Page 45 of Lady Dragon

KIREK

Kirek was screaming, and she couldn’t stop.

It was as if her throat could somehow release the pain that was tearing her apart—expel it like dragon fire.

And yet she wasn’t a fierce dragon, but a fragile girl falling to pieces, and there was no escaping the realization consuming her from the inside out, as much as she wanted to run from it.

Samansa was dead. Her amber eyes, once sparking and now dull, stared blankly up at the cave ceiling from where Kirek had lowered her body to the ground, cradled in her arms, the princess’s red hair spilling across the stone with her heart’s blood.

Kirek couldn’t stand looking at her, and yet she couldn’t seem to let her go, even though she knew she was gone.

Could feel it in Samansa’s lifeless flesh, now only an empty casing for the vibrant being who had once dwelt within.

Kirek curled over the body, pressing their faces together, and she screamed again, sobs racking her hard enough to shake them both. Hot tears fell onto Samansa’s too-pale, freckled cheeks in a bitter rain—like the princess’s never would again, even though she had always been so ready to cry.

Kirek’s love, in the form of Samansa, was gone. The love that Kirek still felt for her was eating her alive .

How could you? was her only coherent thought.

How could Samansa have done this to her? Left her bereft and alone like this? Kirek’s heart was far more broken than the Heartstone could ever be—a shattering inside her beyond repair or reprieve, a rending so complete she’d rather be dead in Samansa’s place.

Her grip only tightened on the princess’s unmoving shoulders. How could Kirek ever let her go?

What has she done?

The voice was not Kirek’s own internal cry. She tore herself away from the body and spun, snatching her sword up off the floor from where she’d dropped it, the scrape of steel on stone ringing out and spitting sparks where the silent words hadn’t.

Pavak’s pale hulk was crouched just inside the mouth of the cave, her orange eyes glowing as brightly as the lava pool at the center. Valraka’s dark shadow loomed behind her, bloodred gaze drinking in the scene as well.

“Cousin,” Kirek hissed through the tears and spittle and filth streaking her face. She didn’t care how she looked, only that she wanted to die. “Have you reconsidered? Come to end me after all?”

She welcomed it.

Valraka slunk around her mother along the crescent of stone bordering the lava pool, drawing closer to Kirek. Kirek didn’t back away. She would not leave Samansa.

I tracked you until I understood you were coming here , Valraka said calmly. I informed the Queen Mother. I helped her fly, boosting the air under her wings as I flew beneath her the entire way.

“So you falsely tried to warn us away from this place. For that”—Kirek grinned at her, toothy and stretched—“I would watch you die in agony.”

I did so because I knew you would be false , Valraka said, her tone sharpening. That you would come here anyway. And I needed to see.

“See what?” Kirek spat. “That Raka is real? That’s all that’s left of her.” She gestured at the empty skull with her sword, wishing she could cleave straight through it instead.

Pavak shifted closer. Eagerly. And I will take her in.

I will become Raka’s vessel, in the girl’s place.

She was never worthy, but she served her purpose.

I can swallow the Heartstone now without being tainted by human life.

What is left in the half within her is only draconic—and still an opening to Raka.

Her hungry gaze found Samansa’s body on the ground. I will eat the girl.

“You will not ,” Kirek snarled.

And yet, through her wave of fury and revulsion, she distantly supposed her aunt couldn’t eat Raka’s huge skull, and so the shard of stone was the next best thing.

But perhaps there was more to her intent than rabid, unfounded fervency.

Kirek glanced back herself, skipping over Samansa’s sightless eyes to the Heartstone in her chest. It was glowing red.

Which meant it might yet be the key to unlocking Raka, as her aunt believed.

Perhaps the skull wasn’t so empty.

On a frantic whim, Kirek tried to shift back into a dragon—and couldn’t. She was still trapped in this form. Which meant Raka was still blocking her from the dragon half of the stone.

Which was still in Samansa, tainting her even in death. Maybe, from within the stone, Raka retained the power to reach out and seize control of another body. She needed life, since she had consumed the human lives given to create the stone, and Samansa had ended her own. Broken Raka’s vessel.

And here Pavak was to replace her.

Kirek would die before she would allow her aunt to touch Samansa’s body. She was ready to die anyway. She would even tear the stone out of Samansa’s body herself if she had to. But surprisingly, it was Valraka who spoke, after sidling closer along the wall toward Kirek.

