The Dragon Lord Who Never Believed Me

My fated mate shut me out of our bond for the ninety-ninth time just as the last spark of dragonfire inside me began to die. I walked into the Oath Hall of Obsidian Keep alone. Black stone stretched beneath my feet, cold enough to bite through my slippers, and every step made the cracked channels around my dragon core grind deeper into my chest. “I’m here to renounce the Obsidian Court and dissolve my life-bond with the Dragon Lord.” The clerk took in my bloodless face and lowered his voice. “Lady Ashton, once I set the seal, the Court will no longer be required to protect you. Are you certain?” My dragonfire had been unstable since birth, leaving me weaker than most dragonkin. When I was ten, my father adopted Cecilia. She had a gift for explaining every disaster in the gentlest possible voice until everyone believed I was the jealous sister who couldn’t stand to share. My parents hadn’t always been unloving. They had simply forgotten how to tell the difference between the daughter who was crying and the daughter who was lying. Cassian and I had been fated for years, yet he had never crowned me his Dragon Queen. He rarely took me to Court gatherings. Most of Obsidian Keep didn’t even know I was his mate. “That’s all right.” I swallowed the taste of blood and kept my voice steady. “I’ll be dead in three days.” Chapter 1 The High Healer had already given me his final verdict. In three days, my dragonfire would gutter out completely, and my soul would splinter with it. For the Dragon Lord who had never believed me and the family Cecilia had fooled for seven years, my death might be the only truth they couldn’t argue away. The Oath Hall’s bronze doors slammed open. “Evelyn!” Cassian’s roar made every brazier along the walls flare. I turned to find him striding toward me in black-and-gold battle armor, his dark red dragon eyes burning with fury. Cecilia hurried in behind him, still wearing the silver-blue cloak of the newly appointed Captain of the Dragonwing Guard. She was slightly out of breath, but the concern on her face had already been arranged to perfection. “You had to drag this into the Oath Hall today?” Cassian stopped inches from me. “Cecilia just received the Dragonwing Medal. The entire Court is waiting to celebrate her promotion, and you pick this moment to stage some grand departure?” Before I could answer, his palm cracked across my face. The blow sent me into a stone pillar. My ears rang, and blood flooded my mouth. It took me a moment to remember what day it was. Cassian had postponed his inspection of the northern rift to attend Cecilia’s ceremony. Last night, while my dragonfire was dying inside me, I had reached for him through our bond and begged for help. His only response had been: [Stop abusing the bond for attention.] I braced myself against the pillar and tried to explain, but a brutal cough tore through my chest first. Dark blood spattered the black floor like crushed pomegranate seeds. “Cassian, I’m not lying. My dragonfire really is—” His gaze snagged on the blood, and for half a heartbeat, his brow tightened. Then Cecilia spoke softly. “Evelyn, the Dragon Lord left my ceremony the moment he heard you were here. How can you say he doesn’t care about you?” My mother’s voice came through the message crystal at Cecilia’s belt. “I told you to leave her alone until she calmed down. Evelyn has made a spectacle of every hurt feeling since she was a child.” “She can’t stand seeing Cecilia succeed. Of course she’d find a way to steal the room on a day like this.” Whatever doubt had crossed Cassian’s face disappeared. He grabbed the front of my dress. “So you ruined her ceremony and arranged to cough up blood for good measure?” Cecilia caught his arm, tears already shining in her eyes. “Please don’t blame her. I shouldn’t have accepted the captaincy. If she’ll come home, I’ll return the medal and resign from the Guard. I don’t want everyone fighting because of me.” That was how she did it. She wrapped every barb in surrender and dressed every trap as forgiveness until I became the monster forcing her to sacrifice. My mother’s voice softened at once. “Sweetheart, this isn’t your fault. You earned that honor. No one has the right to make you give it up.” She used to soothe me that way. She once sat beside my bed through every fever and kissed my forehead the first time I summoned dragonfire. Later, all that tenderness went to her other daughter. Whenever I opened my mouth, I got the same answer: [Stop going after