“Dragons aren’t meant to be comforting. Something you’d know if you paid more attention to your dragon instincts.” She gave me a moment to think about the time I’d nearly blown up the Lexara Theater, or the way I’d almost lost control in the Red Hall. “Anyway, you can’t stop the Great Abandonment. It’s happening. Look up.”

Though we were somewhere deep inside the between place, when I tilted back my head, I saw the first moon had already covered most of the sun. Only a narrow crescent remained.

The first eclipse was nearly total.

Darina would rise within minutes.

“But if I’m not supposed to stop the Great Abandonment, what am I supposed to do?” Fear clutched at me.

“What are you willing to do?” asked the first dragon.

“Anything.” Hadn’t I already declared that, back in the empire?

“Will you let go?”

“Of what?”

“Anything.”

The way she said it sent shivers through me, but I looked at the sky again—sunlight was barely squeezing out now—and I nodded. “I’ve known for almost two decans that I’d have to let go of my human self,” I whispered. “‘It is sacrifice that enables change.’ I accept that. And I’m ready.”

“You’re still thinking like a human.”

“But what else is there? If I become fully dragon, I give up my family and friends. I give up a future with the boy I love. I give up everything I ever wanted, and I do it for them. To save them. To make sure they have family and friends and a future.”

The first dragon merely tilted her head.

And then I knew.

It wasn’t my humanity they needed, but the part that had never been mine to begin with. The chosen part. The dragon part.

“Do you know what that—”

“Yes,” she said. “I know what it means.”

No more power over noorestones. I could deal with that. I’d lived most of my life not being able to affect noorestones, although the way they burned away my anxiety . . . I would miss that. No, it was the other part that ripped open my soul.

My connection with dragons. With Kelsine and Hush and Lex and all the others I’d met and loved. And—mostly—with LaLa. My sweet dragon flower, who’d saved me over and over again. Who gave me joy and laughter and love.

She was my heart. How could I give up my heart?

“You need to decide,” said the first dragon. “The first eclipse is nearly complete.”

“What if I say no?” My voice was rough. “What if that’s too much?”

“The gods rise either way,” said the first dragon. “You can say no, and what’s left of the people of the Fallen Isles will drift across the ocean until they die. Or you can say yes, and you’ll be given another chance. Not with the Fallen Gods. No. If you live, you’ll see them in the sky. But your people will find a new home.”

“Will she still know me?” The question came out tiny. Pathetic.