I should have known the dragon would wake for grief.
It was always grief that cracked things open, stone, soul, sky. We were born in blood, shaped in fury, taught to bite before we could speak. But grief was older than all of it. Grief softened bone. Grief carved gods.
And when Ari fell to his knees beside the little beast's trembling body, cradling its downy neck, whispering its name, 'sweet Bonnie', something gave way.
The dragon had not roared before. I didn't even think it could.
But it did then. A sound too young to be a scream, too ancient to be mercy.
The flame that left its mouth was pure white.
Cleo lunged.
She hadn't stopped moving since Volmira's tail caught her mid-dash. Blood still painted her jaw. She looked more forest than girl, all sinew and thorn and sharpened teeth. She came for the dragon with her power. Ari moved faster.
He caught her wrist mid-air. I didn't even see the motion. One moment she was mid-swing, the next—
The next, she was falling.
Ari's hand was still outstretched, fingers curled like he didn't quite believe what he'd done.
Cleo's body hit the ground like it didn't know how to stop breathing. Her head struck a root. Her bow clattered to the side, its string still humming.
There was a hole in her chest as black as a void.
I screamed.
Not because she was my sister. But because he was mine.
And he had killed.
The golden warmth that used to rise from his skin—like sunlight on glass, like morning dew kissed by dawn—began to flicker. Uneven. Stuttering.
I saw it happen. The way his glow dimmed. Not dimmed—curdled. Bent in on itself. Light no longer from life, but from fury. From regret. His fingers shook. His mouth opened like he was trying to speak, but no sound came.
Just one tear.
And then Las moved.
He had been waiting for it—the moment Ari cracked. The moment we all broke.
He stepped into the center of the clearing like a man entering his own grave.
The world around him shivered. I felt it in my gut first—a twist, a pull, like my own feelings no longer belonged to me. Like someone was wringing them out, forcing them into new shapes.
Ari rose, slowly, his hands still cradling the dragon. His face had gone blank. As if he no longer remembered what he'd just done.
Las whispered something.
Ari turned toward me.
And for one breathless second—I saw nothing in him.
No love. No warmth. Not even hate.
Only command.
Las had reached into his mind, into his grief, into that tiny moment of soul-rot Cleo's death had made—and carved a weapon out of it.
I couldn't move.
"Ari," I said, but it came out as a whisper.
He stepped forward.
And the dragon, still shaking in his hands, lifted its tiny head.
Las saw it. Too late.
Bonnie opened her mouth, not wide. Not fierce.
But just enough.
A sputtering, infant flame kissed the air—and landed on Las' hands.
It didn't look like much. A child's fire, barely enough to light a torch.
But Las screamed like he was being flayed by the cosmos.
The skin peeled first. Then the nerves began to remember. His emotions collapsed inward. He staggered back, clutching his hands—red, blistered, bubbling ruin.
The network broke.
Ari dropped to the ground like the puppet strings had been cut. He gasped—once, twice—then clutched the dragon to his chest like it was all that was left of him.
Maybe it was.
I turned to Bara.
She hadn't moved. She was breathing hard, fists still curled, blood trickling from a cut above her eyebrow. Her eyes were wide. Not afraid—never that. But something close.
"You want to keep going?" I asked.
My voice cracked. I didn't care.
"He's going to kill us," she said. No inflection. "You know this."
"Yes," I said. "I know."
I stepped forward.
Her gaze didn't leave me.
"But you're my sister," I whispered. "And I will protect you. Even from him. Even from yourself."
The silence was sharp.
And then I said what I hadn't dared to before.
"Choose us."
For a long moment, nothing happened. Not a breath. Not a rustle.
Then Bara lowered her fists.
We both knew the war wasn't over.
But for the first time in eons, we weren't fighting it alone.
****
Theron stood alone in the Observation Hall, three kilometers above the ground, where the glass curved into the sky like the eye of a god. Below, the capital bled light—red, gold, sterile white. Traffic lanes moved in perfect loops. Districts pulsed on schedules down to the millisecond. Not a cry, not a prayer, not a whisper of rebellion.
Perfection was never born.
It had to be built.
He smoothed a wrinkle in his coat, though none existed. His reflection in the window stared back at him: the face of a man named Theron. Not a molecule out of place.
And yet, there was something behind the veil of his eyes. A breath that was not his own.
He turned away from the glass and faced a mirror hanging on the opposite wall.
"Vectra," he said.
A column of light snapped into focus. Within it, her face emerged: cold, luminous, slightly off-color, like a portrait rendered through static. She was still beautiful. Still cruel.
"Shall I begin with the lesser failures, or the major ones?"
He folded his hands behind his back.
"Speak plainly."
"The children are no longer yours."
He didn't react. Not at first. Only the tiniest flicker, a pulse at the corner of one eye.
"Las is maimed. Bara's loyalty is compromised. Cleo is confirmed dead." Vectra tilted her head, as if mildly disappointed. "Volmira is alive. Converted. Ari and Mila remain the axis. Your progeny have aligned themselves with chaos and light. I'm sorry."