You would eat her, Queen Mother? She was one of us. Raka and the girl. Cannibalism is distasteful.

Mind your words, daughter , Pavak snapped. And kill Kirek.

But Valraka didn’t jump to obey. She hardly moved at all, other than to shift her sinuous weight farther over Samansa’s body, behind Kirek.

Guarding her?

Do you , then, wish to become Raka, daughter? Pavak asked in a low, dangerous tone.

I wish to be myself , Valraka said simply. Not merely a name of the past. Raka is dead.

Kirek was trying to watch both her cousin and aunt at once, but Valraka’s words struck her.

Valraka had said she didn’t want her mother near Samansa.

Near Raka. Perhaps she hadn’t been lying.

And yet, she’d brought her mother here , when she knew Kirek and Samansa were on their way.

What wind of her own had carried her, as she had lifted Pavak, if she wanted neither her mother nor herself to become Raka?

What did she need to see?

Kirek’s answers would have to wait, because Pavak gathered herself into a lunge, her muscles coiling. Facing her, Kirek turned her back on her cousin. Exposing herself to her. Putting her life in her claws.

Then I’ll kill her , Pavak growled, if I must do everything myself, daughter. I trust you not to challenge me in this, at least?

Valraka settled in over Samansa, making no motion to stop her mother from turning on her cousin. Grateful as Kirek was to have Valraka guarding the body—whatever her reasons—Pavak would crush Kirek like a cat would a mouse, injured or no.

Unless Kirek were also a cat. She glanced down at her chest.

She could cut out the stone.

She would no longer be able to turn into a human at will, if she did this, not unless she swallowed the stone once more. But she didn’t want to be human without Samansa, not even to use the stone to threaten Raka with transformation.

She didn’t need any stone to threaten Raka. She could do that all on her own.

As a dragon.

Samansa had stabbed herself. Kirek supposed she would join her in that, if not in death.

“Just like in one of your books, Samansa. How tragically romantic,” she added with a bitter laugh.

Pavak blinked at her instead of springing at her. Books? Romantic? She spoke the words as if she’d never heard them before.

“May you never understand the pain, Aunt,” Kirek said softly, bringing her hand to her chest as if that was where it hurt. But there was no source of pain that could be located. It was her entire being. “I wouldn’t even wish this upon you, and I owe you for my mother’s death. ”

Do not call me Aunt . I am your Queen Mother.

“And I challenge you for that title,” Kirek said, pulling aside her leathers and bringing the dagger she’d just unsheathed to her breast.

She jammed it underneath the blue stone, the sharp tip parting her flesh, and quickly worked the blade side to side, cutting, ignoring the tear of agony. At least it was the last thing her aunt likely expected her to do after making such a declaration.

And it was nothing to the agony of losing Samansa.

With a final, bloody flick of her wrist, the stone popped free. She and Pavak had a brief moment to stare at each other as it clattered on the ground between them, winking in the firelight, Kirek’s chest bleeding profusely down the front of her leathers. Girl and dragon.

Her aunt’s orange eyes widened in shock as she realized what her niece had done.

And then it was dragon facing dragon.

Pavak launched herself forward without hesitation, just as she had with Kirek’s mother, snaking forward in a sinuous strike of lethal commitment.

One which Kirek met with equal ferocity. They collided against each other—tails lashing against scales, wings beating, necks winding and darting, jaws snapping in a maelstrom of violence.

In seconds, Kirek realized she was at a disadvantage.

Despite her aunt’s injuries, Pavak was larger, stronger, faster.

She’d beaten Kirek’s mother , after all, whom Kirek had felt nowhere near ready to challenge.

Even in the mad scramble, Pavak was able to use her wings and snout defensively, batting Kirek’s head away with her own, sliding her neck around to fasten her jaws into Kirek’s shoulder.

Scales cracked and shattered, and blood burst where she clamped down.

But Kirek was angrier. Grief, despair, and fury burned hotter than the lava around them, erupting in a fountain of rage that made her insensate to pain.

Ignoring the shrieking agony in her shoulder, she struck back, her teeth first bouncing off scales, and again, catching on the membrane of Pavak’s wings, and yet again, not knowing what she had bitten, but tearing with all her might.

Somehow she’d latched on to the bone of the wing itself and wrenched, throwing Pavak off-balance and toppling her sideways.

The older dragon disengaged, ducking away, still on her feet, hissing, eyes agleam, arching both wings, despite one being tattered and bloodied, the other recently broken.