Cecilia.] I didn’t have enough strength left to be jealous. More blood rose in my throat. I held out the healer’s crystal tablet, the diagnosis glowing across its surface. Cassian barely glanced at it before he laughed without humor. “Dragonfire collapse?” His fingers closed. The tablet shattered into blue-white sparks in his palm. “You couldn’t even be bothered to invent a decent lie.” His gaze swept over my pale face. For one foolish second, I remembered my awakening ceremony at eighteen. His eyes had glowed like molten gold as he held my hand and promised that once the northern war was over, he would place the Dragon Queen’s crown on my head himself. Now those same eyes held nothing but exhaustion and disgust. I turned back to the clerk. “Please continue. If my soul dissolves in three days, I don’t want my petition gathering dust because no one finished the paperwork.” Cassian went rigid, then seized my wrist hard enough to grind bone. “You even dragged an Oath clerk into this little performance? Enough, Evelyn. Go back to the Keep and stop humiliating House Ashton and my Court.” He put an arm around Cecilia’s shoulders and led her away. The bronze doors closed behind them. He never looked back. I stared at the bruises rising beneath Cassian’s fingerprints and let out a small, empty laugh. He had never believed me. Why had I expected one final exception? I completed the renunciation alone and pressed my blood seal into the bond scroll. In three days, the formal dissolution would be delivered to Cassian. By then, I probably wouldn’t be able to feel it. I returned to Obsidian Keep only to collect my things. When I reached the lowest floor of the east tower, I realized how little I had left. My old bedroom had been turned into a storage room for moth-eaten linens and broken candlesticks. A yellowing cloth covered my mirror. My books and enchanted portraits had been tossed into crates. The bed remained, but someone had replaced the sheets with rough sacking fit for a temporary servant. An old lacquered box sat in the corner. Inside was the only birthday gift Cassian had ever given me—a plain brass bangle. I wiped the dust from the desk and picked up a small moving portrait. I was eighteen in the image, dressed in ivory with my first steady flame burning gold above my palm. Cassian stood behind me, looking at me as if there were no one else in the world. The woman holding the portrait now was all sharp bones and hollow eyes. Cecilia’s cloak room was several times larger than this. The tower suite once reserved for the Dragon Queen had become her private armory two years ago, stocked with the finest weapons and armor in the Court. I had been left in a windowless linen room. The scrying mirror on the desk glowed white. A woman in funeral gray appeared within the glass. “Starrest Memorial Gardens. Lady Ashton, are you still interested in the amber soul-casket you viewed? If you pay the deposit today, we can hold the woodland crypt until the next new moon.” I had asked about it a month ago. The casket was crafted from ancient starwood and amber, then placed in a forest chamber surrounded by floating lights. People said a dragonkin laid to rest there would be spared from having her broken soul swallowed by the dark. It cost six hundred gold crowns. I counted the eleven silver pieces in my purse. “No, thank you. Please offer it to someone else.” A woman who couldn’t afford the elixirs keeping her alive had no business shopping for a beautiful death. The mirror had barely gone dark when the door opened. Cassian stood on the threshold, irritation carved into every line of his face. This room used to smell faintly of white roses and struck flint—the scent of my dragon soul. Cassian once told me it could calm him even after the worst battle. Now there was only damp wood and dust. His gaze moved around the room as though searching for something before he crushed the impulse. “What was that about a soul-casket? What morbid stunt are you planning now?” I no longer wanted to explain, but old habits spoke for me. “I was only—” “Only what?” He cut me off. “Was today’s spectacle not enough? Cecilia just earned her position. Don’t even think about taking what belongs to her.” “Some things were never yours.” A tear slipped down my cheek. Did he mean the medal? The title of Dragon Queen? My family’s love? When had every promise once made to me quietly become Cecilia’s birthright? I lifted my head. “Cassian, I have one question.” “Do you remember my eighteenth awakening ceremony?” Chapter 