Page 35 of Lady Dragon

There was no recovering, no disengaging, as their wings tangled.

Kirek couldn’t tear her eyes away, and beside her, Samansa gasped aloud and covered her mouth in horror that echoed in Kirek’s bones.

Down, down, the dragons’ bodies hurtled—until Pavak hit the stone with such violence that it cracked beneath her, and a wave of dust billowed out.

Kirek felt the reverberation under her claws, strong enough to make Samansa stumble against her.

The Queen Mother, crouched atop Pavak, wings arching above her, settled her jaws on her sister’s exposed neck. She paused, for the briefest of moments, to look her in the eyes.

Eyes that glinted with clever, fevered malice.

Kirek realized her aunt’s hind legs were drawn up and pressed against the queen’s underbelly, where the scales grew thinner and finer.

Pavak had wanted to land like this. She dug her back farther into the ground for leverage, and raked out with all her might, her wickedly curved claws cruel and seeking.

They found what they were looking for. The queen’s screech split the air as her blood—and more than blood—spilled out across the stone, landing with a wet splat.

What you perceive as weakness, sister, is sometimes hidden strength , Pavak hissed beneath her. And what you perceive as strength, such as gloating over my supposed defeat—twice now—is truly weakness. I promised I would gut you. And so I have.

Hot bile climbed up Kirek’s throat. She could smell the destruction even more than she could see it, but her reaction wasn’t that of a dragon. Dragons threw fire; they didn’t vomit. She couldn’t add such shame to her mother’s loss.

And yet, the Queen Mother wasn’t finished. Pavak’s neck was still exposed, and even while keening in agony, the queen lowered her jaws to rip out her sister’s lifeblood .

Then they would both die. Such things had happened before, in a challenge for who would be Queen Mother. It would fall to Kirek and Valraka to continue the fight.

Kirek wasn’t afraid of Valraka. But she also wasn’t ready to be queen. Not like this.

And yet, at the last moment, the Queen Mother froze, silver eyes going wide as her pain-filled gaze tracked across Kirek and Samansa.

Or at least where Kirek and Samansa used to be.

Because Kirek was changing, she realized with more nauseated despair.

And so was Samansa. Kirek dove away and fell hard from her once-great height, landing on human hands and knees, nearly retching in her disorientation, as an enormous red dragon rose like flame from ashes where the princess had just been braced against Kirek’s leg—a leg now clothed in leather, not scales, tucked beneath her against the stone. Small.

Kirek felt so small.

Samansa straightened to towering heights behind her and let loose a roar that shook more dust from the high ceiling.

Raka? Just as Pavak spoke the name with disbelief, the Queen Mother said, astounded—horrified, even— Kirek?

Pavak tore her eyes away from the red dragon, and lunged for the Queen Mother’s upraised throat. Her jaws clamped around it, there was a horrible, wet tearing sound, and then blood fountained in an arc across the platform, splashing all the way to Kirek’s knees, as if marking a path to her.

Now Kirek would truly be sick. She already felt as if her own guts were spilled on the ground instead of her mother’s, but she vomited hers up anyway, what little she could. It was a pitiful sound, her retching, the only one in cavern now, save for the Queen Mother’s last breaths.

The gurgling hiss of it turned into silent choking, and then the queen’s massive body went completely limp, slid sideways off Pavak, and toppled over, crashing to the stone floor where it lay still. Her silver eyes stared blankly at Kirek.

Kirek—the last thing the queen had seen before she died. The last name she had spoken. All of it with shame and horror, because she had found a soft, weak human in her daughter’s place, dishonoring her even in her death.

Pavak dragged herself into a possessive crouch over the corpse, a predator over her downed prey. Opening her bloody jaws, she trumpeted her victory.

Kirek screamed. The cry was more animal than human. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d dug her fingernails into stone, scrambled upright, and charged her aunt, her bare hands outstretched.

You dare challenge your new queen, human wyrmling? Pavak spat, baring her red-stained teeth in return and spreading her wings. One looked broken, and she was dripping blood from multiple wounds, but that didn’t stop her from launching herself at Kirek, claws raised.

Those claws would have torn Kirek in half if the red dragon hadn’t crashed between them, hurling Kirek aside, where she bounced and rolled over the hard ground, banging elbows and knees she shouldn’t have. She barely managed to cushion her fragile skull with her tumble.

When she raised her head dizzily, Samansa had planted herself between Kirek and her aunt, her tail lashing. She roared in Pavak’s scratched face .

