The words landed like stones.
“He was shown the cost,” she continued. “Every alpha is. Every inheriting leader has to see it before the deal can be renewed. That’s why your ancestor ended it. He saw childrenwasting away. Crops failing. Eggs never hatching. Entire regions dimming so your family could stay strong.”
My stomach dropped.
“That’s why the records disappeared,” she said. “That’s why there are gaps. Because once the cost became too great, someone tried to stop it and erased enough of the trail so no one else could start it again.”
My family.
My blood.
I stared at the dragon, at the chains, at the temple built to enable this horror, and felt something in me fracture.
“We did this,” I said hoarsely.
She didn’t contradict me.
“The fading magic,” I whispered. “The decline. The sickness. I knew it wasn’t random.”
“No,” she said. “It’s starvation. The deal was severed, but the damage was already done. And the fading power is because of the lack of power draining from elsewhere.”
The dragon lowered its head. One massive claw extended toward me, chains rattling softly as it offered it.
I knew what it was asking.
I stepped forward before I could think better of it and wrapped my hand around the claw.
The world vanished, but I was everywhere.
I was a village watching its children sicken. I was a clutch of eggs that never warmed. I was magic dimming in the bones of dragons who didn’t understand why theybecame weaker every generation. I was plague. I was drought. I was grief passed down like inheritance.
I felt it all.
Every sacrifice made without consent. Every life shortened so my family could rule with unbridled power.
I tore my hand away with a broken sound and staggered back, nearly falling. Artemis caught my arm without hesitation, grounding me, steadying me as I sucked in air that felt too thin to sustain me.
Now I understood.
Now I knew why my ancestor had tried to break the chain and failed. The earlier alphas had been willing to pay the cost. Willing to trade lives they never had to witness directly. Power had made them cruel enough to justify anything.
I would not be that.
I straightened, shaking, heart raw and burning.
“It ends,” I said. “All of it. I don’t care what it costs me.”
The dragon’s calm voice rolled through me even as its chains rattled.What do you offer?
I laughed once, sharp and hollow. “I don’t have gold. I don’t have secrets left. I don’t even have authority worth preserving.”
I lifted my chin. “Take me. Take my life. Break the connection. Restore what was lost.”
The chains stilled.
Deal.
I stepped forward and lifted my hand.