2 Cassian’s face stiffened. His eyes flicked to the moving portrait on the desk, then away. “What are you getting at?” “You promised that once the north was secure, you’d crown me Dragon Queen.” My voice was low. “Later, you said my dragonfire was too weak and I wasn’t ready for the responsibility.” “That was the truth.” His patience was already wearing thin. “You spent my nineteenth birthday at the border. On my twentieth, you said the Council had buried you in work. When I turned twenty-one, you forgot altogether.” I held his gaze. “But you’ve personally chosen Cecilia’s gift every year.” “That’s enough.” Cassian spun toward me, and the force of the Dragon Lord’s presence filled the cramped room. “You turn every small slight into an old grievance. If you weren’t so sensitive, suspicious, and obsessed with comparing yourself to Cecilia, we wouldn’t be here.” His power pressed the air from my lungs. So in his mind, being unloved wasn’t something that had happened to me. It was something I had caused. “You’re right,” I said quietly. “I’ve disappointed everyone.” I turned my back on him. “There’s a sealed box in the second drawer on the left. Don’t open it for three days. After that, the spell will release on its own.” Inside were my Court renunciation, a copy of the dissolved bond scroll, and the last letter I would ever write him. Cassian didn’t ask what the box contained. He walked out and slammed the door. The midnight bells rolled through Obsidian Keep. I sat in the weak candlelight with the old portrait in my arms until dawn. Two days left. At first light, dragon-drawn carriages landed in the courtyard below, their wings beating hard against the tower windows. My parents and Cecilia were home. They hadn’t even reached the stairs when my father’s voice thundered down the corridor. “You have the nerve to come back here, Evelyn?” The door flew open. Garrett Ashton had once been the most respected dragon cavalry commander in the Obsidian Court. He stood in the doorway with his face set hard. “You destroyed Cecilia’s ceremony. She cried until she lost control of her fire, and she still begged us to forgive you. Don’t you feel any shame?” My mother supported Cecilia with one arm, her own eyes red. “Apologize. Admit you were wrong, and we can put today behind us.” I closed my eyes and drew a slow breath. The fact that they said we could put it behind us meant they still considered me family. This family simply required me to confess to things I hadn’t done before I was allowed to belong. Two days. I only had to endure two more days. My father hadn’t always been like this. When I was little and couldn’t summon dragonfire, he used to crouch beside the training yard and tell me, “Going slowly is fine, Evie. Awakening isn’t a race.” When I couldn’t master the simplest dagger stance, he would guide my wrist and correct me without a trace of impatience. Things changed after Cecilia joined House Ashton. At fourteen, she could ride a young dragon. At fifteen, she passed the Dragonwing entrance trials. By sixteen, she was patrolling the canyon alone. At eighteen, my flame was barely strong enough to light a lamp. Every attempt to form wings felt as if my bones were being torn apart, and I always ranked last in combat training. Worse, my health began failing during Cecilia’s second year in our home. I grew dizzy and sick without warning. I couldn’t train for fifteen minutes before my strength gave out. The healers decided I had been born with a damaged dragon core and prescribed stronger tonics. No matter how much I drank, I only got weaker. The concern in Garrett’s eyes slowly hardened into disappointment after years of Cecilia’s “innocent” comparisons. “You receive the same training. Why can she finish while you always collapse halfway through?” “You’re the Dragon Lord’s fated mate. If you can’t protect yourself, how will you help him defend the Keep?” Even then, my father sometimes sent hot broth to my room at night or quietly hired a better healer. But whenever Cecilia tearfully claimed I had refused my medicine just to frighten them, he decided once again that I was the one giving up on getting better. He didn’t hate me. He had simply trusted the wrong daughter. I opened my eyes and looked at Cecilia behind my parents. She wore the same innocent expression, pale gold hair resting over her shoulders like the meekest saint in a chapel mural. “Can we stop fighting, Evelyn?” she asked softly. “Can’t things be like they were when we were children?” She stepped forward