He said nothing.
Only moved to the mirror.
It was framed in black chromium, older than the citadel itself, a relic from the early spires when mirrors were not made to flatter and distort reality on Hunat, but to show everything.
Theron gazed at himself.
He pressed a single finger beneath his left eye and pulled down slightly. Human skin. His skin. The mask. Seamless.
The creature beneath stirred.
"Vectra," he said, still watching himself. "Where is my wife?"
"Recused. With Captain Kinsley and the traitor Queen."
He stared at his reflection. Unblinking.
"She will not interfere," Vectra added, more quietly now. "She made that clear."
"I did not ask if she would interfere," Theron said.
The mirror darkened as something behind the surface shivered. It almost looked like scales.
"I asked where she was."
"Valorian. Western ridge." He exhaled.
A sound like wind over broken glass.
Theron smiled into the mirror. A slow, reptilian stretch of flesh. "Children always bring their mother the body when they want to be forgiven," he said. "And she will have much to forgive."
The mirror cleared.
Theron blew open the glass on the eastern window and jumped into the night as his body removed itself from his skin to accommodate a wolf.
****
Bonnie stood barefoot on the edge of the tide, trousers soaked to the knee, sleeves rolled back. Her hair was unbound, streaked with wind and silver, and her hands were red from cleaning fish she had no intention of eating. Beside her, Kinsley lounged against a tide-gnarled post with the kind of careless elegance only he could pull off.
His shirt was open halfway, showing a lattice of scars across his chest, and a coral pendant dangled near his heart.
"You're baiting me," Kinsley said eventually, his voice low, lazily amused. "Cleaning fish you'll never cook. Standing like that. Making me wonder if I should beg or run."
Bonnie didn't look at him. "I'm thinking."
"Dangerous habit."
"I'm very good at it."
He grinned. "That's the part that worries me."
Behind them, the sea hissed as Salacia approached, welcoming her back. Or, almost. Not even Salacia knew if she'd ever go back.
"They've drawn blood," she said.
Bonnie turned.
"How many?"
Salacia's eyes were unreadable. "One dead. Two converted. The boy burns brighter than we thought. And Mila has teeth."
Kinsley pushed off the post. "And the dragon? Can we finally go wake up Neptune?"
Salacia scoffed. "All you care about is a man? We have a war on our hands. The twins of wonder just declared open season on the Assigner, you think he's not going to respond?"
"You don't kill a god without asking what happens to the world that kneels for him," Bonnie said.
"He can't set foot on Valorian, no?" Kinsley asked.
"You can see he's gotten creative on accessing this land. I cannot imagine what he's going to do next. I think we should give him that damn dragon."
Edward drew his sword. "I'll fillet you before I let that happen."
Salacia unfurled her hands, turning the metal in the captain's hand rusty with salt and copper.
"Wake up," the queen said. "You've put your faith in the wrong person. Milada won't give you the heart, not when she needs the dragon as leverage."
Edward threw away his damaged sword. "Then let's ask her."
****
The camp smelled of blood and wet ash.
Someone had lit a fire that wasn't catching, and the smoke curled low and stubborn between the tents.
Our victory, if that's what it was, felt hollow, like biting into a peach only to find the flesh rotten.
Cleo's light still shimmered faintly across the field.
Even in death, nature clung to her—grass softening beneath her body, vines curling protectively around her limbs. Her bow lay beside her, snapped clean. Her face was almost peaceful. Not a warrior felled in battle, but a queen laid to rest in her kingdom of root and bloom.
And Ari …
Ari hadn't spoken since.
He sat near the edge of the clearing, just past the makeshift medic tents, staring into a place none of us could see. His back was to us. Shoulders stiff. Bonnie, the dragon, lay coiled at his feet, blinking slowly in the dusk, her tiny tail twitching like she could feel something none of us could name.
I wanted to go to him.
But I wasn't ready to know if he would flinch when I touched him.
Edward found me near the water barrel. He stood straight. Always straight, that one. Like conviction was a spine you could sharpen.
I'm glad they weren't here for the battle.
"So," he said, no preamble. "You're their leader now."
I shook my head.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "They'll follow you anyway. I need to know what you plan to do. You made me a promise."
"I remember," I said.
"And?"
I looked at the camp.
Tired. Broken. Bandages and ration packs and too many haunted eyes. We could hold the line here. Maybe. For another day. Another week. But the Assigner didn't wait. He consumed.
And we were always just a breath ahead of the flame.
"If we stay," I said, "we die slower. That's all."
Edward frowned.
"We attack first."
"Millennia?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "The root. The rot."
I walked to Ari.
My footsteps felt too loud, like I was intruding on a prayer.
When we were children, we prayed to our Lord Father who never answered. I knelt behind him and wrapped my arms around his chest, pressing my cheek between his shoulder blades.
