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00:02My cousin Sarah and I were both given to the Dragon Court.
00:06I went to the firstborn, Aldric.
00:07She went to the second son, Dorian.
00:09A year later, Sarah bore a white dragon.
00:12While I came out, nine, ugly, malformed, nothing resembling a dragon.
00:16The Dragon King cared deeply about appearances.
00:19He named Dorian his heir on the spot.
00:21Aldric, in his fury, handed all nine of my children to the Phoenix Court as blood catalysts, me along with
00:26them.
00:27If I marry Sarah, the throne will be mine.
00:31I couldn't survive the shame.
00:32I walked into the Sacred Flame and let it take me.
00:35He didn't know.
00:35Sarah was hybrid.
00:36I was pure.
00:37My children had been ugly because they took after him.
00:40When I opened my eyes, I was back on Selection Day.
00:42Aldric, Dorian, the Fox Clan has sent two.
00:46Each of you choose.
00:47I understood immediately.
00:48I had been reborn.
00:49This life, I could not let Aldric choose me.
00:51But as I stood there scheming, Aldric walked past me with a look of distaste and pulled Sarah forward instead.
00:57I understood immediately.
00:59Aldric had been reborn, too.
01:00I reached for Sarah's hand, shook my head at her.
01:02The Dragon King wasn't a tyrant of these things.
01:05If she refused, she could go home.
01:07Sarah yanked her hand away.
01:08Liar.
01:09Satisfaction dripped from her voice.
01:11Don't tell me you're jealous that Aldric chose me.
01:13The Dragon Court passed its throne the same way most courts did.
01:17Bloodline first, then birth order.
01:19Aldric and Dorian were both sons of the Dragon Queen.
01:21Aldric had precedence.
01:23Sarah was blinded by the crown she thought she could see.
01:26I cursed her silently for a fool, then let her go.
01:29If Aldric took Sarah, that left me with Dorian.
01:31Except Dorian refused on the spot.
01:33Father, I'm not ready for a consort.
01:36I blinked, touched my face.
01:37I really wasn't that bad.
01:39Fine, go home.
01:40Find a fox-blooded man who actually deserved me.
01:42I was pleasantly imagining exactly that when a figure stepped out from the back of the hall.
01:47He wore a mask.
01:48Two short horns curled from his brow.
01:50Brother, did you forget I haven't taken a consort either?
01:53Brother?
01:54Was this Caelan?
01:55The Dragon King's youngest sibling?
01:57Rumor had it the Dragon King doted on him.
01:59Had even once considered naming him heir.
02:01But Caelan was wild, unpredictable.
02:03Refused to take consort or sire children.
02:06The idea was shelved.
02:07He hadn't appeared in my first life at all.
02:09Caelan strolled toward me, easy and unhurried.
02:12His dark eyes fixed on me.
02:13Brother, she's beautiful.
02:14You let your sons choose first and didn't think of me?
02:17Hardly fair.
02:18The Dragon King called him an insufferable wretch and waved his hand.
02:21I was given to Caelan.
02:23Aldric, still holding Sarah's arm, couldn't resist.
02:26Uncle, don't let her face fool you.
02:28Caelan's fingers locked around my wrist.
02:30His dark eyes sharpened instantly.
02:32Who I choose is not your business.
02:36Caelan brought me to his quarters.
02:38No intention of removing the mask.
02:40Not even that night.
02:41Alone, together.
02:42What surprised me more, he had no intention of sharing the bed.
02:45He placed a folded blanket down the center of the stone bed.
02:48Divided it precisely in two.
02:49You sleep on the inside.
02:51I'll take the outside.
02:52I sat there clutching my blanket.
02:54Genuinely confused.
02:55Dragon men were known for their appetites.
02:57In my first life, Aldric had been relentless.
03:00Illness didn't slow him.
03:01My discomfort didn't slow him.
03:03Was Caelan, perhaps, unable?
03:05He seemed to read my thoughts.
03:06His expression cooled.
03:08I married you because I pitted you.
03:09If I hadn't, do you know where you'd be right now?
03:12Aldric had planned to have me killed again.
03:14He wasn't going to marry me, but he wasn't going to release me either.
03:17The moment I stepped outside the dragon court unattached,
03:20I would have been bound and delivered to the Phoenix Lord as a gift.
03:23Aldric carried memories from our first life.
03:25He knew the Phoenix Lord wanted me.
03:27He intended to use that.
03:28The thought of what the Phoenix Lord did to the women in his court made me cold all over.
03:32That cold fear turned quickly into hatred.
03:34In our first life, Aldric had bled my nine children dry.
03:38He had cornered me into the flame.
03:39Now, reborn, he still wasn't finished.
03:42How could something so brutal claim the right to rule?
03:44The thought followed me into sleep.
03:46Dawn.
03:46Caelan pulled me up to pay morning respects to the Dragon King.
03:49I was still yawning when we arrived.
03:51Aldric and Sarah were already there.
03:53Composed.
03:53Impeccable.
03:54Sarah looked radiant.
03:55Her legs were shaking slightly.
03:57Marks on her neck.
03:58A great many of them.
03:59I winced.
