“Two of my favorite people,” Aaru whispered.

My heart swelled, and I smiled, but I couldn’t sleep. I was too aware of the way he felt behind me, the cadence of his breathing, and the gentle way he rested his hand on my hip. He wasn’t sleeping, either, and I wished I knew what he was thinking. Not about anything like that day in the rain; that would have been evident.

But neither of us spoke, both of us hoping the other would be able to fall asleep before dawn. And now that we weren’t talking anymore, my mind shifted back to my short future as a human, and my long future as a dragon.

LaLa nuzzled my cheek, in comfort, but also as a reminder. When I became a dragon, we’d be together forever, and that would be good, wouldn’t it?

It would be.

Months ago, before all of this started, I’d been right: I was born for being with dragons.

Several minutes or an hour later, a horn blasted somewhere on the upper decks of the ship, and footfalls crashed through the corridors outside our room.

“Is it morning already?” My voice felt raw with exhaustion. “I wish we had a window.” Like everyone who lived deep inside the ship, we had to go by the complex system of horns and bells to tell the time. This one didn’t sound like the morning combination, but I had only a few days of pattern to draw from.

“No.” Aaru sat up and scooped a sleeping LaLa off me so I could move. With one hand, he curled her against his chest, and then tapped the nearest light sigil with the other. The flickering orange glow touched his face and the soft way he gazed down at LaLa.

I sat up and turned toward him, knees bumping knees on the narrow bed. “What was it?”

“I can hear—” He shook his head. “I’m not sure. This ship is so loud. It’s muddled.”

Another blast sounded, and he winced.

“We’ve arrived.” He looked up at me. “We’re in the Algotti Empire now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

STRANGE AS IT WAS, I HADN’T CONSIDERED WHAT MY first glimpse of the Algotti Empire would look like. Part of me had thought we’d simply appear in the empress’s throne room—or wherever she received people—and then . . . and then I didn’t know. The empress, for all that Nine loved to talk about how grand and impressive she was, remained a shadowy mystery. Altan had believed her people worshiped her, as they might a god, and the imperial subjects we’d met so far had done nothing to challenge that.

When Nine fetched us and said it was time to get our first look at the empire, I thought we’d probably see a port, same as arriving at any other city, with bustling docks and yelling and seagulls stealing food. But either the empire had very different ports than we did, or Nine had made special arrangements.