"I'm here," I whispered.
His voice was raw when it came.
"I can't live with what I did."
I tightened my hold.
"I killed my sister," he said. "I felt her die. I felt the light go out. It didn't leave. It clung to me. It's in my lungs, Mila. In my teeth."
Bonnie, the dragon, made a soft clicking sound.
"She still sees me," Ari whispered. "She shouldn't."
"She sees who you are," I said. "Not what happened."
He turned toward me, eyes glassy. "Give her heart to Kinsley. Let him use it. Let him bring his love back. Let it mean something."
"No."
His breath caught.
"I have another idea."
I rose, slowly, and took his hands in mine.
"Dragons aren't born," I said. "They're made. From pain. From grief. From loss. From the places in us that ache too much to stay."
He looked at me, terrified.
I smiled. "We don't have time to wait for Bonnie to grow up. And i cannot live in fear, knowing that if something happens to her, the radioactivity will consume you."
"Mila…"
"I won't let you die," I said, and the truth of it cracked in my chest like a vow. "And I will bring you back. But you have to choose."
"Choose?"
"To fight," I said. "Not because it's right. Not because it's just. But because it's ours. Because we're the only ones left who remember what the world used to be."
Ari closed his eyes.
And then opened them. They weren't blue anymore.
They were gold.
"You can have your own dragon heart. And Bonnie … Bonnie can then decide what she wants to do with hers."
The dragon was already inside him, it had always been, just like it was inside every being who ever suffered a loss they didn't understand, they couldn't weather. It just needed permission.
His skin split—not with blood, but with light and smoke and shadows. Gold and black scales shimmered beneath as wings burst from his back in jagged arcs of luminous armor. Horns curled from his temples, barbed and sharp. His scream cracked the sky.
Gasps echoed from the camp.
Las stumbled backward.
Volmira covered her mouth.
Even Edward took a step away, several steps as did all the others when they realized what was happening.
The dragon was tall as the trees now, its tail sweeping the clearing, its eyes molten with sorrow. Fire licked from its jaws—tinted black at the edges, corrupted by grief. Cleo's grief. Ari's.
Bonnie chirped once.
And bowed.
I stepped forward and laid a hand on his scaled chest.
"Dragons," I whispered, "are made."
And we had just made the last one.
****
Hunat bled.
It did not scream, not at first. Screaming requires breath, and Theron had stolen that too. If stealing could be the word for something that already belonged to him. Everything in the system of Tripolis did.
He ran through the streets as a wolf of terrible beauty, his coat white as void-glass, his eyes burning the color of deep-sea flame. Buildings collapsed in his wake. Spires cracked like femurs. Marble plazas turned red.
The people of Veyron's Crown had never seen a god.
They'd seen statues. Edicts. Doctrine.
They'd seen the neural lathes pulsing in the undercity, had felt the heat of compulsory oaths signed in iron that belonged to the Assigner.
They had bowed when he passed, whispered his names like hymns.
But this—
This was not Theron Aegiros.
This was the Assigner unleashed.
And he did not want worship.
He wanted her.
A child sobbed as he tore through the archive row. One flick of his spectral tail and the entire knowledge vault detonated in a bloom of fire and dust. Centuries of invention and memory crumbled to ash in the air. The mother screamed. The child did not stop screaming even after she stopped breathing.
The ground cracked beneath his paws.
He climbed the citadel spine in three strides, his claws gouging rivers into the obsidian surface. Lights flickered across the city as power grids failed. When the security towers fired, he swallowed the shots and spat back fury.
Not a fury of rage.
A fury of clarity.
Sibelle, he thought.
Can you feel it?
He turned his great head toward the sky and howled.
It carried through atmosphere. Across systems. Into waterlogged shores.
Across the Valorian tide.
To her.
See what I have made in your absence. Hear the screams of the world you tried to forget. This is what your children become when left alone. Wild. Shattered. Bleeding.
The Assigner did not believe in forgiveness.
But he did believe in proof.
And this was the only proof she would answer.
A spiral garden burst into flame as he passed. The glass trees melted. The statues of the early engineers wept rivulets of slag. A line of acolytes prostrated themselves in his path. He stepped on them.
Not because they defied him.
Because they didn't.
Because they obeyed without knowing what they obeyed.
You raised them to be gods, Sibelle. And look what they've become. Soft. Splintered. Sentimental. Cleo is dead. Las is broken. Ari burns with doubt and Mila dares to love what should never have lived. They are children. And children cannot rule.
So I will make them orphans.
He leapt across the basilica's dome, shattering it into pale green shards, then landed in the central garden of vows, where lovers once engraved their names into chromatic stone. He leveled it.
No more promises.
Only fire.
Hunat moaned beneath him. The tectonic plates shifted.
And Theron - wolf, god, husband - ran faster.
He would make the planet bleed until she bled.
Until Sibelle opened her eyes and remembered why she left.
Not because she hated him.
But because she knew he was right.