Page 46 of Lady Dragon

Foolish hatchling , she hissed. Or should I say human ?

Skies burn you. With her words, Kirek gushed flame into Pavak’s face.

There hadn’t been time for her to gather full heat, but she used the distraction to launch herself forward again, throwing herself into a dive as if into water and not atop stone, the walls around her shuddering under her impact and raining dust. While the stone was unyielding, Kirek’s momentum slid her beneath Pavak, and she cranked her head, her fangs seeking her aunt’s belly.

Pavak was too fast. She leaped, twisting in midair, and struck at Kirek’s exposed flank.

Kirek managed to roll out of the way and onto her feet, but the momentum that had served her nearly carried her over the edge of the lava pit, and for a moment the molten glow behind her filled her vision, twisting in lazy patterns of orange and white.

She scrabbled to keep from going over, her claws gouging furrows in the stone, wings beating in backward strokes, tail lashing above the heat as she reared and came to a stop.

Pavak prowled toward her, experimentally flexing her own wings.

Bloodied and tattered and cracked though they were, she didn’t seem to be in much pain.

She settled into a crouch against the ground, eyes bright, assessing her niece as she took a tentative step forward—ready to pounce.

Her movements were slow but measured, smooth as liquid, almost hypnotizing.

You aren’t making your mother’s mistake, I see. You don’t think you’re better than me. You attack out of desperation, not confidence.

Pavak was trying to rake doubt into her mind as surely as claws into her flesh, Kirek knew. Inadequacy. Failure. Loss. All of that, Kirek already held deep within her. But what it coalesced into, as scorching as the lava in the bowels of the pit, was something else altogether.

Only love , Kirek snarled, and sprang from her haunches, her wings throwing out billowing waves of hot air, as she leaped for the smooth curve of the ceiling around the pit.

Chunks of rock sprayed where her claws bit into the surface, and she skittered along it, winding her way back down behind Pavak.

Who was entirely ready for her. Her aunt whirled in place, tail whipping its armored tip across Kirek’s face, catching her, and slamming her to the ground, hard.

The rock cracked beneath Kirek’s shoulder while Pavak, rearing, threw herself forward, hind legs first, raking with deadly back claws.

Kirek twisted out from under her at the last moment, heaving herself upright, head bobbing, searching for an opening in her aunt’s defenses.

She should attack, she knew, but her collision with the ground had been enough to blur her vision.

She retreated as best she could in the cramped space, blinking to regain her senses .

Love? Pavak spat.

On the far side of the cave, Kirek’s eyes found the crouched form of Valraka… and beneath her, the fallen figure of Samansa, her body motionless.

Pavak tracked her gaze. You will join her in death soon enough , she breathed, eyes gleaming with cruel lust. There, and only there, will you be reunited. But first, you will hurt .

She shrieked the last word and lashed her wings before her, spraying her own hot blood into Kirek’s eyes.

Blinded, Kirek struck out with her claws and missed, just before Pavak smashed into her, her slavering jaws clamping down around Kirek’s throat.

Kirek twisted desperately, using her bulk to drop herself down—into the bite, sinking deeper onto those teeth, and yet taking Pavak to the ground with her, relieving her of the needed leverage for the mortal blow.

Blood burst from her neck as she rolled free, and Pavak snarled with wordless rage as her claws caught Kirek’s flank and threw her with vicious force, sending her tumbling over stone.

Kirek slid to a halt along her belly, her body shrieking in pain and disorientation.

Goodbye, niece. Pavak opened her maw, and heat gathered deep in her throat.

I. A crunch sounded with the word from Kirek where she crouched.

Am. Another crunch. Not. Kirek whipped around, sending the stone she had torn from the ground with her talons and her rage whistling through the air.

Pavak’s threatening fire retreated, swallowed, as she barely dodged.

Your niece , Kirek finished, hurling the second claw-full of stone at where she anticipated Pavak would be.

It shattered against her head, and then Kirek was upon her with a roar.

Dust and debris rained where they collided with the wall, and Pavak shrieked as her wing—her other wing—snapped with an audible crack against stone.

Kirek sank her teeth into Pavak’s shoulder and shook savagely, staggering her prey off-balance, and then she tossed her, sprawling, near the base of Raka’s skull.

Valraka still stood between her and Samansa, protecting the body.

Pavak tried to right herself, head whipping faster than she had any right to move, gathering herself.

Kirek didn’t care. She spread her wings and roared. I am not your niece. I am your queen!

White-hot fire blasted through her jaws, slamming into Pavak in an explosion of heat and light.

Pavak futilely tried to dodge, and when she couldn’t, she ducked behind broken wings.

