It had been me all along.
I was the dragon of the House of Malum.
Part Four
Convalescence
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
—Poe
Chapter 60
Aran
THE AFTERMATH
Convalescence (noun): time spent recovering from an illness.
“Meet the Heroes of the Realms” flashed across the top of the enchanted news tablet that John was reading. Headshots of twenty soldiers were displayed in bright neon underneath. My picture was the largest.
I didn’t feel like a hero.
I felt tired.
Drained.
Numb.
The warmth of a mate bond strummed in my chest, but it didn’t take away the bone-deep exhaustion. When I closed my eyes, I could see the infected shivering as they froze to death.
The heaviness in my chest reminded me that I could tear the world apart if I needed to. However, the connection was not at all how Sadie explained her mate bonds.
I couldn’t identify any of our individual emotions inside my chest.
Malum had meant it when he said his mates were his soul in a way that other species couldn’t understand.
We were one.
As individuals, we were breakable. Together, we were a terrifying source of endless power.
We were weapons of mass destruction.
It was hard to comprehend.
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t felt the power as I murdered hundreds.
But I had.
I’d killed. Again and again and again and again and again and again, until I’d lost count of how many infected and ungodly I’d sliced to pieces with serrated ice.
I should have been catatonic over what I’d done, but I was a little proud.
The last bit was the part that scared me the most.
It didn’t help that my soul had been mutilated. The memory of Mother still haunted me. Jinx was under the thumb of leaders who had us all on strings like sick marionette dolls.
Everything I’d gone through these last few months was real.
Having mates didn’t make that go away.
Time was warped. We’d fought the ungodly just yesterday, but it felt like the battle had happened weeks, maybe even months, ago.
It didn’t help that the High Court had already launched victory parades across the realms and published dozens of news articles. They’d even canceled the funeral for the fallen soldiers. Dick had announced, “It’s a time for celebration.”
It was all too much.
The world had color and I wasn’t empty anymore, but I still spiraled.
It didn’t help that we didn’t have answers. No one knew why the ungodly had chosen this realm in particular.
Why were they hiding in that basement? Why did they have a village in the mountains? How did they infect people?
So many questions.
But there was no one to ask.
We’d wiped them out.
Maybe that was the worst part about war: you thought it would give you answers, but it only created questions.
Wars started messy and depraved.
They ended the same way.
My thoughts spiraled.
I was in a free fall.
I was drained and reeling. Muscles weak and joints stiff, I struggled to move.
The doctors had diagnosed me with “severe energy backlash.”
I’d diagnosed myself with insanity.
Unfortunately, no one bothered to ask for my professional opinion.
According to the doctors, I’d depleted my powers down to a dangerous level, and I wouldn’t be able to conjure ice for at least a week as my body recharged. At the most, they said it could take months, maybe even years.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I thought about every time I’d bemoaned the blizzard conditions.
I was the storm.
It was hard to comprehend.
I stared down at my bare fingers. They felt naked without ice.
Mother’s flames had been impressive because she could torture multiple people at once. What did that mean about me?
The sheer scale of ice I’d controlled was mind-numbing.
I shivered as I remembered that the Angel Consciousness had never removed the block from Mother’s genes. She’d never earned her wings. Would she have been able to level armies if they had?
There were too many factors to know for sure. After all, as far as I knew, mother never had mates.
Was I fated to the devils because I was born powerful, or was I so powerful because I was mated to the devils?
I’d never know.
“Are you ready to go?” John asked as he turned off the news tablet and hoisted our bags of packed clothes over his shoulders.
I blinked.
Rubbing at my eyes, I forced my aching joints to stand up straight. I nodded like I was a functioning adult.
Even though his arms were full, he still pulled me against his side. I leaned into his sandalwood scent and inhaled greedily.
Luka came out of the bathroom and smiled down at me tenderly. He looked healthy and hale; his face had regained all its color, and he held himself straight like he was no longer buckling under invisible pain.
I might be half-dead on my feet, but it was a relief that the twins were doing better.
Two more people weren’t suffering because of me.
“Ready to get out of here, Your Highness?” Luka asked, his lips turning down as he took in my disheveled appearance. “We need to get you home so you can sleep.”
I squinted because I wasn’t sure where home was.
“Thank fuck for that,” Vegar snarled as he walked across the room, packing his bag. “One more day in this blasted realm and I would have offed myself. Also—” He pointed to the still-destroyed bathroom. “If we get charged for that, I’m blaming all of you.”
I shrugged. “Blame it on Malum.”
“Oh, I will,” he said with a huff.
Zenith came up and gave the frowning Vegar a kiss on the cheek, then the demon turned to us and said, “It was a pleasure working with you.” He spoke with grave sincerity.
I saluted him weakly. “I hope we never have to go to war together, ever again.”
“Same, soldier.” Zenith smiled and saluted back.
Vegar shook his head in disgust. “The sun god better ensure we never have to do this shit again. Eighty soldiers dead. It’s sun-god-damned ridiculous we all survived.”
Eighty soldiers dead.
Ten sets of eight. Five sets of sixteen. Four sets of twenty.
The number was staggering.
I felt sick.
The door slammed open, and sun rays streamed into the barracks. The layer of snow was gone, and steam rose from the dirt as three towering men entered.
I squinted because the bright light burned.
I missed the storm.
Malum stomped inside and announced, “We’ve finished filling out the debriefing paperwork, so we’re all free to leave.” His smile fell, silver eyes narrowing with concern as he stared at me. “Should you be standing? You’re supposed to be recovering.”
Smoke curled off his tongue, and flames leaped along his fingers.
I sighed.
I can’t believe I’d voluntarily mated with a man who breathed fire.
What type of person did that?
I’d accepted the dragon all right, and what had that gotten me? Unimaginable power. Actually, Lyla had been onto something.