04:00That must have been brutal.
04:01Aldric was rough even when welcomed.
04:03For Sarah's first time, she probably needed help getting out of bed.
04:06She caught my expression and mistook it for envy.
04:09She tugged her collar and leaned close.
04:11How was your night, Lyra?
04:12Word is, he didn't touch you at all.
04:15I glanced pointedly at her inner thighs.
04:17Worry about yourself, Sarah.
04:18She drew back with a huff.
04:20Enjoy it now.
04:21Wait until the king finishes with you.
04:23Sure enough.
04:24The Dragon King's voice came cold and measured.
04:26Caelan, explain yourself.
04:28Caelan looked entirely unbothered.
04:31Thought she was interesting yesterday.
04:33Changed my mind by evening.
04:35The Dragon King hurled his crystal goblet into the courtyard.
04:38Disgraceful.
04:39After the morning audience, the Dragon King summoned me privately.
04:42He wanted to know what had actually happened.
04:45I told him I'd been too shy.
04:46He studied me for a long time.
04:48Told me to give Caelan an air soon.
04:51Then sent me on my way.
04:52I returned to find Caelan waiting, frost in his eyes.
04:55What did he ask you?
04:56I told him everything.
04:57He was quiet for a moment.
04:59Then he told me to avoid private meetings with the Dragon King going forward.
05:03If anything came up, redirect it to him.
05:05It only deepened the mystery.
05:07The dynamic between these two was as unreadable as the mask Caelan never removed.
05:11Before I could untangle any of it, news swept through the entire court.
05:15Sarah was with child.
05:16A golden light surrounded her belly.
05:18Aldrick was beside himself.
05:20He invited the whole court to witness at dawn.
05:22I was invited too.
05:24Of course.
05:24Sarah opened with a performance.
05:26She dropped the Dragon Pearl on the floor and smiled at me sweetly.
05:29Leia, I'm carrying Dragon Young.
05:32Could you pick that up for me?
05:34She was barely a month along.
05:35She could bend perfectly well.
05:36This was theater.
05:37The court watched with amusement.
05:39Aldrick joined in, implying I was a pretty bird who couldn't lay eggs.
05:43I was about to respond when a sharp gust lifted the pearl, knocked it against Sarah's face, and dropped it
05:48neatly back into her hand.
05:49Caelan lowered his wrist.
05:51He looked at Sarah with no particular expression.
05:53Did you lose the use of your hands?
05:55Sarah burst into tears against Aldrick's chest.
05:58Aldrick, humiliated, redirected me.
06:00Uncle!
06:01She only asked her to pick something up.
06:02Why the outburst?
06:03Lyra's pretty, I'll give her that.
06:05But she can't even carry a dragon child.
06:07You're the only one who sees anything in her.
06:08Caelan's response was immediate.
06:10She's beautiful, at least.
06:11The two of you are ugly and useless.
06:13That puts her ahead.
06:15Aldrick went white, then shifted into dragon throne.
06:17He looked ferocious.
06:18He fought like a beginner.
06:19Caelan played with him, barely tried.
06:21The court watched Aldrick crumble under what amounted to light sparring, and the question moved quietly through the room.
06:27Was this really the man meant to be king?
06:29Aldrick stopped before he could lose more thoroughly.
06:32He grabbed Sarah and walked out.
06:34When my white dragon is born and takes the throne, none of you will be laughing!
06:38Gone before anyone could point out he'd forgotten entirely about the golden light he'd summoned everyone to see.
06:44Aldrick didn't forget Slyce.
06:46He waited until Caelan was away, and came for me.
06:48He wove mist across the back courtyard, trapping me on the hillside.
06:52Called wind and rain down until I was soaked through and shaking.
06:56Only then did he appear.
06:57He looked at me, drenched, and something greedy moved across his face.
07:00Lyra.
07:01He still hasn't touched you, hasn't he?
07:04He came toward me.
07:05I backed up.
07:05He seized my wrist.
07:06Your bloodline isn't quite right for a proper consort.
07:09But a secondary one?
07:11That could work.
07:12I slapped him.
07:13He grabbed me by the throat.
07:15I couldn't breathe.
07:15Then he let go.
07:16Even now, Caelan's name keeps him from going all the way.
07:19When he finds out the only things you can produce are malformed little monsters, let's see how long he protects
07:24you.
07:24You're a low-clan princess, Lyra.
07:26When that day comes, I'll crush you like nothing.
07:29He didn't know.
07:30The clan he despised was about to ruin him completely.
07:32I cast my glamour, between one breath and the next.
07:35We were standing in front of the Dragon King's council chamber.
07:38Every word Aldric had just said had fallen on the Dragon King's ears, and the ears of every allied clan
07:43lord present.
07:44The Fox Clan was low-ranked, yes, but they were under Dragon Court protection.
07:48What Aldric had said amounted to announcing, in public, that the Dragon Court held its subject clans in contempt,
07:54not something a future king could afford to say aloud.
07:57The Dragon King's crystal scepter cracked against Aldric's mouth.
08:00You have deeply disappointed me.
08:02Aldric hit the ground.
08:03His shoulders trembled.