with tears trembling in her eyes. “Tomorrow is the Starfire Festival. Do you remember the bellflower crowns you used to make me? Could you make one more as my captain’s gift?” Relief crossed my mother’s face. “You’ve always been good with flowers. Cecilia is trying to make peace, so meet her halfway.” The words star-bell flowers pulled me straight back into a seven-year-old nightmare. When Cecilia first arrived, I had truly wanted a sister. After hearing that she loved star-bells, I picked the fullest stems in our garden and spent an entire afternoon weaving them into a crown. Their cold sap stung the skin of anyone with weak dragonfire, but I endured the blisters and finished something beautiful for her. The moment Cecilia put it on, she collapsed. Red welts spread across her face and throat. The healer said it looked like a severe pollen allergy. When she woke, the first thing she did was throw herself into Cassian’s arms. “Evelyn meant well. She said wearing it for a little while wouldn’t hurt me. Please don’t punish her.” One sentence convinced everyone that I had knowingly forced an allergen onto her. I stood outside the healing room until my voice gave out. “I didn’t know. She never told me she couldn’t touch them.” No one listened. Cassian locked me in Obsidian Keep’s cold-iron cell for two nights. There was no fire, no clean water, and cold iron lined the walls, smothering what little dragonfire I had. I lay feverish in a corner while a thanksgiving feast celebrated Cecilia’s recovery above me. Through the fever, I sensed Cassian standing outside the door for a long time. He never came in. At dawn, he sent a bottle of medicine and a message: [You can leave when you learn to stop hurting people.] “Have you forgotten?” I asked Cecilia. “You said star-bell flowers made it hard for you to breathe.” The room went silent. At that exact moment, Cassian entered. He had clearly heard my last sentence, because he stopped just inside the door. Cecilia’s smile faltered before she recovered. “That was when I was a child. Dragonwing training strengthened me. I outgrew the allergy years ago.” She approached and clasped my hand. “See? I’m not afraid of them anymore.” Hidden beneath our sleeves, her nails dug brutally into my skin. I jerked away. Cecilia threw herself backward as if I had shoved her, hitting her shoulder against the brass corner of a rug weight. As she fell, her free hand brushed the small leather pouch at her belt. Red welts bloomed over her cheeks a second later. “Cecilia!” My mother dropped beside her. The rash crawled down her neck, exactly as it had seven years ago. My father turned to me, fury warring with pain in his eyes. “Evelyn, what did you do to her?” “I didn’t touch her.” Even to me, the denial sounded weak. Cecilia scratched at her skin in my mother’s arms. “Don’t blame her. Maybe she just lost control of her fire. I’m the one who came too close.” The more she defended me, the harsher my parents’ faces became. Cassian crossed the room, red eyes blazing. “You. Again.” Chapter 3 Cassian bent and lifted Cecilia as though she were made of spun glass. “Who touched her before she fell?” he demanded. “Anyone besides you?” I caught a glimpse of the leather pouch beneath Cecilia’s sleeve and finally understood. She had planned every beat of this scene before she ever entered my room. “She brought something with her.” I pointed toward her waist. “Search the pouch.” Cecilia curled protectively around it as tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s only pain medicine. Why do you have to turn even that into something ugly?” “Evelyn!” Cassian set her down and closed his hand around my throat. “You hurt her, and now you’re trying to pin it on her?” His fingers tightened. The air vanished. Darkness crowded the edges of my sight. I didn’t fight him. I only stared at the face inches from mine and thought, [Maybe this is easier.] If he killed me now, I wouldn’t have to survive the next two days. Then agony exploded through the fated bond. It wasn’t my pain. It was his. When one fated partner deliberately harmed the other, the bond returned the wound. Cassian’s face drained white. The dragon mark over his heart flared crimson and forced his hand open. I struck the wall. My temple split against stone, and warm blood ran down the side of my face. “Cassian, what’s wrong?” Cecilia grabbed his arm. He clutched his chest until the backlash eased, then looked at me again. The pain hadn’t cleared his head. It only fed his anger. “If I’d known your dragon