Chapter 41
Raven
It has been almostthree weeks since we sent Xero and Iris to visit the Queen. She has agreed to meet with my mother and me in the spring. It is winter in her lands now—brutal and unforgiving, cold that seeps into dragon bones and crystallizes blood in your veins. The cold that kills. We are not adapted to survive there, not yet, and the waiting gnaws at me like a starving beast. Every day that passes is another day our enemies have to plan, to scheme, to sharpen their blades in the shadows.
I’m at the Sovereign nest today, seated at the massive war table with all of my nest fathers and my mates. The stone chamber presses in around us, ancient and unyielding, the walls scarred by centuries of claw marks and scorch stains that no amount of scrubbing has ever fully erased. History lives within these walls—battles planned, alliances forged, betrayals discovered too late. I can almost hear the echoes of voices long silenced, strategies debated by dragons now turned to dust.
The air hangs thick with the scent of aged parchment, melted candle wax dripping in slow rivulets down iron holders, and the unmistakable musk of dragon—that familiar blend of smoke andcopper and something older, something primal that lives in the marrow. Beneath it all, I catch the sharp bite of tension, acrid and electric, like the air before a lightning strike.
Torchlight flickers against the walls, casting shadows that twist and writhe like living things. The flames hiss and pop, feeding on air that tastes of dust and impending violence. I watch one shadow stretch across the ceiling, elongating into something that looks almost like reaching claws before the flame steadies and it shrinks back to nothing.
Before us, the diorama spreads across the polished wood like a battlefield frozen in time. The table itself is ancient oak, dark with age and oil, its surface marked with the rings of countless goblets and the deeper grooves where frustrated claws have dragged in moments of rage. Mountains rise in miniature, their peaks dusted with white powder meant to mimic snow—I reach out and touch one, feeling the grit of it beneath my fingertip. Forests rendered in careful brushstrokes of green and brown cluster in valleys and spill across plains. Oceans swirl in shades of blue so deep they look almost black at their centers, painted with such skill that they seem to move when the torchlight catches them just right. The known world laid bare—and somewhere within it, enemies plotting our destruction.
I find my gaze drawn to the western edge of the map, where the detail grows sparse and the colors fade to uncertain browns and grays. Terra incognita. The lands we don’t fully know, don’t fully control. The lands where threats fester unseen.
Mom arrives. Her footsteps echo against the flagstones, sharp and deliberate, each one a declaration of presence. I feel the air shift before I see her—a subtle drop in temperature, a change in pressure that makes my ears want to pop. The torches gutter, flames bending away from her as if in deference, thensteady themselves with visible effort. She moves to the table without greeting anyone, without acknowledging the room full of the most dangerous creatures on the continent, her sharp eyes already tracing familiar territories, cataloging threats, calculating distances. When she leans over the diorama, her shadow swallows an entire mountain range.
The silk of her dress whispers against the floor, a deep crimson that looks almost black in the flickering light. She smells of winter roses and something metallic—blood, perhaps, though whether fresh or remembered, I cannot tell.
No one speaks. We wait. The fire crackles. Somewhere in the walls, ancient stones settle and groan.
“What do we know as facts?” I break the silence, and my voice bounces off the vaulted ceiling, returning to me hollow and strange. The question hangs in the smoky air like a challenge, like a blade unsheathed.
“Magnus and Amadeus are more than likely working together against the other courts.” Abraxis speaks first, and when I look at him—really look—I see the transformation happening in real time. His spine straightens, vertebra by vertebra, until he sits like a sword planted in stone. His shoulders square beneath his black leather jacket, muscles coiling with readiness. The lines of his face harden into something sharper, more dangerous, the softness I’ve glimpsed in private moments vanishing like morning mist.
The feared general lurks behind his eyes now, awakened by the scent of war, and something fierce and predatory gleams in the amber depths of his gaze. I’ve heard stories about what he did in the old wars—entire armies routed, cities brought to their knees,enemies who surrendered at the mere rumor of his approach. Looking at him now, I believe every word.
He smiles at me, and it’s not a kind smile. It’s the smile of a male who has orchestrated the deaths of thousands and slept soundly after. The smile of a predator who has spotted prey.
I return it. I understand him now in ways I never did before. We are the same, he and I—monsters wearing human faces, capable of terrible things in service of those we love.
“That is probably a very safe assumption to operate on.” I tap my fingers against the edge of the table, a steady rhythm that betrays none of the anxiety coiling in my gut like a nest of serpents. The wood is smooth and cool beneath my touch, worn down by generations of hands just like mine—hands that planned battles, signed death warrants, reshaped the world according to their will. I wonder how many of those hands trembled the way mine want to. I wonder if any of them felt this sick certainty that war is coming regardless of what we do.
“Do we know which teacher is probably working with them?”
I look at my biological fathers. They hold positions of power at the academy, eyes, and ears embedded in the very nest of vipers that wants me dead. It’s a dangerous game they play—trusted by the institution, suspected by no one, feeding us information that could mean the difference between my survival and a grave. Klauth’s golden eyes meet mine, and I watch calculations flicker behind them like flames behind glass—variables weighed, odds assessed, threats prioritized with the cold efficiency of a mind that has been doing this for centuries.
“Anipe and Isobel are the most likely candidates.” His voice is deceptively casual, a hunter discussing the weather while hisprey grazes unaware. But I catch the micro-expressions that betray him. The tension in his jaw, muscle feathering beneath skin pulled too tight. The way his claws have extended, just slightly, to grip the table’s edge hard enough to leave grooves in the ancient wood. Fresh grooves, joining hundreds of others. “Samara isn’t a bad one to keep an eye on either at this point.”
Samara.
The name slithers through my mind like poison, coating everything it touches with dread. I’ve seen what she can do. Watched a student freeze mid-stride in the academy courtyard, terror carved eternally into features that would never move again. Stone. Cold, dead stone where warm flesh had been heartbeats before. The statue still stands there. I’ve heard—a warning, a trophy, a monument to power unchecked. They say if you look closely, you can still see the tears frozen on her cheeks.
I force the image away, but it clings to the edges of my thoughts like a stubborn shadow.
“So, what do you suggest we do about them?” I step back from the table, my wings rustling against my back as I shift my weight. The leather membrane stretches taut, catching the torchlight and gleaming like oil on water, then settles with a soft whisper against my shoulder blades—a familiar comfort, a reminder of the power coiled within me. I may be young, but I am not weak. I am not prey.
I study the three ancient males arranged before me like pieces on a game board, like weapons waiting to be wielded.
Klauth. Thauglor. Abraxis.
The greatest military minds of their time. Warriors who shaped the very history etched into these maps, who watched empiresrise on tides of blood and crumble to dust and ash, who have forgotten more about war than most will ever learn. Their combined experience spans millennia, their kill counts beyond calculation, their strategies studied by every commander who came after them.
And they’re looking at me. Waiting for my lead. Deferring to a twenty-two-year-old dragoness who should still be learning, still be sheltered, still be someone else’s responsibility.
The weight of it presses against my chest like a physical thing, like a boulder settling onto my ribs.
“Year three is the purge.” Abraxis’s voice drops low, a rumble like distant thunder rolling across mountain peaks, like the growl of something massive stirring in its sleep. The sound vibrates in my bones, resonates in my chest, stirs something dark and eager in my blood that I try not to examine too closely. “It doesn’t say anything against teachers being hunted.”