08:05The Dragon King stripped him of his privileges and confined him to quarters.
08:08The air presumptive, favored of the court one hour ago, became invisible by afternoon.
08:13I had won cleanly.
08:14Caelan was furious.
08:15Do you understand how dangerous that was?
08:17What if he had actually killed you?
08:19He'd figured it out, of course.
08:20I had used an enchantment to lure Aldric in deliberately.
08:23Revenge, yes, but also self-preservation.
08:26Aldric wasn't going to leave me alone regardless.
08:28Better to move first.
08:29I hadn't consulted Caelan because he didn't know about my first life.
08:32He looked at me, soaking wet, and couldn't bring himself to say much more.
08:36He exhaled.
08:36Don't do something like that without telling me.
08:38I'm your husband.
08:40Protecting you is my responsibility.
08:42Something warm moved through my chest when he said it.
08:45Something I hadn't expected.
08:46Time moved quickly after that.
08:48The night Sarah went into labor, a storm rolled in.
08:51Lightning, black clouds, golden light pouring off the palace walls.
08:55The court's ritual seers declared it the sign of a golden dragon's birth.
08:59The dragon king got out of bed and went to Sarah's chambers to wait.
09:02I wasn't going to miss this.
09:04Aldric's bloodline wasn't pure enough for a golden dragon.
09:07If that light was real, it wasn't his.
09:09Sarah labored all night.
09:10Dragon young or large.
09:12She screamed until dawn.
09:13Then the screaming stopped.
09:14The child was not brought out.
09:16The dragon king went by himself.
09:18What followed was a silence somehow worse than the screaming.
09:21Then came his order.
09:21Seal it.
09:23Tell no one.
09:24Word leaked anyway.
09:25It always does.
09:26Sarah had delivered something golden.
09:28It was not a dragon.
09:29A one-clawed golden serpent.
09:31A common golden serpent could, with enough medicine and time, be coaxed into dragon form.
09:36A one-clawed one could not.
09:37Too weak.
09:38It would never transform.
09:39And across its face, a large, dark birthmark.
09:42Ugly and unmistakable.
09:44The dragon king took one look and left without naming it.
09:47The dragon court hadn't seen a birth to this poor in over a thousand years.
09:50In my first life, Sarah and Dorian produced a white dragon together.
09:54Sarah and Aldric produced this.
09:56The bloodline failure was obvious.
09:58Aldric's own lineage wasn't as pure as he'd always believed.
10:01The dragon king began arranging a match for Dorian the very next morning.
10:05He also issued a command.
10:06I was to produce a dragon child within the year.
10:09The entire court now understood exactly what Aldric had fathered.
10:13Aldric locked himself in his rooms.
10:15Sarah's situation was no better.
10:16Aldric blamed her for everything, threatened to cast her out with a child and start over.
10:21My father wrote, asking me to help her.
10:23I went, reluctantly.
10:24Sarah was not grateful.
10:26Don't look so pleased with yourself, Lyra.
10:27You know why Caelan wears that mask?
10:29Because he's furious under it.
10:31You'll end up just like me, producing nothing worth keeping.
10:34And even if you do manage something, it'll just be catalyst stock for the king's workings.
10:39Catalyst stock.
10:40My blood went cold.
10:41I thought of my nine children in my first life, their deaths,
10:44and my hand went to my stomach before I could stop it.
10:47Sarah refused to say more and threw me out.
10:49I went to Caelan, asked him directly what was going on.
10:52He deflected, said it was to protect me.
10:54My hand was still on my stomach.
10:56I was done being patient.
10:57Caelan, stop.
10:59I'm telling you I'm pregnant.
11:01He went very still.
11:02I held his gaze.
11:03That night, after the spiced plum wine,
11:06I'd caught a chill standing in Aldric's rain.
11:08I'd demanded wine to warm up.
11:11Caelan had relented.
11:11We'd both had more than intended, and somewhere in the middle of it,
11:15ended up on the same half of the bed.
11:18Why won't you let me see your face?
11:20I traced my fingers along his mask.
11:22He caught my hand and pressed his lips to my wrist.
11:25From my wrist, to my arm, then to my mouth.
11:31Dragons are creatures of desire.
11:33He said, voice low.
11:35I know.
11:36I reached up and pulled him closer by the back of his neck.
11:38Come here, Caelan.
11:40I want this.
11:41Neither of us had expected it to matter.
11:43I took his hand.
11:44I'm this child's mother.
11:46I have every right to know what threatens him.
11:48Let's protect him together.
11:49Caelan looked at me for a long time.
11:51Then the mask slipped from his fingers and fell.
11:54I stared.
11:55Caelan was not ugly.
11:56He was, without question,
11:57the finest-looking man in the dragon court
11:59or anywhere else I had ever been.
12:01Except for the scar.
12:02It ran the full length of his left cheek.
12:04Deep.
12:05Old.
12:06Terrible.
12:06I touched it.
12:07A wound that left a mark like this had been profound.
12:10That night he told me everything.
12:12Caelan and the dragon king were not full brothers.
12:15Caelan had been born to the true dragon queen.
12:17The dragon king was the son of a lesser consort.
