At the far end of the chamber, a young woman clad in gold and white sat on a heavy throne, but it was what rested next to her that captured my whole attention.

A dragon skull.

It was enormous, as big as a house, with dozens of still-sharp teeth and empty eye sockets that seemed to stare straight into my soul.

The neck and spine extended beyond it, behind the throne, curving upward toward the gargantuan wings; the bones of the left wing stretched into an arc over the empress’s throne, framing her. Strangely, as light glimmered over the curves, I thought I saw scales. Faint, iridescent, and maybe my imagination. But the effect was beautiful.

The skeleton took up an entire chamber beyond the throne, lit with those eerie, flickering sigils. Against these massive bones, the light was all wrong. It should have been steady, cool blue-white, and sharp. It should have come from noorestones, the light of the Fallen Isles.

Nevertheless, we were here. Together.

The rushing in my ears became a roar, washing through my entire body. Muscles in my back ached, trying to stretch wings I wasn’t wearing. My throat tingled with the echoes of sparks. Fire. Smoke.

Standing there, dwarfed in the shadow of these colossal bones, I could feel those first dreams—of great wings and burning stars, of fire and screams, of power untold—and I knew I’d reached the one I’d traveled across an ocean to find.

The first dragon.

Fire and death and sky incarnate.

My twin across time.

“At last.” The words tasted like smoke.

THE DRAKONTOS CELESTUS

FOR TWO THOUSAND YEARS, I WAITED.

From the moment the arrow pierced me. From the moment my body crashed to this strange land. From the moment I closed my eyes and the earth began its long burial. From the moment people dug up my bones.

I waited for the one who would bring me home. I waited for the one who would make me whole.

While I waited, I watched everything, letting my mind slip in and out of the clouds, using starlight as my vessel. I watched my birthplace change and grow and begin to eat itself. And now I watched her.

She was a small creature, human and breakable, but a fire burned at her center. She carried the soul of a dragon. She was everything I needed.

AT LAST.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

FROM THE CORNER OF MY EYE, I SAW ALUSHA GIVE me a sidelong look. “What’s wrong with you?”

My mind wheeled, still trying to make sense of what I was seeing:

The bones of the first dragon—the Fallen Gods’ first and most beloved child—trapped here, displayed for Empress Apolla’s pleasure. To make her look powerful.

“Hopebearer?” A note of concern entered Alusha’s tone. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like now, just standing here and staring not at the empress, but the skeleton of an ancient and powerful and dead dragon.