Page 7 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

I narrowed my eyes. “You have a dragon.”

A flicker of a smile touched his lips. “And Katama chose me because I’m just as deadly as he is.”

I believed him.

But I wasn’t about to be pulled away from the one place I’d started to find belonging.

Even if part of me still remembered what it was like to be in his arms and feel safe.

“What will it take,” Remy asked, his voice raw, rough around the edges, “for you to trust me again?”

I froze.

The reality of the question slammed into me harder than any punch. Trust him? Like nothing had shattered between us? Like I hadn’t bled alone while he vanished into the crown’s service without a word?

“That ship has sailed,” I said, my voice steady.

He flinched like I’d drawn a blade and buried it in his chest. His eyes, those traitorous, stormy eyes that once made me feel like I was the only thing worth fighting for, glinted with hurt.

Like I’d brokenhim.

But he had broken me first.

Kaelith’s voice sliced into my mind like silk over steel, the warning unmistakable.

Come away from the human, little storm, or I will rend him limb from limb.

The threat wasn’t idle. She felt my pain as if it were her own. The seething betrayal, the tremble of my pulse, the ache I kept locked behind my ribs.

But it wasn’t just about Remy.

It was everything.

Solei. Eilvin. My father. The choices I’d been forced to make. The blood on my hands and the love I no longer trusted.

“I have to go,” I said, backing up a step. “Kaelith needs me.”

It was a lie, blatant and transparent, but I didn’t care.

I turned away from him before he could say more. I couldn’t take that look on his face, the way he still wanted to fix something we both knew was far beyond repair.

Kaelith waited at the edge of the training field, her deep-purple scales catching the morning light like polished amethyst. She didn’t move as I approached, but her golden eyes flicked to me with something fierce and protective.

I reached out and laid my hand against her side.

Warmth pulsed beneath my palm, steady and sure, like a heartbeat.

I closed my eyes, grounding myself in her presence. Not in the past. Not in Remy’s voice or scent or the thought of what we used to be.

Just this.

Me and my dragon.

When I opened my eyes again, I pulled the pendant from beneath my armor.

The gold had faded, almost entirely replaced by deep-violet.

My breath caught.