Page 25 of Storm of Blood and Shadow (Merciless Dragons #3)

I have never felt more alive than I do in the moments right after my dragon prince tries to kill me.

It wasn’t him, of course—it was the thing inside him, the great malevolence that he swallowed to save my life.

He savors the stew with me and asks about my family. I tell him everything, even the messy parts about my conflicted feelings of sorrow and relief. His grief for his family is pure and untainted, so I’m not sure he can ever understand how I feel, but he listens, and there is no trace of judgment in his eyes.

He tells me of the hatchlings, Violet and Callim, his niece and nephew, and he apologizes to me for ever suggesting that I abandon my sister’s children.

Both of us needed to say and to hear those things. But in some ways, we’re using them to stall, to forestall the most difficult conversation we will ever have.

When the meal is over, we can’t put it off any longer. If we do, the Mordvorren will have time to regain its grip on him. We need to have the talk now, while he feels strong.

I sit beside him, and I hold his hand while he tells me how his mother died.

He was fifteen seasons, he says. Fifteen years old. His control over the void was shaky then—sometimes it would burst out of him, and he was afraid that he might hurt someone. He began sleeping in his own cave, and often, in the dead of night, he would roam the skies alone.

Sometimes his mother went with him. “She could sense my unrest somehow,” Varex says. “That night, I was particularly restless and miserable, choking on my magic, vomiting out bits of the void with very little control over where they went and what they touched. When she appeared, flying beside me, I should have told her to turn back, that it was too dangerous to be around me. But I didn’t.”

“She would have gone with you anyway.” I say it confidently. Though I’ve never met his mother, I’m certain I would have loved her.

“Yes,” he admits. “But I wish I’d tried to lose her, to leave her behind and go on alone. Jessiva…” He hesitates, pain contorting his features. “What I’m about to say, I have never confessed to anyone.”

There’s lightning flickering deep in his eyes, and I’m terrified he’ll disappear again. I grip both his hands, despite the pit of fear in my stomach. I remember how those hands stabbed lightning into the cliff, breaking off its edge and sending me into empty space.

But I am brave enough for this, strong enough to endure the danger for his sake. I’m used to the stretch of muscles and limbs, the weariness of bones, the shedding of blood for the sake of the art that was so important to me it felt like breathing. I can lend him my strength in this moment—help him through the greatest pain of his existence.

“If the Mordvorren knows your secret, I deserve to know it too,” I tell him quietly. “And you owe it to yourself, if you ever want to be free of this.”

“I lied, Jessiva,” he whispers. “I lied to my father, to my brother and sister, to the whole clan. I told them we flew too close to the voratrice. But we didn’t. We were far above it, at a safe distance, when I accidentally released a spray of void orbs that I couldn’t control. They flew in all directions, and many of them shot through my mother’s wings.”

Horror chills my heart.

“Dragons are usually immune to each other’s powers, but my void magic is the exception. The orbs decimated her wings,” he says hoarsely. “She fell. I tried to catch her, but I was caught in a spasm of my magic. By the time I got control of it and dove after her, she was already in the clutches of the voratrice.”

I squeeze his hands tighter, tears overflowing his eyes and mine.

“She tried to claw her way free.” He’s gasping, his shoulders heaving. “One of her claws tore loose as the creature swallowed her down. I had no void magic or lightning left—my energy was spent. I couldn’t fight it. I heard her bones break. I heard her screaming inside its throat. It happened so fast.”

I wrap my arms around him as best I can despite the bulky wings folded against his back. He’s crying so hard I’m afraid he will quake apart.

“I took her claw. I flew back to my father. But he couldn’t—they couldn’t get her out. She was too deep. The core of the voratrice, where its stomach lies, is always far underground, and this one was old, buried too deep for them to reach. She died, Jessiva, she died, and her spirit wasn’t released, it couldn’t escape, and her bones—her bones, they dissolved . It’s the worst possible fate for a dragon. We value—bones are—sacred—”

He’s panting, breathing much too fast. I climb into his lap and press his palm against my chest. “Feel my heartbeat,” I say, my voice tight with tears. “Breathe when I do.”

Varex looks at me with the eyes of the broken dragon-boy who watched his mother die—who caused her death. His magic sent her into the throat of a monster. But her love for him was untiring, relentless, and beautiful, and he deserves a new love like that.

“I love you,” I tell him through a sob. “I love you.”

“What I did—”

“She forgives you. I know it.”

“Her spirit, Jessiva. Trapped forever in the guts of that thing —”

I hold his palm tighter to my chest. “Breathe.”

