“She’ll be insufferable,” she muttered.
I chuckled and pushed at the door. It flung wide. I hadn’t set foot through before a golden eye blocked the way, the slit pupil tightening as it swept my frame.
“Kalepsi.” My throat tightened. I raised a bandaged hand, pressing it to her cool, dark cheek. “Let me in.”
With a sharp huff and one last scan, her great head withdrew. I stepped inside, and wind rushed past, tearing at my skirts now that the windbreak no longer shielded me.
A wall of purple scales nudged me deeper into the chamber. I strode over sun-bleached bones and crumbled shells, careful not to slip on the gouged floor where dragons once quarreled. Kalepsi herded me toward a hollow carved in the black stone.
After a gentle push, I stumbled forward, catching myself against a pale-blue egg the size of a barrel. It jostled the others. A myriad of colors and patterns swirled across their thick, dimpled shells, but I knew from experience it would take more than a tumble to break one.
Kalepsi’s tail looped around me, pressing me into the Nest. Curled close, she shut the world away, and I laughed up at her as she dipped her head low, pulling in a long, slow breath.
In the shade, her scales blended into near-black. In sunlight, they bloomed violet like wildflowers after rain.
“You laid a clutch.” I eased her tail aside and lowered myself against the curve of an egg.
Only hers ever grew this large. The older the dragon, the bigger the egg. Younger beasts laid smaller ones, and their hatchlings took years to grow strong enough for a rider. Kalepsi’s hatchlings could carry someone before their first year.
Not always a good thing. Riding a half-grown dragonling invited disaster. Gyrak and Ronan proved that. They’d been insufferable. He’d bonded as a boy when the black hatchling barely held the strength to lift him. A horse-sized beast flitting through the palace had been a nightmare.
Father once grounded him, forced him to walk everywhere for a week.‘A dragon is not a ride,’he had said.‘Not a shortcut.’
Kalepsi hummed, settling her head on paws the size of my body. Her nostrils flared. She could smell my unease. I’d be stuck here until she deemed me healed, but after keeping the Spire awake all night with her howls, she’d earned her peace.
Draconia could rest. That was enough.
“I am fine.”
She snorted, one lazy eye sliding open like she knew better.
“I’m here. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Grief tightened my lungs, and I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes. Kalepsi might’ve craved my return, to have me cradled in her Nest, but she wasn’t the reason I came back.
My body was mending, but my heart would never fully heal. In the night, I wept like a child, stunned by the simple fact that I once again could. Visions of Kallias, alone, facing his people—Tallon—haunted me. I mourned him, but fury flared hotter at the thought of Tallon poised behind his father’s throne, undermining him. Waiting.
Kalepsi’s thick tail trembled, muscles shivering against my side.
“Kalepsi, let me in,” Mother called from beyond the scaled wall.
The dragon queen didn’t move. Her gleaming eye narrowed on me, reading the cracks I couldn’t speak aloud. Time stretched, wordless.
Because I wasn’t fine.
My heart ached. I shattered my name, turned Father against me, pushed Radaan to the brink of war, and abandoned Kallias in the storm I stirred. Every thought curved back to him.
What would life look like without him?
Cold. Miserable.
I tasted passion, felt what it meant to love. Kallias was strong, steady. A true king—not perfect, but powerful. Fierce. His presence lifted his people, stoked their spirit. He was everything I wanted.
No one else matched his fire with restraint. Nobody saw the world as he did—with that rare blend of resolve and mercy.
Not thatanyone would have me now.
A princess caught mid-betrayal, with a man who wasn’t her betrothed. Who would trust me to remain loyal? Unless he chained me like a prisoner. Locked me behind iron bars.
