Page 68 of I Dream of Dragons

“He won,” I whisper.

“Indeed he did. Saved his world in the process. Redeemed himself. But to save her, during the final battle, he swallowed the great Eosphor.”

“Phaethon.”

“Yes, Phaethon,” the telchin says, a touch of impatience entering his voice. “The avatar of Asterion, or Astar, the first Eosphor. He merged with Marsyas the dragonking and became a different being.”

“Astar.” I’m getting confused with the names and souls. “But…”

“We lose track of him after that. The Reversal changed the Sixth World, as it did all Nine Worlds. The waters of creation flowed down the Pillar, through the broken, open gates, bringing with them other creatures, but also disease and death. The world drowned for a long while. The people of the Sixth World rebuilt on the permanent sea that swallowed the old ruins in the sky.Ruins from the Reversal before that, an eternal cycle turning the worlds over and over. The ruination that forced King Masren to flee with his people, looking for another world to inhabit, Eosphors and dragons slipping through with them, both from that world and others.”

“Inhabit? Another world to conquer and slaughter, you mean,” I say absently. “Don’t beautify his deeds.” But I’m still thinking of Astar and the telchin’s revelation. “Wait. Are you saying that Athdara has in him the original Eosphor? Thefirstof them?”

“So it is said. Astar is the most powerful of them all. And Eosphors have ever been moving through the Nine Worlds, looking for their homeland. They have no compassion or feelings. They have no compunction about killing and eradicating worlds. They only have one goal, one mission, and that is to find that homeland they lost millennia ago.”

Hells.

“He’s here to end this world. He’s only biding his time.”That was what the king had told me about Jai. Is that Phaethon’s goal? Destroy and escape?

“Athdara,” the telchin says, “is a dragonking in the making. A creature able to summon dragons and open portals, through Phaethon. Through Astar.”

“A power the king wants to harness. So why hasn’t it happened yet? Why have you told me this story? What are you hoping I’ll do?”

“I’m not hoping for anything. I’m not here to direct fate. Fate needs no direction from me. I don’t care whether the king wants to get wings or whether Phaethon wants to destroy every world and return to his people, and what he thinks he will find there.”

“Meaning?”

“I am not offering answers. Only more questions.”

I huff in frustration. “I realized that. Just what I needed…”

“What I’m doing is nudging you,” he says, “toward the right questions.”

I frown. “What happened to the speech of‘I’m not here to direct fate’?”

“I’m not directing,” he says. “Not this time. Just nudging. That’s it. I will sit back and watch.”

Clenching my jaw, my teeth grinding together, I stand up. “Thanks for nothing, then.”

“Remember the story.”

No story matters to me unless it has a happy ending. And who cares about a story? A myth? It’s not real. In real life, happy endings are a rarity and I’m not going to start hoping for that.

Too late for hope now. And yet, as I’m finally given leave to depart for the banquet, I feel it’s not all over.

CHAPTER TWENTY

RAE

An ancient Eosphor.

The original Eosphor.

It begs the question, how did the eosphoric race arise from just one creature? Did he split himself into more? Or is the myth inaccurate and incomplete? Was there another Eosphor, its name lost in history?

What does that mean for Jai in whose head that first Eosphor is living? My mind is imploding. Does Jai know? He has to know. What else hasn’t he told me?

The memory of his touch heats my skin. He’s confusing me. The way his shadows exploded, the way he hurled the furniture against the wall… His talk ofmates. It’s as if he feels something for me, and as for me, I crave every moment of pleasure or gentleness with him. I’m not sure I want to break those fragile moments, even if I have to pretend.