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“That is a matter I have given muchthought.”
But had she drawn any conclusions? She obviously didn’t want to make this conversation at all easy forme.
I bent to pick up my bag. “I think both our peoples will be better off if we can set aside our grievances with each other at least long enough to push back this threat. But I’m not coming just to ask you to offer help. I wanted to offer you something first. I want you to be able to see how relations between shifters and fae have looked through oureyes.”
I pulled out the crystals. The monarch’s eyeswidened.
“My dragon shifter ancestors recorded pieces of our history into these tablets,” I said. “Some of it relating to the fae. So that we could each learn from what’s happened before. That’s what I’ve tried to do. And I don’t like being near-enemies with you when I know it could be different. No one has ever seen these before except the dragon shifters. But I think you deserveto.”
I handed the more recent record to her. She looked down at the etchings. “What is thisone?”
“A dragon shifter’s account of the first major falling out between our people,” I said. “Can you activateit?”
“I think…” She traced her long fingers over the image and nodded. Her eyes slid shut. A glow streamed up from the crystal, brightening the shimmer of herskin.
Did I light up like that when I was accessing those records, or was that only because of hermagic?
She must have been able to absorb the account faster than I did. After just a few minutes, her eyelids stuttered open. A purplish flush had colored her cheeks. She thrust the tablet back into myhands.
“That isn’t how it happened at all. Your dragon shifter then refused to even bring the responsible shifters with her so our monarch could talk to them directly. She wouldn’t accept any compromise. And this talk about stealing your fire—we have never wanted tostealanything fromyou.”
“Hey,” I said, raising my hands. “I didn’t think everything she said was completely accurate. I just wanted you to know what all the dragon shifters before me have had to go by. That’s how that moment seemed to them. It’s easier to blame the other person, isn’tit?”
The monarch’s eyes were still glittering with anger. “I didn’t come here to betold—”
“Wait. Just wait. That isn’t the only thing I wanted you to see.” I fumbled for the second tablet and offered it to her. “This is the one that brought me here. This is the one that made me think we could do so muchbetter.”
She frowned, but she accepted the tablet. With a graze of her fingers, the glow flowed up her arms again. I waited, my stomach clenched with anticipation, as the more hopeful piece of our history washed overher.
This time, when the visions were finished, she lowered the tablet more gently, still holding on to it. A shadow of sorrow crossed her face. “It’s hard to imagine,” shesaid.
“I know. But that’s how it was between us before. The power I hold inside me, your people and mine created together, for our mutual good. Because the fae once thought that what benefited the dragon shifters benefitted them as well. That we’d support eachother.”
“But much has happened sincethen.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. I heard some of the complaints one of the local fae leaders made, just from recent years. My kin have hurt your people. I hate that it happened, but I’m not going to deny it. Accidentswillhappen, but I think there must be ways to make sure they happen less. And to make sure we accept responsibility where it’sdue.”
The monarch gazed at me for a long moment. She looked a little startled by my admission. “We have hurt your kind too,” she admitted quietly. “We have let resentment grow. I have let cruelties go unpunished. We should have been better than that.” She exhaled. “But it isn’t so easy to turn back time. The wrongs done have already been done. Trust alreadybroken.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m willing to talk through anything we need to talk through. I don’t expect that we’re going to trust each other immediately. I just want us to hear each other more, to start with. And I’m hoping you’ll help us defend ourselves from the vampires so we’re still around to dothat.”
“You want us to throw ourselves into the line of fire on yourbehalf?”
“No!” I said quickly. “I, er, was actually thinking it might be possible for you to help us without even extending yourselves all that much. What the previous dragon shifters said, about stealing our fire—the way we worked together in the past, combining our strengths… Is there some way you can usemyfire?”
She hesitated. Then she inclined her head. “Yes. We can connect our magic to your spirit. Channel that power through our own. That is how your flames of truth were made, with the power of that dragon shifterbefore.”
I liked the sound of that. “How long can you hold onto that power? And from how faraway?”
“For as long as you sustain it,” the monarch said. “And for a short time longer, depending on how much we’ve gathered. One of us would need to be with you, accepting it. But that one could pass the flames on to the rest of our kind wherever they mightbe.”
My heart skipped a beat. “So I could be in one place, and a bunch of you could be in other places, and we could rain down dragon fire on all those sets of vampires at the sametime?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes.Ifwe agreed to help you. If I thought it worth therisk.”
This was exactly what we needed. How could I convince her I meant everything I’dsaid?
The second the question passed through my mind, a memory swam up: my violet flames streaming down over the fae woman in front of me. Forcing her to admit the truth. My heart skipped again, in a much more nervous way, but I forced myself tospeak.
