I lifted my chin and set my eyes, following the graceful lines of the first dragon. The arc of her wings. The length of her spine. The shape of her skull. If only I could get her back to the Fallen Isles—to her home—we stood a chance of saving what remained.

When I reached Apolla, who stood before her throne, I halted.

She motioned me to stand beside her, as though we were together in this announcement she planned to make, and for a moment I felt sick—a sharp twist of disgust in my stomach. Here I was in imperial dress, standing beside the Algotti empress, with nothing to show for my position. I wished LaLa hadn’t flown off. I wished I had my dragon on my shoulder.

I did have the first dragon behind me, but only a few knew what she meant.

“Before you,” said the empress, “stands Mira Minkoba. Hopebearer. Dragonhearted. She is not dead, as some of you believed.”

Muttering filled the gallery where the islanders stood.

Apolla turned to me and said softly, “Mira, I’d like to give you an opportunity to speak to your people—to tell them your truth.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Why?”

Her expression didn’t change—not here, in front of all these people—but I sensed a thoughtfulness in her, a hint of the gentleness she sometimes displayed. “We are not friends, as you’ve said, but I cannot help but see myself in you sometimes. Were we in each other’s positions, I’d appreciate the opportunity to speak truth to those who have so long been denied it.”

For a moment, I’d thought she meant she wanted me to tell my side of the dragon story first, so that she could contradict me, ridicule me in front of everyone. But that wasn’t it: she meant my larger truth, the one I’d been living with for months.

In her way, she was doing me a kindness. Before she made whatever announcement she’d brought everyone here to make—one we both knew I wouldn’t like—she wanted to offer this last acknowledgment of the alliance we could have had.

I wished she’d believed me about the dragons.

With a long, steadying breath, I faced the people of the Fallen Isles. Twenty-three of them—Ilina’s father, Dara Soun, Eka Delro, and other leaders included—stared at me, waiting.

Maybe this was as strange for them as it was for me. Whatever words came out of my mouth next, they would be my words, not theirs. A Hopebearer without a script must have been terrifying for them.

I’d have smiled if I wasn’t so terrified myself.

While I looked over the islanders, noting who stood next to whom, and which people had cuffs around their wrists, I put my thoughts together before committing them to sound. Time was precious now, and I needed to make every word matter.

These were the people who’d forged me, who’d hurt and used me, and who’d denied me the freedom to make my own choices.

It was time to offer them a choice.