12:20A concubine elevated to queen only after the true queen died in childbirth.
12:25By rights, Caelan should have inherited.
12:27But he had no mother to protect him.
12:28And the new queen had no interest in his survival.
12:31So he did the only thing that kept him alive.
12:33He destroyed his own face.
12:34There was an old rule in the dragon court.
12:36Unwritten but absolute.
12:38The king must be unblemished.
12:39A scarred face was a sign of heaven's disfavor.
12:42It disqualified.
12:43That was why the dragon king obsessed over the appearance of his grandchildren.
12:46That was why he had demanded I carry Caelan's child.
12:49And why he wanted that child as a ritual catalyst.
12:51Pure blood.
12:52Bound to the rightful bloodline he had stolen.
12:54No wonder Caelan wore the mask.
12:56No wonder he hadn't touched me.
12:57He had been trying to make sure I never became pregnant at all.
13:00And now I am.
13:01I looked at him.
13:02Are we giving this child up?
13:03Caelan gripped my shoulders.
13:04Lyra.
13:06This child chose us.
13:08I'm not letting go.
13:10Not of either of you.
13:11I'm done retreating.
13:14We decided immediately to conceal the pregnancy with glamour.
13:17Until we had a plan.
13:18The physical signs I could mask.
13:20The body's reactions I could not.
13:22At the dragon king's feast.
13:23I vomited in front of everyone.
13:25Sarah was at my side in an instant.
13:27Rubbing my back.
13:28Radiating delight.
13:29Lyra.
13:31You're not pregnant, are you?
13:32What wonderful news that would be.
13:34The dragon king's eyes lit up before I could speak.
13:37The royal physician was summoned at a near run.
13:39His fingers on my wrist before he'd fully stopped moving.
13:42I kept my expression neutral and thought, this is over.
13:45Caelan was at the eastern sea, reaching out to his mother's people.
13:48I was alone.
13:50The physician looked up from my pulse with great solemnity.
13:52My lady is not with child.
13:55A digestive concern, I believe.
13:57Nothing more.
13:58He caught my eye.
13:59He was winking at me.
14:00I understood instantly.
14:02I arranged my expression into embarrassment.
14:04I did eat rather a lot of roasted chicken last night.
14:07Five, I think.
14:08The hall went silent.
14:10The dragon king dismissed me with barely concealed irritation.
14:13On the way back, I crossed paths with a physician,
14:16who had caught the king's displeasure as a side effect of his performance.
14:19He told me he was making amends.
14:21I could not save the queen.
14:22Let this be what I owe, Lord Caelan.
14:24The true dragon queen had been killed by the dragon king's household too.
14:27I couldn't let myself think about what would happen to my child if we failed.
14:31I sent a sealed letter to my mother that same day,
14:33requesting the complete glamour grimoire.
14:35As the Fox Clan's legitimate princess, I had the right to inherit it.
14:39As a reckless child, I had only learned a fraction of it.
14:41Learn it fully, and I could deceive anyone.
14:44My mother sent it within days.
14:45The weeks that followed, drilling the grimoire by day,
14:48managing Sarah and Aldric's attempts to catch me out by night.
14:51Sarah appeared at my door daily.
14:53She was certain I was pregnant.
14:54Confirmation would earn her favor with both Aldric and the dragon king.
14:57My glamour held.
14:59Then Sarah arrived with a small, ornate box.
15:01Your clan's Radiance Elixir arrived.
15:03I brought it over for you.
15:05The Radiance Elixir was a staple among foxwomen.
15:07Most took several times a month.
15:08It preserved beauty and complexion.
15:10It also contained one ingredient that harmed unborn children.
15:13Every pregnant foxwoman stopped taking it immediately.
15:15Sarah knew this.
15:17I didn't reach for the box.
15:18You've looked exhausted lately.
15:20Has the Elixir stopped agreeing with you?
15:22She tried to watch me take one on the spot.
15:24I showed her the door.
15:25My refusal, of course, looked exactly like guilt.
15:28Within the hour, she was back.
15:29With Aldric, the dragon king, and a clan priestess,
15:32Sarah pointed at me.
15:33The Fox Clan has a glamour craft that can conceal the truth.
15:38I believe Lyra is using it right now to hide her pregnancy.
15:41The dragon king's scepter tapped the floor.
15:44His eyes settled on me.
15:46Is that so?
15:47I burst into tears and said I had no idea what she was talking about.
15:51Sarah's patience snapped.
15:52Stop performing!
15:54I've brought someone who can see through you!
15:56The priestess stepped forward.
15:57I recognized her the moment she entered.
15:59Sarah had gone all the way back to the Fox Clan and brought Nora,
16:02the most powerful ritual practitioner our people had.
16:04Nora raised her staff toward my face.
16:06My lady, forgive the intrusion.
16:09She was talented, genuinely.
16:11Her craft swept through the room in broad circles.
16:14What Sarah had apparently forgotten,
16:15the most talented practitioner in the Fox Clan was my mother.
16:18Under my mother's direct instruction,
16:20I had reached the highest level of glamour craft.
16:22Nora had not.
16:23She had no chance.
16:24Nora circled me three times.
16:26Then three more.