soul was this vicious, I would’ve cursed fate before letting it bind us.” His voice shook the room. “Get out of Obsidian Keep. I never want to see you again.” I slid down the wall, and the last unbroken piece of my heart finally gave way. My mother saw the blood covering my face. Panic flashed in her eyes, and her hand lifted toward me. Then Cecilia whimpered. My mother’s hand stopped in midair and turned toward her instead. “It’s all right. I’m taking you to the healing tower.” I didn’t blame her. She always believed Cecilia was hurt more badly. She always believed that no matter how frail I looked, I would somehow make it through. This time, I wouldn’t. I wiped the blood away with my sleeve and pulled an old traveling case from the corner. I had packed it before going to the Oath Hall. My parents stared. My father frowned. “Who are you trying to threaten with another runaway act?” “We correct you because we want you to do better,” my mother said, exhaustion weighing down her voice. “We haven’t abandoned you, Evelyn. But every time there’s a problem, you run instead of facing it.” She sounded so sincere. As if all I had to do was stay, apologize, and keep swallowing every lie, and this house would still be mine. Cassian stood beside the bed, his expression cold. “Where are you going?” “Out of the Obsidian Court.” His power dropped over me like a mountain. “Cross the boundary stones, and you are no longer under this Court’s protection. A woman with a fractured dragon core won’t last a month outside.” I didn’t have a month. “Then that works out nicely.” I took the handle of my case. My voice sounded strange even to me—quiet, distant, done. “None of you ever truly needed me anyway.” At the doorway, I paused. “I swear on the bond that I will never set foot in Obsidian Keep again.” “If I break that oath, may I lose the only person I have ever loved.” I walked away without looking back. Snow was falling outside the Keep. Wind slipped beneath my collar, but for the first time in years, I could breathe. From the high window, Cassian watched me cross the courtyard. He knew I couldn’t survive the cold for long. His order to banish me had been spoken in fury. He had never truly imagined I would leave. He took one step toward the door. Cecilia rested against the pillows and spoke in a gentle voice. “She’ll be back. Once she learns no one outside these walls will take care of her, she’ll understand that you’ve been protecting her all along.” “Then she’ll apologize to everyone on her own.” Cassian said nothing. He kept staring at the archway where I had disappeared, an unease he couldn’t name tightening in his chest. Only when his nails cut his palms did he realize how hard he had clenched his fists. I found a cheap inn called the Broken Stag near the edge of the Obsidian territory. The room was low-ceilinged and damp. Wind hissed through cracks in the wall, and the old bed shrieked whenever I moved. But the innkeeper didn’t require a family seal or ask why a sick dragonkin woman needed a room alone. Sometime after midnight, pain ripped me out of sleep. Dragonfire collapse wasn’t a quiet fading. It felt like frozen hooks burrowing into my marrow and tearing apart the channels that anchored my soul to my body. Curled beneath a thin blanket, I began remembering details I had buried for years. When I was twelve, Cecilia often volunteered to lay out my training clothes. Every time I wore something she had handled, my skin blistered as if the fabric had caught fire. I couldn’t even hold a sword. Everyone decided I was too delicate to tolerate rough cloth. Now I knew she had dusted my shirts with cold-iron powder. Cold iron suppressed dragon blood, and my already weak flame had never stood a chance. At fourteen, someone shoved me from behind during canyon training. I tumbled down a rock shelf, broke my leg, and spent the night in an abandoned mine. When the search party found me, Cecilia was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, blaming herself for failing to protect her sister. She became the brave girl who had led the search. I became the burden who put everyone at risk. The most dangerous part had been the tonics she brought to my bed. Whenever I was hurt, she sat beside me and fed me the bitter medicine one spoonful at a time. She claimed she wanted to make up for our old misunderstandings. I had wanted so badly to believe she still saw me as family. Yet my dragonfire weakened after every dose. The healers called it a birth defect. No one considered that the tonic