You will bow even before me, Queen , Samansa growled.

Kirek thought she was beyond being stunned, but that’s exactly how she felt, not only at Samansa’s words, but when Pavak actually lowered her head to the red dragon.

Raka , her aunt said again, incomprehensibly. You have returned.

Raka? Samansa repeated, blinking her great golden eyes in as much bafflement as Kirek, enough to breach her rage. I’m not Raka.

You are, even if you don’t realize it yet. I will help you regain yourself. I will do whatever it is you wish of me. Pavak’s head lowered even farther.

Samansa could only stare before she managed to shake herself and cry, I want you to not hurt Kirek! Leave her alone!

Pavak hissed, settling into a crouch that looked more pained than threatening, her wing draped irregularly across her gouged and bloody back, the smears of red stark against her pale scales. As you wish, Raka.

Samansa shrieked even louder, her eyes going wild as she reared back in shock. I’m not Raka! She can’t have me! Her great chest heaved with panicked breaths. She can’t—she can’t—

She? Kirek’s mind groped for coherent thought as she dragged herself upright. Samansa was speaking as if she somehow knew or had seen Raka—a dragon dead for three hundred years. It wasn’t making any sense.

Kirek’s whole world didn’t make sense anymore. She felt utterly adrift. Cut loose with her mother’s life.

I would know you anywhere , Pavak said, with that smug, oily certainty. For I have long seen you in my dreams. Have I not, daughter ?

From against the edge of the platform, where she’d been silent and still, watching the events unfold, Valraka gave a slow nod of her black head, her eyes as red as the blood spilled all around.

Pavak’s gaze hadn’t left Samansa’s. You’ve seen her, too. Perhaps before in dreams, but now you need only look at your reflection in a pool of water.

Stop it! Samansa screamed, sounding nearly in pain. She began backing away on her huge, clawed feet. From both Pavak and Kirek.

“Samansa,” Kirek croaked, her throat raw, taking a step toward her. She couldn’t look at the giant heap of her mother’s body, trailing gore, that lay beyond her, so she tried to focus on the retreating princess—dragon princess—instead. “We have to—”

You! The red dragon spun and snarled down at her, making Kirek leap back and nearly fall again. You don’t tell me what to do. You are nothing. A traitor to your species. And the only one who will kill you is me .

Kirek’s mouth was almost too dry to speak. “What?”

Samansa blinked again, as if trying to focus, and then she swiveled away with a terrified look in her eyes, clawing the rest of her way across the platform in a panic.

Her wings barely opened in time before she threw herself over the edge, flapping wildly to bring herself aloft.

And then she was soaring through the cavern, toward the nearest opening to the sky.

Leaving Kirek behind. Surrounded by dragons, who were looking at her like fresh meat.

Pavak rose from her crouch slowly, menacingly. Shift back. This form is beneath even you.

“I… can’t,” Kirek gasped, clutching at her chest, feeling lost even though she knew this place better than any other. “The Heartstone—it’s not gone, but broken.”

Pavak sneered down at her in utmost disgust. You’re broken.

An impure thing. Already defeated. You don’t deserve my wrath.

Letting you live in this pathetic state, cast out from your own kind, is enough.

You don’t even deserve a clean death. Her head snapped in Valraka’s direction.

Get the traitorous exile out of my sight.

Much to Kirek’s surprise, Valraka dumped her unceremoniously outside, in the rocky sand beneath the tower of High Nest, without killing her, let alone forcing her to disarm. The dragon even carried the saddle along with Kirek, in claws that didn’t attempt to shred her tender human flesh.

Perhaps the thing was too offensive to leave inside, just like Kirek.

Pavak had given the order that Kirek was not to be harmed, in line with Raka’s wishes— Samansa’s wishes. Who evidently wanted her kept alive only so she could kill her herself. Pavak had also apparently followed the directive to leave Kirek alone quite literally. She was being left. Alone.

In exile.

Both Samansa’s and Pavak’s words still rang in her skull, even though Kirek hadn’t exactly heard them aloud. Perhaps they would follow her forever.

But forever might not be terribly extended, in her case.

She squinted up through the beating sun to look at Valraka, looming over her like death’s shadow. At least the sun was beginning to set, and wouldn’t attempt to cook Kirek’s delicate skin for long. At least not until tomorrow morning .

She wondered, vaguely, if Valraka intended to follow her mother’s order and leave her alive to see sunrise… or even sunset.