16:27Her expression shifted from confidence to confusion.
16:30That's impossible.
16:31She used her last resort.
16:33Sacred flame bloomed in her palm.
16:35Pure foxfire.
16:36The kind that burned through all illusion.
16:38Using it costs enormous reserves.
16:40Whatever Sarah had promised her,
16:42it had been worth it to Nora.
16:43Nora stood holding the sacred flame.
16:45I quietly brought out my reflecting talisman.
16:48Her expression troubled.
16:49Your Majesty,
16:50I find nothing irregular about Lady Lyra.
16:53It's possible she has reached the highest level of glamour craft.
16:57That is beyond my ability to penetrate.
16:59The Dragon King's gaze moved me.
17:01His frown eased into something calculating.
17:04I underestimated Kaelin.
17:05Something in his tone made my skin tighten.
17:07Before I could respond,
17:09his hand moved.
17:10Everything went dark.
17:11I woke in a quiet wing of the palace.
17:13I didn't recognize.
17:14The Dragon King sat above me,
17:16studying my stomach with calm,
17:17unhurried interest.
17:18Awake.
17:18I have to say,
17:19you and Kaelin managed to hide it longer than I expected.
17:21I pulled my hands over my belly instinctively.
17:23No point in performing anymore.
17:24Is this what we're calling it?
17:25Imprisonment?
17:26He smiled the way people smile
17:27when they want you to feel stupid for asking.
17:29Imprisonment.
17:29I'm concerned for Kaelin's child, that's all.
17:31He's away.
17:32Someone should look after things.
17:33When he returns,
17:33you'll all be together again.
17:34He knew.
17:35He knew Kaelin had gone to the Eastern Sea to call in forces.
17:38I had to do something.
17:40After he left,
17:41I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
17:43The chamber was sealed tight,
17:45warding circles on every surface.
17:46My glamour was useless here.
17:48Nothing living could pass in or out.
17:50Then,
17:50the next morning,
17:51two servants whispered outside my door
17:53and forgot how thin walls were.
17:55Lord Aldric is taking a new consort.
17:57Already?
17:58His last one just gave birth.
17:59And didn't she do something for the king?
18:01Doesn't matter anymore.
18:02She's been sent back to the Fox Clan.
18:05Terrible, really.
18:08The child went with her, they say?
18:10Sarah had been sent away.
18:12No.
18:13Aldric didn't send people away.
18:14That wasn't how he operated.
18:16I reached into the lining of my robe
18:17and found the feather whistle.
18:19My father had pressed one into each of our hands
18:21the day we left home.
18:22One for me,
18:23one for Sarah.
18:24So we could always find each other.
18:26I had never expected to need it.
18:27Through the whistle,
18:28I learned the truth.
18:29Sarah had been handed to the Phoenix Lord,
18:32exactly as I had been in my first life.
18:34Her child was missing.
18:35Hearing my voice through the whistle,
18:37Sarah finally understood
18:38why I had tried to stop her
18:39from taking Aldric's hand that day.
18:41She was frantic.
18:42She begged me to save her.
18:44Save her child!
18:45I told her I couldn't do it alone.
18:47We had to work together.
18:48She went quiet.
18:49I started thinking of other ways to reach Kaylin.
18:51Then her voice came back through the whistle.
18:53Steady this time.
18:54She would help me.
18:55She would get a message out.
18:57Something had changed.
18:58She had found her child's body the night before.
19:00The one-clawed serpent had been too low-ranked
19:02for a blood catalyst.
19:03So they used it for something worse.
19:05A test subject.
19:06The body was covered in bruising.
19:08Dark purple from end to end.
19:09Sarah had looked at it.
19:10And something in her simply stopped functioning
19:12the way it used to.
19:13She would get my message to Kaylin.
19:15And after that,
19:15she wanted Aldric.
19:17We made our plan quickly.
19:18My part was simple.
19:19Wait.
19:19Kaylin came back faster than I thought he would.
19:22Lyra, it's me.
19:24He was suddenly there,
19:25his hand around my wrist.
19:26No time.
19:27We're leaving.
19:27The Dragon King materialized in the doorway
19:29like smoke given form.
19:31Kaylin,
19:31you return and don't come to greet your brother first?
19:34Kaylin put himself between me and the door.
19:36I reached past his arm and took his hand.
19:38I wanted him to know I wasn't standing behind him.
19:40I was standing with him.
19:41The Dragon King looked at our joined hands
19:43and something crossed his face I hadn't expected.
19:45Something that looked almost like grief.
19:47Kaylin,
19:47why has fortune always favored you?
19:50Your father's regard,
19:51your mother's love,
19:52that face,
19:53and now a wife who would walk into ruin beside you.
19:56His voice went flat.
19:57I refuse to accept it.
19:59He looked at me.
20:01Leave him.
20:02I'll see you safely delivered.
20:04Name you a lady of the court.
20:06Comfort for the rest of your life.
20:07What do you say?
20:09I almost laughed.
20:11Aldric had been disgusting.
20:12This old man was somehow worse.
20:14I looked at the lines of his face.
20:18Why would I leave him for someone who looks like you?
