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As we approached the door, my hand instinctively reached for the golden knob, readying myself for what may be behind.

The door shifted open, revealing the large chambers of my father's room. I immediately came across my mother tied up in a chair. “Mother!” I called out. Her skin had worsened from the last time I saw her. Bruises and ugly purple spots covered her body. Some sort of disease had overtaken her, but it wasn’t the work of the Deathlies. It was clearly… poison.

In the dimly lit room, my father sat beside her, both of them bound tightly to their chairs with ropes that cut into their skin.Gagging material was wedged forcibly into their mouths, stifling any cries for help. Beads of sweat flooded the terror on their faces.

Tobias was also restrained in a chair, his cloth folded down from his mouth, his expression guarded.

Cora.

Cora stood in close proximity to Tobias, her grip tight on a knife, its blade ominously directed toward him. It was evident that we had interrupted an interrogation.

“Ahhh,” Cora's words hung in the air, her voice piercing through the haze of shock that enveloped me. My expression remained frozen, a mask of disbelief as I struggled to comprehend what was happening. “Look at you, Aurelia. You have a team of Scalebornes. You think you’re going to change the world or something?”

I knew everyone was behind me and could feel their presence. No one was saying anything in return, so they must be focusing on something. My eyes flicked toward Tobias, and I could see a small pillar of smoke billowing. Angie was using her Scaleborne ability of fire, igniting the ropes tied behind him to set him free.

Small vines were seeping in through the cracked window that I knew must be from Clemmy or Abner, undoing the ties of my parents behind their backs. Cora couldn’t see behind her, as her attention focused on me.

I narrowed my eyes as she placed her knife delicately on a small, slender vanity table positioned behind her. With purposeful strides, she advanced toward us, closing the distance between herself and our group.

“Cora,” I pleaded. “Why?”

“Where do I start…”

“I thought that we were friends! I trusted you! This was your kingdom! You had everything that you could’ve ever dreamed.” Shock still ignited my veins, making it hard to move or talk.

“I didn’t have everything, Aurelia. You scale slum, you don’t understand.” She was right. I didn’t understand. “I didn’t have my parents.”

“But it was an accident,” I said, recalling their deaths by memory.

She just scoffed. “Accident,” she said, laughing again. “Your father killed my parents! They are murderers! They killed them cold-blooded, Aurelia!”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.” She moved closer to me. My hands tingled with fear. “Do you know how our parents knew each other before mine became the king’s counselors?”

I shook my head. I didn’t. There was no reason to question it, and it never came up.

“My father was at the same dragon-killing ceremony as yours to take the place of the throne. The Trials by Fire. My father had given up everything and gone into debt to learn about dragons. What makes them tick, their annoyances, desires, needs, and how to kill them most efficiently.

“My father shared this knowledge with yours. They were from the same small village. Isn’t that right?” she said, looking at my father disgustedly.

Luckily, the smoke, fire, and vines had disappeared. However, they continued to hold their hands behind their backs to look the part. She shot her head back in our direction.

“He trusted Myre. That was until Myre drugged him the day of the games, unable to participate for even the chance. He lost everything. We lost everything.

“But it was okay,” Cora sarcastically said, emphasizing her emotions with her hands. “Because Myre so kindly said that we could live in the castle and that my parents would be generously compensated for their roles as counselors to the king.”

My gaze drifted to my father, and I saw tears tracing silent paths down his cheeks. Beside him, my mother's eyes were tightly shut, as if to shield herself from the painful truth that Cora was delivering.

“However, when I was a little girl, I overheard my dad talking to my mother about something. He said that he saw the skull tattoo of old magic on the king’s back. He didn’t even use the tricks that my father told him about. He simply killed the dragons with magic from the Old Religion. The same religion of the scaled creature. This was treason. Myre was then a hypocrite, killing off any magic holders from the Old Religion and the ban that was set up.”

“All of this just for revenge?” I questioned.

She laughed again. “I am not even done. My father was sent on the trip. My mother did not go. Even though it is told to everyone that she did and that she died right alongside him, he died on the trip randomly, and then my mother got the plague after that.”

Tobias rubbed his wrists and rose from his seat, making his way toward the knife resting on the table behind Cora. I averted my gaze, focusing on something else to avoid drawing attention to his actions.

“My father was killed just so my mother could then die by the plague. A disease that only entered the castle, and that she was the only one who received. Because of this, I couldn’t even be there when they died. Neither of them.