Page 48 of A Matter of Dragons

“Come,” Mad Scarlett said, in a voice like an ancient hinge. “Come to me. My child. My daughter.”

Rayne pulled in a breath, one harsh, rasping gasp.

I blinked. Blinked again. Rayne was still there, standing on the rocks, naked and smeared with soot, with the ruined remains of a melted blade at her feet and unrecognizable wisps of clothing and armor smoldering on her shoulders and around her hips.

“I knew you would come, my daughter,” Mad Scarlett continued in her agonized, dying voice. “At the end.”

Rayne gasped again. She ran her hands down her body as if surprised to find she was still intact. With trembling fingers, she pushed the charred remains of her sword’s scabbard over her hips. The ruined metal hit the blackened stones with a hollow clank.

Oh, by the Mothers. By the Mothers, of course! My heart leaped forward, beating double-time against its cage of bone. This explained everything. Mad Scarlett’s arrival, which coincided with Rayne's arrival. Mad Scarlett’s insistence that her daughter was near. The strange jolt of magic that had shot through my body when I’d first touched Rayne's scarred arm on the steps of my shop. I’d called it a curse. She’d contradicted me, claiming the scars came from a burn.

Stars, that must be how Mad Scarlett’s daughter had been stolen. Mountain peaks spun against the stars as the realization crashed over me. Whoever had stolen Mad Scarlett’s daughter had cursed the hatchling dragon by trapping her in her human form and then hiding her in the one kingdom where she’d never be exposed to magic, where no elves would ever recognize her for what she was. Where she would grow up with no reason to ever think she was anything but human.

Mad Scarlett groaned. Her massive head sank to the stones. Smoke rose from her nostrils as her yellow eyes rolled up, toward the stars. Rayne's breath was coming short and fast. Her naked, soot-smeared shoulders shook, and something deep inside me cried out to touch her, to wrap my wings around her, to comfort and protect.

Of course. She was a dragon, this beautiful, brave woman whose kisses tasted of frost wine and fire. That’s why I was so drawn to her, had been so drawn to her since she’d first shown up on my doorstep. It was as if some wise, deeply hidden part of me had recognized her right from the start.

Rayne fell to her knees, and I shifted forward, here if she needed me. But she wasn’t in shock, I realized. She wasn’t injured. She was crying.

Rayne's soft sobs filled the air, a delicate counterpoint to Mad Scarlett’s labored breathing. Rayne bent forward and placed her hands delicately on Mad Scarlett’s snout. Smoke rose in gentle, curling tendrils from the pits of Mad Scarlett’s nostrils and drifted up to wreath Rayne's face, to brush against the bright paths her tears had cut through the dirt and soot on her cheeks. The night was suddenly very still and very silent. I could hear fire crackling on the mountainside beneath me, could almost feel every labored, struggling breath Mad Scarlett pulled from the air and then, reluctantly, released from her dying body.

I stood in silence, loath to ruin the moment. A feeling as warm and thick as frost wine rose in my chest as I watched Rayne's bare shoulders, the curve of her spine, the way her strong arms wrapped around Mad Scarlett’s massive snout.

She was like me. She was a dragon.

My heart trembled in my chest. A dragon. I’d never before been happy to meet another dragon; they all came with the baggage of the Iron Mountain, with its tedious bickering and infighting and constant vying for territory. And if I’d missed certain elements of dragonhood, flying through the night sky with another dragon at my side, perhaps, or diving into the waves on a moonless night to awaken the sea’s unearthly blue phosphorescence, weaving our bodies together with the salt and the swells, well, hadn’t I just told myself that was the price of freedom? That living my own life, on my own terms, meant embracing this human form and surrendering the wings and scales?

But now, this. Now, her. A shiver raced up my legs and shook my scales. She’d been raised outside the Iron Mountains. Once we found who’d cursed her, and that couldn’t be too difficult, not with my connections, we could pay whatever they wanted to reverse the curse. My father and I were stakeholders in half a dozen of the human world’s largest banks; we could pay a sum that would make most mortals weep.

And then Rayne would be free. I could teach her how to shift, how to fly. I could show her everything I knew—

A scrape against stone shook me from my reverie. I blinked, shook myself. Rayne was shifting on the rocks. Sparks from the forest fire beneath us rose lazily in the night air behind her. She wiped the tears from one cheek, leaving a messy blur of ash and soot and blood.

It was quiet. Utterly quiet. The deep, rasping gasps of Mad Scarlett had fallen silent. I looked down at the massive dragon spread across the stones at my feet. Smoke no longer rose from her cavernous nostrils. Her great yellow eyes were closed.

I’d scarcely known Mad Scarlett, and nearly every interaction I’d had with her had been unpleasant. Still, an unexpected wave of sadness welled up in my throat as I realized Mad Scarlett had taken the final journey, crossed into that golden sunset. There are so few of us in this world, after all. I glanced at the blackened stones beneath my claws, then followed the sparks rising to meet the stars. Now there is one less dragon in this world. And the world is poorer for it.

Rayne sighed. The sound seemed to convey all the grief, all the sad exhaustion that had risen so unexpectedly inside my chest. It made me want to hold her, to comfort her, to welcome her properly into the draconic world, this strange, fierce, beautiful woman who had just upended my entire world.

Rayne stood, then took a slow, hesitant step away from Mad Scarlett’s motionless corpse. She looked so small and vulnerable against the blackened stone, and from this height. I drew a deep breath and shifted into my human form. Air forced from my shrinking lungs hissed into the night sky. My chest tightened in a feeling that was almost pain, almost loss. And then I was myself again, the form I’d worn for so many long, lonely decades in Cairncliff. No wings, no scales, no claws; just Doshir.

Rayne didn’t even glance up as I stepped toward her, my feet sending up clouds of ash and smoke. Her eyes were still fixed on the dragon’s body. Her pale shoulders trembled against the night, making her red hair dance around her neck.

By the Mothers, I wanted to touch her. I wanted to crush her to my chest, to wipe the soot and ash from her cheeks, to tell her everything was going to be just fine now that we had each other.

“Rayne,” I said. My voice crackled like flames.

Rayne looked up at me, blinking as though my presence had momentarily blinded her. I had the sense she’d utterly forgotten my existence.

“Rayne,” I said again. “You—you’re like me. You’re a dragon.”

Her eyes widened. I took a step forward, and she flinched back.

“Get the fuck away from me!” she yelled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rayne