“Talk?” the Elder Wyrm repeated, and raised a brow. “You think you are here to be interrogated,” she mused, and gave a soft chuckle. “No, Ember Hill. You have no information that I want. I don’t care about Cobalt’s network of traitors and runaways. The secrets of St. George mean nothing to me. I am not even concerned about the Eastern dragon that followed you over from China. Soon, none of that will matter.”

“Why am I here, then?”

“You have no idea what you really are,” the Elder Wyrm went on. “Or why you are special. To the dragons of Talon, you are my daughter, the heir to the empire along with Dante. They don’t know your true purpose—none of them have figured it out, not even your very clever brother. You see, Ember...” She smiled again, no less frightening than before. “Dante is the backup plan. You were always the chosen one.”

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, heart pounding as she drew closer, looming over me. “Dante and I were raised together, and he’s always been loyal to Talon.” A thought came to me then, making my breath catch. “So, that story you told us in your office...was any of it true? Is Dante related to me at all? Are we even siblings?” The sudden realization that Dante might not be my brother, after all, hit me like a punch in the stomach. Even with all our differences, the times he’d betrayed me, stabbed me in the back and sided with Talon, he was still my twin. To think that he might be just some stranger, some random dragon that had been raised alongside me...it seemed wrong. Like my brother had died, after all.

“You don’t understand.” The Elder Wyrm shook her head. “Dante is of my blood,” she continued, making me slump in relief. “As are you. Though not in the way you would expect. As far as Talon is concerned, you and Dante are my offspring. The blood of the Elder Wyrm—that is all that matters. How you were created is something only a few know.”

I stared at her, the world spinning around me as I finally got it. “We...we’re clones,” I whispered. “Dante and I...we’re like the vessels, or whatever you call them.”