Page 20

Even hours later, the gods' voices still whisper at the edges of my consciousness, their ancient magic lingering like frost on glass. As Calliope sleeps against my chest, her breathing slow and even, memories rise unbidden—fragments of a past that feels like it belonged to someone else entirely.

I have heard more from the gods since I met her than ever before in my life. They have historically been silent to my ears. Or perhaps I was not listening.

Summer in the castle gardens, the air heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. Ulric and I sprawled on sun-warmed stone, barely more than boys, watching stars wheel overhead through gaps in the flowering vines. His hair caught the moonlight like a crown, and when he laughed, it was still his own laugh then—not the knife-edge sound it would become.

“Tell me about the dragons again," he said, eyes bright with genuine wonder. "The first ones, the ones who taught our ancestors to shift.”

I obliged, as I always did back then. Told him the old stories our parents had passed down—tales of creatures vast as mountains, wise as time itself, who saw something worth saving in humanity. Who shared their fire and fury with those they deemed worthy, creating the first shapeshifters.

"Do you think they're still out there?" Ulric's voice held none of the bitterness that would later poison it. "The ancient ones?"

“They definitely could be." I remember how simple certainty felt in those days. "Sleeping in the peaks beyond the northernmost frontier, waiting for…something. Some sign that we're ready for their return."

"We'll find them someday." He sat up, golden hair falling in his eyes. "You and me, brother. We'll fly higher than anyone ever has, discover all the old mysteries. Make our parents proud."

But even then, something darker lurked beneath his dreams of glory. I know that now. Perhaps some part of me always had. I saw it in the way his hands clenched when he spoke of pride, in how his smile never quite reached his eyes when our father praised my progress in training.

The memory shifts, dissolves, reforms into something else entirely. The gods' magic pulls me deeper, forcing me to witness their terrible vision:

Ulric stands in a chamber I don't recognize, its walls covered in runes that pulse with sickly light. Calliope kneels before him, blood frozen black on her skin. One of his hands tangles in her hair, forcing her head back; the other holds a blade of strange dark metal against her throat.

"Did you really think you could protect her?" His voice carries the mockery I've come to know too well. "That you could keep something so powerful contained? She was never meant to be yours, brother. Her child will reshape this world—but not as your heir."

"Please," Calliope whispers, one hand pressed to her stomach. Through our bond, I feel her pain, her terror—and beneath that, our child's magic pulsing. "Ulric, don't—"

The blade moves.

Blood blooms like roses on snow.

I wake with a snarl, halfway toward shifting, fire under my skin. It takes several heartbeats to orient myself—to recognize the ruined fortress around us, to feel Calliope's solid warmth against my chest. She stirs slightly with my jolting but doesn't wake, exhausted from the day's revelations and the gods' visions.

The dream clings like poison. Even now, I can smell the copper-sharp scent of her blood, see the light fading from her eyes. My arms tighten around her unconsciously, scales rippling beneath my skin as the dragon in me roars for blood.

But the protective fury is tempered by grief. I remember too well the boy who used to beg for stories, who dreamed of flying higher than anyone before. When did that wonder curdle into bitterness? When did his hunger for glory become this obsession with destroying everything I hold dear?

I would gladly kill him. Perhaps that’s why I am already halfway done grieving him.

Through the gaps in crumbling stone, I watch dusk paint the mountains in shades of blood and shadow. The storm has quieted somewhat, but that only makes it easier to imagine what moves in the gathering dark, out of eyeshot, out of earshot. Boot-steps crunching on snow. Metal clinking against metal. The soft whisper of blade leaving sheath.

They're coming. I feel it in my bones.

Calliope shifts in her sleep, pressing closer to my warmth. One of her hands rests protectively over her stomach, and through our bond, I feel our child's magic pulse in time with her heartbeat. The power growing within her is incredible, terrifying. No wonder Ulric wants to claim it for himself. No wonder the Gods themselves take interest in our child's fate.

I should wake her. Should start moving while we still have cover of twilight. Millrath lies weeks of hard travel to the south, and my throne grows more vulnerable with each passing day. The logical choice—the kingly choice—would be to fly us both back to the capital immediately, to secure our position before the Houses can move against us.

But I remember how pale she looked after the gods' visitation, how the magic drains more of her strength each day. Would she survive such a journey? Would our child? And even if they did, what then? Lock them both away in the castle while I wage war to keep my crown?

Choose wisely.

The sun sets. Darkness creeps in. And somewhere in the gathering gloom, enemies close like a noose around our shelter.

Eventually, I wake Calliope. We trudge onward.