might contain ash-thorn extract, a poison that slowly ate through the soul. I hadn’t been sick since I was twelve. I had been murdered by inches. At the same time, in the council tower of Obsidian Keep, Cassian sat behind his desk and failed to read a single line of the border reports before him. Pain kept traveling through the bond. At first, it was no more than a pinprick. Then it grew heavier, as if an invisible hand were slowly crushing his heart. He swept the scrolls from his desk. “Damn it.” He wanted to find me and see where I had gone. But every time he remembered the scene in the Oath Hall and the rash on Cecilia’s face, pride stopped him from being the first to bend. In the end, he sent an order through the message crystal. [Come back immediately and apologize to Cecilia. Leaving the Keep won’t erase what you did.] I didn’t answer. Not because I was holding out, but because my hands shook too badly to lift the crystal. Once, I would have hoped the pain in our bond might finally make him realize I was dying. Now I no longer wanted scraps of concern that arrived only after I had begged for them. The High Healer’s deadline ended tomorrow. The following afternoon, someone knocked softly on my door. A red-haired boy stood outside wearing the apprentice pin of the Copper Kettle tavern. He held a covered clay pot in both hands. “The mistress saw you pass last night and thought you looked ill. She sent stew and hot bread.” The smell of herbs and roasted roots drifted through the lid. My eyes burned. On the final day of my life, the person offering me a warm meal was a stranger who didn’t even know my name. I reached for the pot, but familiar footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor. Cecilia approached in a dark blue cloak with a flawless smile. “There you are, Evelyn. I’ve been looking everywhere.” She shoved the boy aside. The pot smashed against the floor, spilling broth over my skirt and legs. I stumbled back with a gasp. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Cecilia didn’t sound sorry at all. “But you really shouldn’t eat food from strangers. Who knows what a border tavern puts in its stew?” The boy’s face flushed with anger. “Our mistress made that herself.” Cecilia released the pressure of a highborn dragonkin. The boy went white and caught the wall to keep from falling to his knees. “Go,” she ordered. When he was gone, she shut the door and dropped the sweet smile. “One more thing. The clerk who processed your renunciation has been dismissed. Cassian ordered it himself after learning that the man helped you dissolve the bond.” “Now the entire Court knows you tried to punish the Dragon Lord and dragged an Oath officer down with you.” My chest tightened. The clerk had only followed the law. Because of me, he had lost his post. “Why?” I whispered. Cecilia’s smile twisted into something ugly. “Because I hate you.” She moved closer. “Why couldn’t you crawl somewhere far away and die? You’ve got one foot in the grave, yet you’re still hovering near the Court, making Cassian think about you.” “Can’t you see it? He has never trusted you. To him, you’re nothing but an obligation fate dumped in his lap.” I braced myself against the table and looked at her calmly. “Cecilia, I have never deliberately hurt you.” “I treated you like my sister, and I took the blame every time you set me up.” “Why did you need to destroy me?” Chapter 4 “Why?” Cecilia repeated as if I had asked the stupidest question in the world. “Do you know what it was like to be dragged out of an orphanage and brought into a house where you already had everything? A name. Parents. A fated Dragon Lord.” “You were too weak to form wings, but fate handed you the Dragon Queen’s place anyway. Why did Cassian’s bond have to choose you?” She caught my chin, years of buried envy blazing in her eyes. “I’m stronger than you. More obedient. Better suited to stand beside him. House Ashton and the Obsidian Court should have been mine.” She leaned close enough that her breath brushed my ear. “You’ve always wondered why your dragonfire kept fading, haven’t you?” “Since you were twelve, I’ve been adding ash-thorn extract to your tonics. Only a few drops at a time—too little for a healer to notice, but enough to rot your dragon core slowly.” “The cold-iron powder in your training clothes, the push in the canyon, the switched medicines—that was all me.” “And last winter’s cold-iron crossbow trap? Mine too. Shame that merchant caravan found you.” For the first time in years, anger