Maybe not everyone saw it the way Frieda did quite yet, but most of them did. And her supporters were growing in number every day. In time all of Artimé and Quill would thank her, once all traces of the Stowes were erased from their island for good. There would be no one left for the evil dragon-monster, the Revinir, to come after. And Artimé would be at peace once more—this time for good.

Devastation and Loss

Astrid, the ghost dragon, and Dev, who now decidedly identified with the Suresh family of rulers, carried an air about them as they began their journey to the land where the palace stood. It was an air of distinction, perhaps. Or one approaching deservedness. They were going on an adventure to reclaim this closed-off, forgotten corner of the land of the dragons and the black-eyed rulers. They were going to see the shining palace of Dev’s people.

As they flew, Dev let his imagination go wild. He pictured scenes in which his newfound family would run out of the purple-and-orange palace to greet him and welcome him into this beautiful place, saying lovely things like, “Our long-lost boy is home at last!”

The thoughts made his insides hurt a little. It also made him feel foolish that he’d spent any time imagining such a scene, which he knew in reality wouldn’t happen. No one in the world cared a whit about Dev—the Revinir herself had said so. And not a soul in that palace would know him. If there even was anyone there. Dev would be a stranger barging onto the scene. The thought almost made him uncomfortable enough to tell Astrid to turn around and go back to the cavelands.

If not for the images, he might have. But somehow they seemed like proof of ownership. Why else would those scenes pound in his mind every time the Revinir roared, if the memories of such places didn’t belong to him? What was his connection to them? He had to find out.

He wondered if Thisbe and the others had seen these same pictures. Thisbe had said something reassuring about them after his mind had first cleared. But so much had happened in those moments immediately afterward that Dev had been totally overwhelmed. Discovering Thisbe’s return, being summoned to the castle, and Thisbe wanting him to act like he was still under the Revinir’s mind control—it had been a lot. Enough that he couldn’t remember any details of that part of the conversation if she’d given them.

Not long after that flurry of events, the Revinir had roared, and he’d been blinded with the images. Since then, the more ancestor broth he’d ingested, the less intense the images had been. And now, whenever the calls came, the pictures didn’t totally overtake his senses.

Dev remembered his time in the tower. He recalled the look on the Revinir’s face when she’d realized that the ancestor broth really did have an effect on him and the others. How he wished he hadn’t inadvertently revealed it before she’d flung him out the window.