After Asha’s voice went silent, the old story remained within her, brimming with power. The version on the scroll ended with Elorma walking Willa through the gate. But Asha didn’t like that ending. It was Willa’s story. Willa withstood cold and fire and wind and time. She should be the one to walk Elorma through. So Asha changed the last line.
When the story released its hold on her, she came back to the woods to find the slave leaning toward her. Asha was once again struck by the gentleness in his gaze. It didn’t possess her like Jarek’s gaze did. Nor did it fear her, like everyone else’s. This slave’s gaze was tender and featherlight.
A soft whuff broke through the silence. Their eyes snapped upward to the dragon standing over them, its breath hot and rank on their faces, its tail swishing dangerously.
The slitted eyes narrowed. A growl rumbled low.
Asha—still armorless and unarmed—panicked. She scrambled up and away.
“No.” Pain flared through her ribs as the slave grabbed her hard around the stomach, swinging her back to face the dragon. “Don’t run.”
Fire, red and raging. Burning up her skin and sealing off her screams . . .
He withstood her fists and elbows. He held her fast. And all the while the dragon crept closer.
“Hush. Stop fighting.”
When it was clear the slave wasn’t letting go, Asha gave up. Terrified, she turned into him, waiting for the dragon to strike.
The night stilled around them. Her heart hammered in her ears.
“Iskari.” His arms loosened around her waist. “Look.”
The dragon sat. Its head cocked, watching them.
The slave clicked at the creature, making Asha wonder if Greta had explained more to him than she realized.
With one arm secure around her waist, he held his other out, clicking softly, trying to coax the dragon to them. Asha held her breath.
It seemed unsure, its gaze moving from the slave’s outstretched hand to the Iskari and back. After several heartbeats, it crept forward, watching Asha the entire time. It sniffed at his palm, then nudged it gently. The slave’s arm tightened around her, as if fearing she might run. He slid his hand over the dragon’s scaly snout, then took Asha’s good hand in his and slowly held it out.
It was a long time before the dragon sniffed at her fingers, even longer before it nudged her palm. When it came in close, whuffing at her neck, Asha cautiously took hold of its snout. It had terrible breath. Like rotting meat.
“Explain something to me,” he whispered against her cheek. “The stories made your mother sick, right?”
“Yes,” said Asha, breathing in the thick, smoky scent of the dragon.
“So why don’t they do the same to you?”
“My mother was too soft,” she said, following his lead and running her own hand over the dragon’s warm snout. “Too good. She couldn’t control them. They ate away at her like poison. Just like they did with the raconteurs. I’m—different.”
When she looked to see if he understood, there was thunder in his brow.
“It’s difficult to explain.”
Asha turned back to the dragon, resting her forehead against its rough scales. The moment she did, her mind flickered like a candle flame. Images came in flashes and bursts: a hooded man riding a black dragon, an army advancing across the desert.
Asha pulled away and the images flickered out. She eyed the dragon, which darted around her and the slave, circling excitedly. Finally, it settled in a crouch and looked up into her face. As if anticipating some kind of game.
The slave said something, but Asha didn’t hear him. She was thinking back. Remembering herself from years before—the girl with the butterfly heart. Asha stepped toward the dragon and took its snout in her hands. Once again, images flared up in her mind.
It was the dragon. It was trying to tell her a story, she realized, in exchange for the one she’d told. Only instead of words strung together in a sequence, it sent flashes of images into Asha’s mind. They were like shards of glittering glass, sometimes too sharp to grasp, sometimes out of order.
Eight years had made her forget: dragons liked to tell stories almost as much as they liked to hear them. Asha forced herself to go back, to remember years with the dragons rather than against them.
Kozu’s storytelling was beautiful. Never hard to decipher. But this dragon chattered like a child who hadn’t yet learned how to form proper sentences.
Asha closed her eyes, trying to focus. She struggled to piece the flashes of images together, like assembling a mosaic in her mind.
There was the hooded man—he seemed important. He kept coming up over and over again, riding atop an inky-black dragon. Kozu, Asha realized, before he’d been scarred. But only a Namsara would dare ride the First Dragon. So the man had to be a Namsara.
It was the woman riding next to them, though, who interested Asha most. She wore Asha’s father’s citrine medallion. And while this woman was young, Asha knew her face. She knew those hard, disapproving eyes. They stared out at her from a tapestry in her father’s throne room.
The woman was Asha’s grandmother.
And the story was about the last Namsara, she realized. But the dragon’s story didn’t end where it normally did—with the skral being clapped into irons and turned into slaves. The dragon was telling her the part that came afterward.
The Severing Retold
The Old One granted the dragon queen victory over the skral. He gave her a Namsara who led her straight to the enemy’s camp while they slept. He gave her protection against her enemies. And what did she do in return?
She dishonored him.
She did not chase the skral out of the realm as he had commanded. Instead, she enslaved them.
“Draksors don’t take slaves,” the Namsara told her. “The Old One forbids it.”
“Just think of what we can accomplish!” said the dragon queen. “With our enemies forced to serve us, think of how powerful we will be! No one will dare come against us again.”
“To defy the Old One’s commands will be your undoing,” the Namsara warned.
The queen enslaved the skral anyway.
The city’s narrow, winding streets filled with slaves being fitted for collars. Gold for the palace. Silver for the wealthy. Iron for the rest.
The Namsara came to the dragon queen with a second warning. “The Old One will show mercy, but you must release the enemy. Break their collars and set them loose.”
The queen banished the Namsara from her sight.
The slaves were given roles, and rules were made to govern them: Never look a draksor in the eye or speak their name aloud. Never touch a draksor other than your master. Never drink out of a draksor’s cup or eat off their plate.