It’s Ahra’snest.
A crater in the ground large enough to cradle the bundled dragon. Right in the middle, it bulges like a castle bound in a moat. A mound thatshouldboast three scaled eggs … but doesn’t.
I pull my shroud down, choking a breath plagued with the smell of rotten death as I scan shattered bits of shell and the decomposing remnants of what was within … the large boulder that’s busted a trail down the mound and into the nest’s hollow, bits of crumbled shell still stuck to its edges like a guilty conscience …
All the fight bleeds from my bones.
I slug forward, tumble down into the nest’s bowl, the roaring blare in my brain making it hard to hear, feel, or think.
I find my feet. Clamber up the mound while I gag on the hot reek of small, mangled things I don’t want to see, but force myself to look atanyway.
Beautiful despite their brokenness. Mostly silver like their dam, though two bear a smatter of dark-red scales.
My knees punch into the sharp ground.
I drop my dagger, hands trembling as I reach out and touch a shard of silver shell, its texture not unlike the tiny scales of the young it once swaddled—lying crushed beside the shattered remains.
A heavy sadness threatens to bury me beneath its monstrous weight as my mind tumbles back. Stabs into the dae the Fate Herder nudged me toward a merchant who was polishing a silver dragonscale.
I figured obtaining one of Ahra’s future eggs wasmeant to be. That losing Inkah—going through all that pain and agony—it all had some fucking purpose.A thought that kept me moving forward in the darkest times, when bashing myself against the world failed to numb the gaping hole in my chest.
When I learned Ahra had laid a clutch, that spark returned. The promise of new life. New hope.
Smashed.
A distantthud-umppreludes a gust of smoggy wind that blasts down the burrow and swirls within the cavern, but I don’t stand.
Don’t run.
The ground vibrates with the force of Ahra’s heavy landing as I lift a larger piece of shell from the messy grave. Gently set it atop the face of one of her young, hunting for more bits appropriate to repeat the process for her other two.
Dragons don’t bury their dead that don’t make it into the sky, but if there’s one thing I know about the moons, it’s that most are set with tucked heads andallhave their eyes closed.
I can’t imagine there’s anything more painful than living in the wake of such a loss as this, but I do know the pain of seeing the emptiness of an open gaze that no longer registers you.
Covering the face of the final young, I grab my blade and slide back down the mound, into the nest’s cavernous hollow. Sit stagnant while I cradle the weapon, waiting for death to consume me.
Ahra’s deep, ragged breaths fill the void, while the void in my chestthrobs. A hole I selfishly thought I could fill.
Now I feel like a tick in a tomb. A parasite come to raid something sacred.
I deserve my coming end. Realizethisis what the Fate Herder meant for me.
Guess it knows I should’ve died with Inkah all those phases ago. When we were flushed from Arithia for refusing to drop the knee to the new regime, iron-pinned and chased by a thunder of military Moltenmaws that threw fire at our backs, herding us past the wall, toward the sun.
Until Inkah plummeted.
I close my eyes as I think of how they left us there, frying beneath the sun that feasted on my beautiful Inkah in ravenous, welting bites. I wish they’d put her out of her misery. Instead, she agonized over keeping me under the shade of her shredded wings, her keening a pained tune I’ll never cleanse from my soul.
When she broke our bond—plied me with the last of her strength in her final bid for me to survive—my honor forbade me to stay. To spit on her sacrifice and make my grave beside her. Leaving her alone on the plains was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and my biggest regret. Fate must register that.
Finally setting things right.
I keep my head down, my hair a pale shroud blocking sight of anything but the dagger in my calloused hands. Ignore the titanic presence shifting into the cavern in ground-shuddering steps as I fall into that gaping hole in my chest.
I’m struck from the side, losing grip on the dagger as I catapult acrossthe ground. Only brought to a halt when a massive claw crushes down upon me, talons speared into the stone either side of my head.
Struggling to pull breath amidst the searing exhales exploding against my face, I look up into the steely, narrowed eyes of the Great Silver Sabersythe—her face a little smaller than Rygun’s. Less boxy, with fewer tusks and horns.