burned hotter than the weakness in my limbs. I raised my hand to strike her. She caught my wrist without effort. Cecilia laughed and shoved me to the floor. “What’s this? You finally grew a spine?” “You can’t even stand.” Her boot drove into my ribs. I curled around the pain, tasting blood with every breath. “Watching you lose a little more strength every year was the best part. Watching your parents grow disappointed in you. Watching Cassian push you away with his own hands.” “When you die, I’ll be the only woman left to become Dragon Queen.” She kicked me until I stopped making any sound, then straightened her cloak with a satisfied smile. “Try to die quietly, Evelyn.” The door shut. Her footsteps faded down the hall. She had never noticed the dull gray stone on the bedside table glowing faintly red. It was an echo stone. The innkeeper had given it to me the night before, explaining that if anyone caused trouble, breaking the wax seal would preserve every sound in the room. Every word Cecilia had confessed was trapped inside it. I pulled myself up by the bedframe. Blood dripped from my palms and knees, and every breath felt as if a broken rib were piercing my lung. Still, when I saw the red memory-runes turning inside the stone, I smiled. Not because I could finally punish her. Because my parents would finally know I had never lied. Cassian would finally see what kind of woman he had protected again and again. I pressed the echo stone to the message array and sent the memory to Cassian, my parents, and all seven elders of the Court. Red light flashed. Delivered. Then I pulled the bond-sigil chip from my message crystal and dropped it into the candle flame. The tiny shard cracked apart, cutting off bond-speech and every message channel at once. Less than twenty hours remained. The truth was out. I had no wish to explain anything else, and I didn’t want to sit around waiting for apologies. After nightfall, I left the inn and followed the border road to the Copper Kettle. Only a few amber lamps burned inside. The tavern mistress, Maeve, was wiping down a table when she saw me. The cloth fell from her hand. “Gods above, child. What happened to you?” “May I stay here for a while?” I held the doorframe, my voice barely audible. Maeve didn’t ask who I was or demand an explanation. “Of course. Sit down before you fall. I’ll get hot water.” She cleaned the blood from my face with a warm cloth, then brought roasted pumpkin soup and fresh rye bread. It wasn’t expensive food, but it put a little warmth back into my frozen body. “Where is your family?” Maeve tucked a blanket around me. “I don’t have one anymore.” She was quiet for a long moment. Grief softened her lined face. “I had a daughter about your age. The fever took her ten years ago.” “If she had lived, I think she might have been like you—hurt and still apologizing for being a bother.” She reached out and smoothed my tangled hair. There was no hesitation and no price attached to the gesture. It was simply what a mother’s hand did when her child was hurting. “Would you let me take care of you tonight?” Her smile trembled. “Let an old woman pretend she has her girl back for a few hours.” The tears I had held in for years finally broke free. My parents had loved me once. Their love had simply been buried beneath doubt, disappointment, and Cecilia’s endless tears. This woman knew nothing about me, yet she offered the gentleness I had spent half my life begging to earn. Maeve helped me into the small loft above the tavern. The room was plain, but the fire was warm. A portrait of her daughter hung on the wall, showing a laughing girl with bright gray-blue eyes. Maeve changed me into a clean nightgown and combed my hair with slow, careful strokes. “Beautiful,” she whispered. “Like silver birch leaves in morning mist.” I rested against her shoulder. For the first time in years, I didn’t have to brace for the next accusation. “Thank you, Aunt Maeve.” “Don’t thank me.” She kissed my forehead. “You gave me the chance to be a mother again.” The dragonfire in my chest cooled by degrees. Strangely, the pain went with it. My body became lighter, as if every chain I had carried was finally falling away. Maeve held me tighter, her voice unsteady with tears. “Sleep, sweetheart. You’re safe here.” I wanted to tell her how long it had been since anyone had said those words to me. But the last spark of my dragonfire went out. As my soul slipped free, the final words I heard were Maeve’s whisper against my hair. “Good night, my daughter.”