A hot calm passed through me, like standing under the noonday sun while waves crashed around my feet. I held on to it for a heartbeat, letting it burn through the dark buzz of anxiety, and then I released the fire into the closest dragon.

Just a trickle.

A breath.

A gossamer thread of relief.

These dragons were so big, and their pain so deep, I didn’t want to risk not having enough for everyone.

I moved around the mound of dragons, letting my hands slide across their cool, still bodies. Scales rasped against my skin, and someone—an ignitus—drew a shuddering breath. It was the most they’d moved since I’d come.

When I shifted sideways into the connection already spun with these seven dragons, I saw darkness—pure, uncompromising darkness. But when the noorestone fire brushed past them, stars appeared. Suggestions of stars that might have been imagination, but even if they weren’t real, it was more than there’d been before. It was hope.

“It’s working,” someone muttered behind me. “Seven gods, they’re moving.”

The dragons groaned under my fingers; I could feel their voices more than hear them. Still, it was beyond anything I had dared hope for.

“May I go see them now?” The empress kept her voice soft.

“That’s not a good idea,” Ilina said. “If they do wake, they’ll be . . . unhappy probably isn’t strong enough.”

Now the empress’s voice was small, but I could still hear it, amplified by the power racing through my veins. “Will they hate me?”

Ilina was silent a moment, weighing the wisdom of confirming that to an empress. These dragons would never love her: she was their captor. But at last, Ilina said, “These keepers Paorah sent have done everything in their power to care for these dragons, given the facilities here. But they need more. I hope you’ll allow us to offer some advice on building a proper sanctuary—away from the city, away from public traffic. The mountains, perhaps.”

“Of course. Whatever they need, it will be done.”

Noorestone fire spun through me, out my hands, and worked through the dragons—filling them up like water. LaLa and Crystal clicked and chirped, bouncing on my shoulders as the bigger dragons gasped and rolled off the titanus, leaving me space to reach in and press fire back into him, too.

Their relief was yawning, desperate, depthless. The fire from these two noorestones was but a mere spark of what the dragons needed, but it burned through them, awakening—

The last of the fire slipped through my fingers, like strands of silk falling away.

I shuddered and stepped back, touching LaLa and Crystal to reorient myself.

“Mira, are you all right?” Hristo was at my side, one hand on my back.

“Fine.” Mostly. Not really. I pulled the noorestones from my pouch. They were dark. Slowly, I unclipped the raptuses’ leashes from my belt and handed them to Hristo. Both dragons sprang toward him with eager squawks, and I returned to where the empress, Ilina, and her father stood. Two guards and the guide waited in the background.