To her credit, her shield lasted nearly as long as Kirek’s flame.

With a wail of despair given through the charred, skeletal remains of her wings, Pavak took a step backward…

and toppled off the rock lip and into the pit of lava.

Even as her pale scales turned fully orange and began to melt and blacken at the edges, she tried to claw her way out, floundering. Kirek didn’t feel pity, watching her—rather, it was as if she were back with the centipede at the cliff. She couldn’t use a sword, this time, and yet…

She flung herself forward, but not at Pavak.

She pivoted, angling her body until she faced the skull—with Pavak on the other side of it.

Pavak’s eyes widened, and Kirek’s narrowed as she hunched her shoulders, bracing herself.

She glared furiously into those empty, dark sockets.

And then she headbutted the flat of bone in between, with her charge.

The skull launched into the pit, crashing into Pavak and landing on top of her, knocking her from where she’d been scrabbling her way up the rocky lip.

What you perceive as weakness , Kirek said, glancing at Samansa, is sometimes hidden strength. And what you perceive as strength —she nodded at Raka’s skull— is weakness .

Pavak—her once-aunt, her never-queen—sank beneath the lava under the weight of an ancient grudge.

For a moment, the hollow skull rested atop the surface, staring back at Kirek with more than empty sockets.

As bone lit on fire, red flame that had nothing to do with the heat burned in the place of its eyes.

Kirek whirled to Samansa, ignoring Valraka entirely. The shard was still glowing in the princess’s chest, but… it was weakening. Fading.

When lava finally swallowed the skull, leaving only a sooty outline floating up atop the yellow-orange surface, the dying red light in Samansa’s chest winked out entirely.

In a rush of wings, Kirek dove for her, hoping against hope—but no, Samansa was still dead.

And the stone remained embedded in her chest. But it wasn’t lit with the red rage of Pavak’s vengeance any longer.

It wasn’t even blue. Pavak had consumed the human life in it, leaving behind…

the only thing Kirek could think of was the dragon fire that formed it.

The jewel shone in multifaceted hues: yellow, gold, orange, flickering like a flame, but without a light of its own.

If Kirek’s blue stone had been the human half, this indeed was the dragon half, reflective of the substance that had helped create it so long ago, and yet no longer burning with Raka’s hate.

Just as the life had bled out of Samansa’s body with her blood, so had Raka’s will from the stone, when her skull had been destroyed .

Raka’s spirit, gone.

Spirit… Kirek looked over at the blue stone that she’d carved from her chest, still winking on the ground. It was the distillation of human lives that gave it its magic. Magic that was still locked in there, and connected to its other half in Samansa—without Raka’s will, now, to block it.

Maybe fixing the Heartstone was never the solution. Sometimes things couldn’t be mended, but they could be rebuilt.

Perhaps, as had happened with the skull, those human spirits would dissipate if the stone was destroyed. But the stone wouldn’t be fully gone. Even if it had no will to direct it, the life in the stone still had a place to go…

The other half.

What Kirek was about to do would separate her from the human world forever—leaving nothing behind to swallow once more and let her be human again—but it was a risk she was willing to take.

Because Samansa was dead. Kirek didn’t want to be human without her, and attempting this wouldn’t hurt the princess, since she was beyond pain.

Kirek wasn’t beyond pain, and this might hurt, indeed, whether it succeeded or failed.

But she’d rather be separated from Samansa in life than by death, unlike Raka.

Without further hesitation, Kirek whipped out with her tail, launching the blue stone into the lava pit. Fire burst around it, and cold light flared within it. As it sank, that blue light fractured and swirled into the air like strange sparks, or perhaps like frost.

Sparkling frost that drifted over to Samansa. Where her cousin no longer loomed .

So you’re now Queen Mother , Valraka murmured over her shoulder. And it is my duty to challenge you for the title. To avenge my mother’s death, just as you have yours.

Kirek turned from Samansa’s body to face Valraka, bracing for the fight—a fight she wasn’t sure she could win, in her state.

But she’d guessed it might come to this.

Kirek didn’t want to be Queen Mother, and yet if that meant she could give Samansa a final gift with her own life, then she would do whatever it required.

Valraka’s tail lashed behind her spreading wings, a dark shadow against the glow, ready to blot out Kirek as well.

Even so, Kirek readied herself to charge. She would spend all that she had left to defend her position of authority, if only in an attempt to save the princess’s queendom—and Samansa’s mother—where Samansa could not.

With her last breath, she would fight for her love, however dead it was.

But then Kirek heard a loud gasp behind her—a lungful of air taken in as if after having been underwater for a long while. A first breath.

A breath of life.