Page 28 of Beneath Scales and Shadows

Ignis stilled. The air shifted—heavy, breathless.

Pain speared through him.

Not a wound. A memory. A thousand of them. Ten thousands.

The shrieking silence of hollow and nearly abandoned caverns. The cold stillness of dining chambers no longer needed.

No songs. No fire.

Gone.

His kin. His friends.

The fledglings he’d flown with, laughed with, mourned for. Each loss layered itself over the next like scar scales forming over a repeatedly opened wound, until he could no longer tell one from another.

Only the weight remained. An ache sliced through his heart, his soul, and carved into his bone.

“They did, once. We all did,” he said. His voice, smoke-thick. “Attachment. Love. Hope.”

Zalaya didn’t interrupt, as she stepped closer, watching him with that timeless stillness that she understood. She’d experienced a fate worse than his—witnessing herself becoming the lone survivor of her clan.

“We… adapted,” Ignis explained, his voice thick. “It’s difficult to have a brood raise their own when they may not live long enough to see the fledglings reach maturity.” The words came slower now, as if pulling centuries of buried memories to the surface—fragments long locked away, finally stirring after all these years. “The deaths have slowed. Our numbers have stabilized. But it came at a cost.”

Sora covered her mouth, slowly shaking her head, her sapphire eyes wide with shock as she listened with unwavering focus.

“My council and I chose that we must raise the fledglings together. As a clan. All of us. Shared responsibility. Shared loss. It’s strengthened us.” He forced in a breath. “It’s not easy, but we’ve had slow growth. Steady is something we’ve learned to value.”

Sora’s hand lifted, wiped the corner of her eye. The glowstones caught on her lashes, and something in his chest pulled tight.

Dragons didn’t cry, but he’d seen enough of the emotion from their neighbors—the elves, fae, and wulfkin.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You’ve all had to carry so much. And for you to need to lead your clan through all of that...”

Then she stepped into him.

Ignis stilled, unsure what she was doing.

She pressed herself to his chest, arms awkwardly wrapping around him. Too short to encircle even half of him. Her head tilted, resting where his heart beat slow and deep behind dragonhide and muscle.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do yet,” she murmured, voice muffled against him. “But I’ll help. However I can. You’re a strong leader, Ignis. And no species—none—should ever suffer like yours and Zalaya’s clan has. All because the Celestorians were jealous of the monsters on Artania and wanted power they didn’t have. Power they tried to take from omegas. From their neighbors.”

His gaze flicked to Zalaya, silently asking—what is this?

The harpy merely gave him a quiet look that might’ve been amusement… or approval. A slight smile crossing her face, as her tail feathers perked some.

His arms moved before he thought about it.

Carefully, he wrapped them around her, hoping returning the gesture was something he was supposed to do. Wings followed. Ruby and obsidian folding around her slight frame, shielding her from the world.

She smelled of moonflowers and cinnamon—of home.

Warm. Alive. Unthawing the coldness that he’d surrounded himself with, to protect his heart—his soul.

She didn’t pull away.

And oddly enough, he didn’t want her to.

He liked the way she fit there. Not perfectly—for even in his half-form, she was dwarfed by him—but in a way that feltright.