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“Kion, my boy—” Renwick hovered above me, his white hair wild. Behind the old dragon lord was the midnight sky, with ruby embers still spiraling into the night.

Fennor leaned in, his voice choked. “Of all the fucking, pig-headed, stupid, reckless things to do, you godsdamn Draakon—that was fucking insane!”

I was flat on my back, holding Senaria, but with the movement of my heaving chest, I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

The ground was blackened, charred with a stench unique to dragon fire.

Both Senaria and I were naked and soot-covered; our clothes had disintegrated.

Our hair had burned away, and there’d be no modesty, not yet, with skin too tender to touch with a sheet.

All I had were my arms to shield her, my body where she’d curled against me, her legs bent across mine, her arms wrapped in a lover’s embrace.

The dragon lords shuffled and kept their gazes off-center. Distress held them on edge. But Senaria was Skyborne. She was like me, immune to dragon fire. What she’d asked of Sarnorinth would not kill her. But it would burn away all that she was, her magic. Her strength.

Dragon fire did the same to me .

Sarnorinth’s voice thundered in my head. How is the Skyborne?

“She breathes,” said Renwick, answering Bailong because Sarnorinth’s question was one all the dragons were asking. “Take them to Aram Dun,” my old mentor ordered.

Aram Dun, the Draakon’s refuge. I’d withstood the wrath of dragons two centuries ago, stood in the fire while they remade me. But I’d needed months to recover.

When I moved my arms, the muscles cracked as if they’d dried out.

Overhead, the clouds parted momentarily, allowing the stars to glimmer before winking out again.

I will take her. Sarnorinth closed his talons around Senaria and rose into the air with enough force in the downward sweep of his wings to roll me over.

Ivar moved close. Draakon. I will carry you.

Moments later, Ivar’s talons formed a cradle and I was carried, helpless, as the dragon soared over the silent forest. I stared at the slate-colored scales that moved with each powerful constriction of the dragon’s wings.

I’d been carried like this one other time…

after the massacre at Celandine, after Marith, my father, after my mother and brother and the eyries…

when the dragons made their offer with dragon fire. When I’d wanted relief and vengeance.

I closed my eyes, drifted until my mother came into focus, standing outside the ruined hut. Surrounding her were the whispering trees where my brother played. “I’ve never blamed you for what happened, Kion. I’m so proud…my son…I love you. ”

Then my father shimmered, more mist than solid form. “Forgive me. None of this was your fault. I should have carried the burden. I never wanted you to…forgive me…”

The images dissolved, replaced by the snowy mountains of Aram Dun, where the monsters slept. And I slid into oblivion.