Page 35 of A Court of Thralls and Thorns

A warning. A threat. A promise.

The ground gave way beneath me.

I fell.

Jagged rock scraped my arms, my legs, burning pain searing through me as I tumbled into the abyss. My body slammed onto hard stone; the breath knocked from my lungs.

And then?—

Whispers.

Low. Endless. Grieving.

I wasn’t alone.

Shapes drifted in the shadows. Dragons. Not whole, not alive, but echoes, their shimmering forms barely clinging to existence. Hatchlings curled in fear, their translucent wings trembling. Larger ones loomed behind them, their eyes empty voids.

A dragon stepped forward.

It looked at me.

Not through me. Not past me. At me.

Its voice, sharp and unbearable, filled my head.

Do you feel it, little halfling? The weight of our grief?

Pain slammed into me. Not physical, but something far worse—an agony so deep it was impossible to define. Loss. Grief. A mourning that had spanned centuries.

Flashes of their suffering burned into my mind—scorched eggshells, hatchlings trampled beneath iron boots, bodies torn apart, fire consuming them before they even took flight. A mother wailing as she shielded her young with broken wings, knowing it would never be enough.

A scream tore from my throat, raw and unbidden.

I fell to my knees.

“Kaelith—help me!”

She moved in my mind, but there was no mercy.

No. Feel it, halfling. Every moment. Every heartbeat of their suffering. If you cannot bear this, you are not worthy.

I gasped, but no air filled my lungs. The echoes moved.

A claw, spectral and cold as an open grave, slashed across my arm.

Pain erupted on my arm.

Another came—a talon across my ribs, a bite at my calf. My skin split, real, bleeding, as the ghosts of these dragons markedme. Not illusions. Not tricks of the mind. Real wounds for a perceived failure.

I screamed. But I couldn’t stop them.

One by one, they took their vengeance.

Slashes carved my arms, my back, my shoulders. They didn’t kill. They made me suffer.

I collapsed, my forehead pressing into the stone as I trembled. I deserved this. Because I had walked in here thinking this was a trial I could conquer. That there was some kind of artifact to retrieve.

It wasn’t a trial. It was an offering.