20:21The Dragon King's vanity was his deepest wound.
20:24In truth, he wasn't ugly.
20:25No man ruled the dragon court on an ugly face.
20:28But next to Kaylin,
20:29he had always known the difference.
20:30My words landed exactly where I meant them to.
20:33You've chosen the hard way.
20:35He gave the order.
20:37Armed guards poured in from every entrance.
20:40Take them both.
20:41Let's see how defiant they are after.
20:43But he didn't know.
20:44The soul-binding relic from the Eastern Sea was already pressed against his spine.
20:48Before his guards could reach us,
20:49Kaylin's forces had taken every one of them.
20:51The Elder Council entered from the outer hall and knelt.
20:54We welcome the return of our true king.
20:56The Dragon King stood very still.
20:58Then he shouted.
20:59Have you all lost your minds?
21:00I am king!
21:02This is treason!
21:03These elders had served the court before the Dragon Nord's time.
21:07They had always belonged to Kaylin's cause.
21:09They had simply been afraid for too long.
21:11The Dragon Nord had made too many enemies,
21:14pushed too many allies toward resentment.
21:16When Kaylin came to them,
21:17they did not hesitate.
21:18The Dragon King was forced to his knees.
21:20He kept his chin up.
21:22You're all blind!
21:23His face is damaged!
21:25A scarred king is no king at all!
21:26Release me or I'll have every one of you destroyed!
21:28I looked at him for a moment.
21:30Then I reached up and removed Kaylin's mask myself.
21:32The scar was gone.
21:34His face was unmarked.
21:35Clean.
21:36Because Fox Clan women knew,
21:38above everything else,
21:39how to heal what had been broken.
21:40From the night Kaylin showed me the scar,
21:42I had been treating it.
21:43The mask continued after the healing for one reason only.
21:45To let the Dragon King believe nothing had changed,
21:48right up until everything had.
21:49I looked at the Dragon King.
21:51I should have mentioned,
21:52the Fox Clan's greatest gift isn't glamour.
21:55I let him work out the rest.
22:00Facing the United Elder Council,
22:02Kaylin's forces,
22:03and a husband whose disqualifying flaw no longer existed,
22:06the Dragon King did the only thing left to him.
22:08He picked up the crystal seppler
22:09and drove it into his own throat.
22:11Blood crossed the throne room floor.
22:13Aldric collapsed.
22:14He scrambled to his knees and begged.
22:15Loudly.
22:16Repeatedly.
22:17Technically, his fate was mine to decide.
22:18But Cira's price for helping me
22:20had been simple and non-negotiable.
22:21She wanted Aldric.
22:22A deal was a deal.
22:23I glanced at him on the floor
22:24and patted Cira's shoulder.
22:25Don't disappoint me.
22:26Don't disappoint me.
22:29Sarah looked at Aldric with the expression of someone
22:31who had thought about this moment for a very long time.
22:33I won't.
22:34I'll make sure he can't die
22:35and can't bear to live.
22:37She meant it.
22:38She kept it.
22:39The day she took him back,
22:40she had his bloodline formally tested.
22:42The results,
22:42which the Dragon King had been falsifying for years,
22:45showed Aldric at the lowest rank the Dragon Court recognized,
22:48barely above the one-clawed serpent he had fathered.
22:50Without Sarah's own strong bloodline,
22:52even that much wouldn't have been possible.
22:54She made the results public.
22:55Every accusation Aldric had leveled at her inverted in a single afternoon.
22:59When Aldric saw the numbers,
23:01something in him broke.
23:02He kept saying it.
23:04He'd been reborn.
23:05This wasn't supposed to happen.
23:06He wanted to die.
23:07He didn't get to.
23:09Sarah had him placed with the lowest-ranked clan in the territory,
23:12assigned as an alchemical thrall.
23:13He woke up to it every day.
23:14I spent my pregnancy eating well
23:16and watching events unfold from a comfortable distance.
23:19Perhaps it was contentment.
23:21Perhaps it was Kaylin.
23:23Perhaps it was simply this life being different from the last.
23:26When my time came,
23:27I delivered nine dragons young.
23:28Every one of them carried something from my first nine children.
23:31A feature,
23:32a quality,
23:33something I recognized.
23:34But this time those things fit.
23:36What had seemed strange before was beautiful now.
23:39Each one entirely,
23:40completely themselves.
23:42Ugly or lovely,
23:44it would not have mattered.
23:46Kaylin and I had already decided
23:47we would love them exactly as they came.
23:50The nine dragons were named within the week.
23:53Kaylin sat on the floor
23:54with all of them crawling over him
23:56and didn't move for an hour.
23:58I watched from the doorway.
23:59You could sit in the throne room, I told him.
24:02You are king.
24:03I know where I am.
24:04He caught the smallest one
24:06before she rolled off his knee.
24:07Come here.
24:08He had spent years making himself invisible,
24:10making himself small,
24:12carving the life out of his own face to survive.
24:14Now he sat in the middle of nine loud,
24:17demanding,
24:18entirely ordinary children
24:20and looked like a man
24:21who had forgotten what misery felt like.
24:23The physician knocked and entered.
24:25He had delivered all nine.
