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“It happened when we were in Valgros,” he begins.
My vision swims. A torrent of images tumble over themselves in my mind; Doshir’s smile above the candlelight at our table in the Valorous Arms, his dark eyes meeting mine as his hands danced over my scar, lighting up my entire body in a thousand different ways. Doshir arguing with the Port Guard just before I stepped forward, my boots loud against the cobblestones, announcing that I was his sponsor. Doshir walking through the forest in the Knife’s Edge Mountains, and the way my insides had turned to liquid when his mouth curved, the way I’d wanted to cry and scream and grind my body against his until we were both dust when he’d asked to go to Valgros with me. The way his wings beat the waves as he’d carried his mother away from Valgros, and the way my heart had broken in his wake.
I blink frantically, trying to clear my vision. Doshir is staring at the roof of the cave like he’s trying to read his next words in the cracks and cobwebs above us.
“I found something,” he finally says. “In Varitan’s shop.”
I blink again, my breath catching in my throat as I try to make sense of his words. Varitan? Rensivar’s creepy assistant? The man who’d lit me on fire and then claimed he’d turned me into a dragon? Doshir rubs the back of his neck, and the candle’s illumination sends shadows jumping all around us.
“Well, I found a lot of things,” he continues. “Far more than anyone should have, really, especially in Valgros. Historical artifacts, and records from the war between the of the Summer and the of the Fall, and—”
His voice trails off. When he looks at me again, the expression on his face is soft and almost apologetic.
“And I found your hatching records,” he says.
I feel like I’ve just been plunged into freezing water. My mouth opens, but it takes me a moment to remember how to speak.
“My what?” I ask.
Doshir smiles again, in a way that makes me feel like he’s trying to swallow what he has to say next.
“Hatching records,” he says. “Every dragon has them. The Historian of the Iron Mountains tracks every dragon hatchling. Their parentage. And their prophecy.”
This tight little passageway is spinning around me. I brace myself against the cold stone at my back. Sure, I’d accepted that I was a dragon. I’d changed form, I’d flown across the continent, and I’d walked through burning buildings. But a hatching record? Parents?
My throat feels dry as I force my lips open once again.
“And?” I ask.
Doshir frowns. When he exhales, the candle’s bright little flame dances in his hand.
“It’s not—” he begins, then stops. “It’s—”
His eyes meet mine.
“The Historian wrote the name of your mother,” he finally says. “And your hatching prophecy.”
He falls silent. The air in the passageway feels cold and heavy. Doshir is looking at everything but me, as if my hatching prophecy had been scratched into the stones above my head. My teeth sink into my lower lip, and my hands curl into fists. I’m not sure I want him to continue. Finally, Doshir takes a breath and meets my eyes.
“Your hatching prophecy,” he says. “It was, ‘She will destroy the Throne of Claws.’”
“What?”
The word shoots out of me like an expletive. Some part of me wants to scream at Doshir, to accuse him of making it up, but I know better.
“I’m sorry,” Doshir says. There’s a shadow across his face that makes my chest feel tight. Didn’t Doshir just tell me his own hatching prophecy and how much he hates it?
“They aren’t always literal, hatching prophecies,” Doshir continues. “And I can’t tell you what it means.”
His voice fades, swallowed by the shadows looming around the bright dot of the candle in his hand. The weight of all the stone around us presses into my shoulders, cold and gritty. Destroy the Throne of Claws? Why?
Doshir’s voice hisses through the space between us.
“There’s more,” he whispers.
I hold my breath. Apparently, I’m destined to destroy the throne of the of the Iron Mountains. What more could there possibly be? Doshir turns to stare at the ceiling of the hallway again, and I feel as though my bones have turned to stone, freezing me from the inside out.
“The last part of your record wasn’t written by the Historian,” he says.
