Chapter 40
Keir
Something is off with Raven.After our amazing night that started in the tub—steam curling around us, her wet skin sliding against mine, water sloshing over the marble edge—and ended in my room with tangled sheets and whispered promises, she feels distant. Like a storm cloud hovering just out of reach. The scent of her still clings to my skin, jasmine, and sea salt, and something darker, more primal—the musk of her dragon lurking beneath the surface. But her warmth has retreated somewhere I cannot follow.
I walk through the house, my boots silent against the cold stone floor. The hallway stretches long and shadow-drenched, torchlight flickering against tapestries that seem to breathe in the draft. The air grows warmer as I approach the living room, thick with the musk of a sleeping dragon—copper and sulfur and something ancient that prickles at the back of my throat. The faint crackle of dying embers punctuates the silence, and the scent of charred oak mingles with the lingering sweetness of spiced wine.
Corvus and Solaris sit on opposite ends of the room, tension strung between them like an invisible wire. Their attention is fixed on Nova curled in the center of the floor—a patchwork jewel of obsidian and burnt orange, her scales mottled like a calico cat. Each exhale sends a tiny plume of smoke curling from her nostrils, dissipating into the amber glow of the firelight. Her scales catch the flames and throw back fractured reflections—the obsidian patches gleaming like polished jet, the orange blooming warm as embers scattered across the floor.
“We need to talk.” I step inside and close the heavy oak door behind me. The iron hinges groan, and the click of the latch echoes like a warning shot through the room.
“Are we under attack?” Solaris straightens, his golden eyes sharpening to molten slits. The firelight catches the hard planes of his face, casting half of it in shadow.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Did you bring Raven another drow head?” Corvus arches a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. I roll my eyes despite the tension coiling tight as a spring in my chest.
“Not this time.” I cross the room, my footsteps muffled by the thick woven rug beneath my feet—threads of crimson and gold worn soft by centuries of use. I lower myself onto the arm of the chair, the aged leather creaking beneath my weight, cool through the fabric of my pants.
“I’m more concerned about how she’s acting. She told me what happened to Abraxis, and I think she’s re-evaluating everything she thought she knew.”
Solaris rises and paces, his footsteps measured but heavy enough to make the floorboards groan in protest. The firelightcatches the silver threading through his dark hair, making it gleam like veins of ore in a mine shaft. His jaw is tight, muscles feathering beneath the skin.
“I was afraid of that happening. There’s been a lot of change in a short period of time. Dragonesses—especially new mothers—don’t do well with upheaval.” His eyes drift to his daughter, softening for just a moment before they lift to meet mine. The gold in them churns like liquid metal. “Did she say anything specific?”
I let out a slow breath; the air leaving my lungs in a controlled stream. “I think his being jealous of her rather than angry at her was difficult to process. In a sense, she thought he didn’t like her.” I shrug, but the weight of it sits heavy on my shoulders, pressing down like a physical thing. “And she said she saw him afraid when he was chained. She’d never seen him afraid before.”
I glance between Corvus and Solaris, searching their faces for answers I’m not sure exist. The fire pops and hisses behind them, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney.
“War drakes...” Corvus begins, his voice low and rough as gravel scraped over stone. He motions to himself with a scarred hand—knuckles gnarled, skin mapped with old wounds that never fully healed. “We’re bred to fight—to destroy anything in our path without guilt or remorse.” He stares at the worn pattern of the rug, shadows pooling in the hollows beneath his cheekbones, in the dark circles under his eyes. “When our sole purpose is taken from us, it’s like having a limb severed. The phantom pain never stops.”
He walks the room with deliberate, predatory grace—each step placed with the precision of a hunter stalking prey. I track everymovement he makes, my blink hound instincts prickling at the nape of my neck.
“I can only assume Abraxis felt inferior to Klauth and Thauglor, so he took his pain to a dark place.” He stops near the window, his reflection a ghostly double in the night-blackened glass. His gaze slides to Solaris before returning to me. “Then, when our mate began to outperform him—and then her fathers—that dark place got darker. And now we have the problem we have today. Mina’s nest is unbalanced.”
“So what does that have to do with Raven?” I accept the glass Solaris offers me, our fingers brushing briefly—his skin radiates heat, almost feverish. The crystal is cool against my palm, the amber liquid inside catching the firelight like trapped sunlight. I take a sip, and the whiskey burns a trail of heat down my throat, spreading warmth through my chest.
“She almost experienced the same kind of loss he did. He keeps forgetting he can still fly—he was lucky, just like Raven was. He just can’t fight as his drake anymore.” Corvus’s tone holds regret and sympathy I didn’t expect, softening the harsh lines of his face.
“Meanwhile, our mate is the dominant dragoness and at wyrm status almost a full fifty years early.” I put the last pieces together myself, and the picture they form makes my stomach clench like a fist around broken glass.
“Drakes aren’t fully mature until sometime after a hundred and twenty-five years old.” Corvus glances at Solaris, something unspoken passing between them.
“Your dragon isn’t fully mature until then. Your human side matures in the early twenties. Current education left that partout until Klauth and Thauglor took over the academy. They told me they corrected the courses to teach facts—not mage-fed fiction.” Solaris settles back into his chair, the leather sighing beneath him. His gaze finds mine, steady and measuring.
“My belief is that because Abraxis heard all the false narratives his entire life, he’s had a hard time adjusting to the truth. He handled a lot of things wrong. Now it’s damage control.” His attention drifts to his sleeping daughter, and something raw and tender flickers across his features before he schools them back to neutrality.
I stare down at Nova and smile, watching the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. Her scales ripple with each exhale, light dancing across them like oil on water. “Do you think because of yours and Raven’s bloodlines, Nova is so large for her age?”
I slide off the chair arm and lower myself to kneel beside her. The floor is warm where her body heat has seeped into the stone. I rest my palm against her scales, and they’re smooth and heated, thrumming with a power that vibrates through my bones and makes my teeth ache. Beneath my hand, I feel the steady drum of her heartbeat—slow and ancient, like the pulse of the earth itself.
“Hatchlings used to be born this size all the time. It’s too many generations of hatchlings being born to human mothers. Dragon kind always conceived and bore their hatchlings in dragon form.” Solaris lowers himself to the floor beside Nova and me, his presence solid and reassuring. The warmth radiating off him is almost uncomfortable, like standing too close to a forge.
“What does that mean for the non-dragons in the nest?” I study Nova’s unique scale pattern—the way the obsidian and orange swirl together in unpredictable patches, no two sectionsquite the same. The firelight makes the orange glow like molten copper, while the black absorbs the light entirely, creating a striking contrast that seems almost impossible.
“Nothing. Though I suggest Corvus have his hatchling the old way, so the child is as strong as Nova. For the non-dragons, human conception is perfectly fine since the baby will be what the father is. Klauth figured that out.” He offers us a soft smile, and I blink out of the room before the conversation can continue.
The void swallows me whole.