24:26He looked at them,
24:28then at me,
24:28then at Kaylin,
24:29and his eyes went wet.
24:31The queen would have been glad.
24:32Kaylin didn't answer immediately.
24:33He looked at the child in his hands
24:34for a long moment.
24:36She would have spoiled them rotten.
24:37The physician laughed.
24:38Some debts take a long time to settle.
24:40Some never fully close.
24:42But this felt,
24:43at least,
24:43like a beginning.
24:44Dorian arrived three days after the coronation.
24:47He had been at the northern border
24:49when everything collapsed.
24:50No one had told him.
24:52He walked into the throne room
24:53expecting his father
24:54and found Kaylin instead.
24:56He stopped in the doorway,
24:58looked around,
24:59looked at me.
25:03Should I kneel?
25:05Only if you want to.
25:07Dorian considered this.
25:08Then he sat down on the steps
25:10leading to the throne,
25:11which was neither kneeling nor standing,
25:13and looked like he had thought
25:15about this compromise ahead of time.
25:17My father,
25:18dead.
25:19His own hand.
25:20His expression didn't change much,
25:22which was either grief handled quietly,
25:25or the result of a father
25:26who had never given him reason
25:28to feel it deeply.
25:29And Eldrick?
25:31I told him.
25:32Dorian's mouth pressed flat.
25:36That's worse than death.
25:38Yes.
25:39He was quiet for a while.
25:41I refused a consort.
25:43I thought it was because I wasn't ready.
25:47I think I knew,
25:48even then,
25:49that something was wrong.
25:50That if I stayed close to all of it,
25:53I'd become part of it.
25:54He looked at Kaylin directly.
25:56Tell me what you need from me.
25:58What Kaylin needed from Dorian
25:59turned out to be straightforward.
26:01The Northern clans.
26:02Dorian had spent three years on the border.
26:05He knew every clan lord by name,
26:07had eaten at their tables,
26:08and learned their grievances.
26:09The dragon court under the old king
26:11had taxed them past reason,
26:13and taken their best fighters as conscripts.
26:15Dorian didn't need convincing.
26:17He had already been quietly keeping lists.
26:19The first clan lord arrived within a fortnight.
26:21He came expecting an audience with the new king,
26:24and got one.
26:24But Kaylin had asked me to be present,
26:26and the clan lord kept glancing at me throughout,
26:29uncertain how to read it.
26:30After, Dorian explained,
26:32the northern lords had heard about the fox clan princess,
26:34who had publicly insulted the dragon king,
26:36healed the new king's scar,
26:38and delivered nine dragonborn children in one night.
26:41They wanted to know if the rumors were true.
26:43The nine children, I said.
26:45That part surprised even me.
26:47You should let them believe you planned all of it.
26:49I thought about it.
26:52They'll find out eventually.
26:54Not if you look confident while telling it.
26:56This was, I was discovering.
26:59How Dorian operated.
27:01I was beginning to understand why Kaylin trusted him.
27:04The phoenix court sent an envoy.
27:06He arrived with gifts,
27:08formal regret for any past misunderstandings,
27:11and a carefully worded letter
27:12that managed to not once acknowledge
27:15that the phoenix lord had received Sarah as a gift
27:18and held her against her will.
27:20Kaylin read the letter twice,
27:21set it down,
27:22asked me what I thought.
27:23He wants to know how strong your position is, I said.
27:27He's not apologizing.
27:29He's measuring.
27:30The envoy was watching me
27:32with the careful blankness of someone paid to show nothing.
27:35The women currently held in the phoenix court,
27:37all of them,
27:38released and returned within 30 days.
27:40Any clan born among them escorted home at phoenix court expense.
27:44Begin there,
27:44and we can discuss what a productive relationship
27:47between our courts might look like.
27:48The envoy's pleasant expression wavered.
27:50My lord,
27:51the phoenix court's internal arrangements
27:53are not traditionally subject to neighboring review.
27:55They are now 30 days.
27:57I look forward to your lord's response.
28:00The envoy left.
28:02Too direct?
28:03For him, yes.
28:04I folded the letter.
28:06He'll come around.
28:07He doesn't have a choice.
28:09He did come around.
28:10It took 28 days,
28:12and a second envoy,
28:13and a great deal of formal phrasing
28:16that still avoided the word apology.
28:18But the women came home.
28:20Sarah was not among them.
28:22She had already left.
28:23After Aldrich was settled in his new situation,
28:26she had walked out of the dragon court with her hands empty and gone south.
28:30My father's letter said she had arrived at the Fox Clan three weeks ago.
28:34She was eating.
28:35She was sleeping.
28:36She had not spoken much.
28:37My mother wrote separately.
28:39She is here,
28:40and she is not leaving.
28:41Do not worry.
28:42I read that letter several times.
28:44We had never been close,
28:45Sarah and I.
28:46She had spent most of our shared lives resenting me,
28:49and I had spent most of them defending myself from her choices.
28:52There was no clean ending available.
28:54No single moment that undid the other.
28:57But she had gotten my message to Kaelin when I needed her most.
29:00She had done it with her child nearly dead,
29:02and her own situation desperate.