He obeys, taking several shaky breaths.

“Could you go back to its den now?” I ask. “Use your void magic to root it out?”

“My father forbade me from going back there when he was alive, and now… I don’t know if I could do it safely, without hurting anyone. I wish I could rid the entire fucking island of those pestilent creatures, but they’re all interconnected, intertwined. They multiply like certain plants, sending out runners to form new cores.”

“So… it’s all one big monster,” I say.

He frowns. “I suppose that’s true.”

“There must be an original core. A really big one that they all came from.”

“Grimmaw once mentioned something like that, but there’s no way to know where it is… unless… fuck… unless…”

He’s looking away from me, going deep into his thoughts. I seize his face between my hands and bring it back around to me. “No. Don’t do this again. Tell me what you’re thinking—I want to hear it all. No secrets.”

“I’ve been wondering if coming to this island was never my idea.” There’s a wild light in his eyes, an awakening realization. “I’ve wondered if the Mordvorren brought me here because it’s stronger in this place, because it’s communing with whatever lies beneath this island—the source of the smell that I hate, the one I could never identify. I told Kyreagan it smells like a dozen familiar things, but it also smells like death and decay, even though it isn’t dead. I told him it smells like my nightmares. Something split this island in two, Jessiva. Something old. And whatever it is, the Mordvorren felt that its presence would provide greater leverage over me.”

“The Mordvorren’s foothold within you is connected to your mother’s death,” I interject, excitement quickening my heartbeat. “And the presence that you felt, the one that made your guilt and fear so much worse—it’s intimately linked to that event.”

“It’s the original core,” he says. “It’s under this fucking island.”

“Destroy it, and you can set yourself free,” I exclaim, and at the same moment he says, “I can set her spirit free.”

We stare at each other, breathless, horrified and thrilled, our emotions perfectly synchronized in a way they haven’t been since we met.

“The Mordvorren has been keeping me from shifting,” Varex confesses. “It’s been holding my magic captive.”

“You already cracked its hold once, to catch me when I fell. You can do this. And I’m coming with you.”

“You’ll have to. The safest place for you will be on my back.” Gently he lifts me off his lap and discards his clothes, which were already torn from his struggle to shift earlier. “Let’s see if I can control the shift this time.”

I step back, fists curled tight, my heart pounding.

“I defied the Mordvorren before, when I first swallowed it,” he says. “I was able to do it because I was saving your life, and I had clarity of purpose. My purpose has never been clearer than it is now. I can do this.”

His body tenses, as if he’s about to attempt it, and I say sharply, “Varex.”

He glances at me, surprised.

“I just want you to know that you are the most charming, sweet, interesting, and generous soul I’ve ever met. I’m glad you heard me scream on that rooftop. I’m glad you took me and kept me. And I love you more than any other living thing in this fucking world.”

My voice cracks over the last two words. Tears shine in his eyes, but he gives me a smile that’s all gleaming fangs and triumph.

“I told you I’d become one of the people you love,” he says.

And with that, he shifts seamlessly, gloriously, into the form of the black dragon.

I can’t help smiling, because I know that the ease of the shift was partly because I make him stronger, better, braver. And he does the same for me.

“On my back, darling,” he says, crouching low. “Hold on like your life depends on it.”

“Is the Mordvorren resisting you?” I ask.

“It’s beginning to,” he replies. “I think if I can get high enough, it won’t be able to stop me. Altitude seems to weaken it. But I can’t go too high, or my aim won’t be accurate enough—and you won’t be able to breathe.”

“You worry about digging out that voratrice motherfucker,” I tell him. “I’ll worry about holding on, and I’ll tell you if we go too high and I can’t breathe. Give me a moment.”

I stuff some of the supplies I brought into the trusty bag I’ve carried for the past several weeks. It used to be an attractive satchel made of heavy cloth, with several interior pockets and a flap I could secure with buttons. Now it’s stained, smudged, and shapeless, its surface abraded in a few places. But it still has no holes, and it always has space for what I need.

After slinging the bag onto my back, I take a length of rope from among the supplies I brought. Before we left the capital, Kyreagan and I stopped by the palace and the people there gave me whatever I requested, including candles, food, blankets, and clothing. Now I’m glad one of them suggested rope as well. With it, I manage to tie myself to Varex’s back more or less securely.

The rest of the supplies will probably be destroyed tonight, along with most of the island. It’s a small price to pay for Varex’s freedom.

“I’m ready,” I tell him. “Let’s crack open a monster and set your mother’s spirit free.”