape, he stepped forward.
The ground where he’d stood rippled, turning into a dark puddle that seemed to reach up and claim him.
In a blink, he slipped into the liquid shadow, disappearing without a trace, as if he had never been there at all.
Then, to my left, branches cracked and foliage gave way.
My heart lodged itself in my throat. For a heartbeat, I didn't recognize this giant creature coming toward me. But then the dragon’s eyes met mine and they were so yellow, they almost glowed, piercing the darkness and fixing upon me with an intensity that felt familiar.
When he exhaled, a plume of smoky breath cascaded over me, sending ripples through my damp hair and enveloping me in his earthy scent.
“Baetos . . . ,” I breathed. The dragon's recognition flashed within those bright orbs, and a low rumble vibrated from his throat, resonating through the clearing.
“Hello, Emelyn,” he said. He was no longer the little dragon that had slept in my lap not long ago. He was double, if not triple the size of Emeris now. He lowered himself to the ground in front of me. I instinctively moved to his side and climbed up his massive frame.
"I would love to catch up, but unfortunately there is somewhere I need to be," I said, and he rose and extended his leathery wings.
"We can catch up later," he agreed, and then he roared, a bellow so loud I was sure he was telling everyone of his departure as we took off into the skies.