29:05I sent her a package.
29:06Fox Clan Rejuvenation Tonic.
29:08The refined formula my mother had been working on for years,
29:11completely free of the toxic ingredient.
29:13I didn't include a letter.
29:14I didn't know what to say yet.
29:16Perhaps that was alright for now.
29:18The Elder Council had one remaining piece of business.
29:20The formal matter of the old bloodline records?
29:22The Dragon King had been falsifying lineage documents for decades.
29:25Not just Aldrich's.
29:26His own, too.
29:27And several allied clan lines he had wanted to elevate or suppress,
29:30depending on their usefulness.
29:31Restoring the records meant some clans lost standing.
29:33Others gained it.
29:34A few discovered relatives they hadn't known existed,
29:36and a few discovered the relatives they had claimed didn't.
29:39Dorian volunteered to manage the proceedings.
29:41It took months.
29:41He aged visibly.
29:42Late one evening, he appeared at my door with a very specific question.
29:46The Fox Clan.
29:47He said.
29:47The true ranking.
29:48He knew what he was asking.
29:49The Fox Clan had been registered as low-rank by the Old King's deliberate falsification.
29:53A high-ranked Fox bloodline with a full glamour inheritance
29:56was something the Old King had wanted no one paying attention to.
29:59I told Dorian the actual number.
30:00He stared at it for a while.
30:01So when Aldrich called you low-clan...
30:03He was reading a document your father wrote specifically so that people would believe it.
30:06Dorian closed his eyes briefly.
30:07I'm so sorry.
30:09Correct the record.
30:10That's enough.
30:11The record correction created a small problem.
30:13With the Fox Clan properly ranked,
30:15my marriage to Kaelin looked less like a fortunate consolation
30:17and more like the most politically significant match in a generation.
30:21Several court officials, reviewing the recalculated bloodline values,
30:24quietly reordered their understanding of the last two years.
30:27The ones who used to pity me were suddenly eager to be my friends.
30:29I found this less irritating than funny.
30:31Kaelin found it less funny.
30:32They ignored you for a year and a half.
30:35And now they don't.
30:36That's how courts work.
30:37You deserve better treatment before you were useful to them.
30:40I looked at him.
30:41He was genuinely angry on my behalf.
30:42The way he had been the day he stepped out in that selection hall
30:44and chose me before anyone could stop him.
30:46Same quality.
30:46Same direction.
30:47You didn't know my rank either, I pointed out.
30:50When you chose me, he looked like he wanted to argue with that.
30:52Then he didn't.
30:53Because it was true and he knew it.
30:54I chose you because he was going to get you killed.
30:56And then I couldn't stop being interested in you.
30:58I know.
30:58I leaned into him.
30:59I noticed.
31:01My mother came to court for the Midsummer Feast.
31:03She arrived the way she always did,
31:05which was with more luggage than the occasion required,
31:07and the calm certainty that any room she entered had been waiting for her.
31:10The nine children took one look at her and immediately tried to climb her.
31:13She let them.
31:14She had always wanted grandchildren.
31:15She had gotten nine at once and seemed to view this as correct.
31:18Halen studied her for a long time without speaking.
31:20He held her gaze without fidgeting, which was more than most managed.
31:23She finally said in our native tongue,
31:25You healed him.
31:26He helped.
31:27I answered in the same.
31:28She made a small sound,
31:29then switched back to common speech and asked him his opinion
31:32on a particular restorative herb formula she had been developing.
31:34He had one.
31:35A detailed one.
31:36I sat with my wine and watched my mother and my husband
31:38argue pleasantly about herbal preparation methods for the better part of an hour
31:41and felt something unknot in my chest that I hadn't realized was still pulled tight.
31:45Before she left, she pressed something into my hand.
31:47My grandmother's glamour signet, the oldest piece in the family line.
31:50You've earned it, she said.
31:52You earned it a while ago.
31:54That winter, Halen built a room.
31:56A small room off the eastern wing with good light and low shelves,
31:59sized for small hands,
32:01and enough floor space for nine active children to make a spectacular mess.
32:04He built it himself, mostly.
32:05The court architects offered.
32:07He thanked them and kept going.
32:08I came to watch one afternoon and didn't leave.
32:10You don't have to do all of this by hand, I told him.
32:12I want there to be something I built that they can point at.
32:16Something made on purpose, not inherited, not stolen, not survived into.
32:20I understood.
32:20In my first life, I had walked into a flame.
32:22I had believed it was the only exit left.
32:24I had not been entirely wrong, given what that life was.
32:27But this life had given me exits I hadn't expected.
32:29A court physician with a quiet debt.
32:31A cousin who had made terrible choices and then, at the worst moment, one good one.
32:34A masked man who stepped forward in a hall when he had no reason to,
32:37and had not stepped back since.
32:39Nine children who were, every one of them, entirely themselves.
32:41I sat on the floor of the half-finished room and watched Kaelin work,
32:45and thought, this is the thing I would have missed,
32:46if the flame had been the end of it.
32:48This exact afternoon, ordinary and loud,
32:50and nothing like what I once thought I was owed.
32:52I was glad, profoundly and without complication, to be here.
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