Then the world exploded into motion.

  The instant Imogen nodded, Darius moved. Not a man, something older. Faster. Deadlier.

  A blur of dark steel and fire-forged rage, he closed the distance in a heartbeat. The general jerked his blade to finish it but Axel surged from behind with a roar, slamming his massive tail into the earth. The ground shook and the general stumbled just enough for Darius to seize the opening.

  His blade, already drawn and glowing faintly from the heat of his aura, sang through the air.

  It met the general’s poison-dipped weapon in a blinding flash of sparks knocking it just wide of Imogen’s throat.

  The force of the strike sent both men reeling back. Darius stepped between Imogen and her attacker with a growl that wasn’t entirely human.

  Imogen collapsed into the dirt, gasping, one hand clutching her throat but alive.

  Darius didn’t look back. His body blocked her from the general completely. His wings half-shifted and flickering with fire spread wide behind him. Smoke curled at the corners of his mouth. His eyes burned like molten blue lava.

  The general laughed, circling him. His helmet crafted from the skull of Darius’s mother gleamed cruelly in the moonlit night. “Big, mighty queen of dragons… and she still screamed like the rest when we broke her wings.”

  Darius’s blade lowered. Just slightly. Then he said softly, “So will you.” And launched himself at the general. The clash was brutal. Steel rang against steel. Fire flashed and dirt erupted around them as they tore across the battlefield.

  The general fought with a fury born of megalomania, and ego. But Darius fought with something more like grief and vengeance.

  With the ancient, boundless rage of a king whose mate had been threatened.

  The general struck with the poisoned blade but Darius twisted aside.

  He knew that weapon, its weight, its rhythm, even its scent. He’d fought it before; lost family to it. Not again.

  He ducked low, pivoted, and slammed the pommel of his sword into the side of the general’s helmet, his mother’s skull, shattering one curved horn.

  The general staggered, blood streaming from beneath the bone-plate.

  Darius’s sword rose but the general caught it, just barely, and slammed a boot into Darius’s ribs.Darius snarled as he was thrown back, skidding several feet across blood and ash.

  Imogen, from her spot on the ground, struggled to rise. Her magic flickered weakly at her fingertips. Axel stirred too, dragging his injured body forward with a low growl of defiance.

  “Don’t,” Darius barked, never taking his eyes off the general.

  “Stay down. I will end this.” The general spat blood. “You’ll die with the rest of them.”

  Darius rolled his shoulders, flames crackling along his back. His wings flexed.“No,” he said darkly, “I’m the one who survives.”

  The general lunged again, but Darius was ready.

  He sidestepped, catching the poisoned blade with his gauntlet, sparks flying as it scraped against dragon-forged armor.

  He twisted in close and drove his sword deep into the general’s side. The man gasped. Darius leaned in close, voice low and guttural. “That was for my mother.” Then, with a final snarl, he wrenched the blade free.

  The general collapsed, his stolen dragonbone helmet shattering as it struck the earth. But there was no triumph in Darius’s eyes. Only fury and grief.

  And then a sound that shattered all of it. A strangled, wheezing whine broke from Axel’s direction.

  The massive dragon was slumped fully now, the golden aura around his wound flickering and dimming. His breathing had gone shallow, his limbs twitching. Blood soaked the mud beneath him dark, rushing too fast.

  “Axel!” Imogen screamed, staggering toward him. “No no no, stay with me” Her hands flew to the dragon’s side, searching for anything she could do. Magic flickered at her fingertips weak and erratic, but nothing came.

  “Darius!” she cried out, tears streaking her face. “He’s dying, you have to get us out of here!”

  Darius’s heart plummeted. Dropping beside Axel, he pressed a hand to the dragon’s chest. His only family. His oldest friend. The last tether he had to the world before it shattered.

  Axel’s eyes cracked open dim and barely holding. I’m sorry, the dragon seemed to say. “No,” Darius whispered, jaw tight. “Not like this.” Imogen fell to her knees beside him, blood and magic clinging to her skin, trembling.

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  “We have to go… We have to go, Darius!” And something inside him broke.

  His body pulsed fire and wind surging outward in a sudden wave that sent ash and weapons scattering across the ruined battlefield.

  Bones cracked and flames erupted as wings exploded from his back in a flash of shimmering black and white.

  Darius shifted.

  Where the man had stood now rose a beast of legend, twice the size of the dragon who lay beside her. A dragon towering, glorious. Sleek obsidian scales shimmered with streaks of moonlight silver, white-edged and regal. The mark of his mother’s line ran down his spine like warpaint. And his eyes blazing blue fire held sorrow, fury, and love.

  Imogen stared in awe as he lowered his massive head to her.“Get on,” he breathed.

  With the help of Darius, Imogen climbs onto his back exhausted from her wild display of magic. Axel is gently rolled onto Darius by his tail making sure he is safely in place.

  Darius crouched, tail lashing once, then launched skyward in a surge of wind and fire. The battlefield fell away beneath them, and with it the carnage and pain. The broken pieces of a war that wasn’t over yet.

  But before they cleared the smoke-choked sky, Imogen glanced over her shoulder and her breath caught in her throat.

  More soldiers burst from the distant treeline, armor battered and bearing the kingdom’s crest. They surged toward the ruined field toward the general. His body lay twisted in the mud, barely clinging to life, his once-proud dragonbone helm shattered beside him like a relic of a war already lost. Blood pooled beneath him, but the rise and fall of his chest was slow, shallow but still there.

  “Darius…” she whispered, watching the soldiers gather around him, unsure if they would save him… or simply bear witness to his end.

  Darius didn’t look back.

  But the tension in his wings told her everything. The war wasn’t done. Not yet.

  And if the general survived… He’d come after them. After her. She had no home after this. No safe place to run.

  And if she stayed with Darius… She’d be putting him and his tribe in danger.

  Her world had fallen apart. And somewhere in the wreckage, something else had awakened.

  Questions swirled like ash in her mind, choking her thoughts. She couldn't understand who she was or what she was. Is that why her parents had left her on Elanor’s doorstep?

  Had she known?

  The wind howled past them as Darius carried them higher, away from the battlefield. The last dying screams of vengeance faded beneath the clouds. But even as the sky swallowed them; as the blood and fire of a life Imogen once knew was fading in the distance, unease settled deep within her.

  Imogen knew this wasn’t the end, instead it was just the beginning.

  The world quieted once they were beyond the clouds.

  Darius flew for what felt like hours until the scent of blood and smoke no longer chased them. Only when the sky showed signs of morning and the wind lost its edge did he descend. Landing on a high mountain plateau cradled by steep cliffs and moss-draped trees.

  A waterfall spilled nearby, its crystal waters singing a lullaby that the battlefield had stolen from them.

  He shifted back to his human form, exhaustion shadowing his strong features but his eyes immediately sought Axel.

  The dragon lay still, breath shallow, his massive frame curled protectively around nothing. Darius’s jaw clenched.

  Imogen slid from his back, her legs unsteady as silence pressed in like fog. She stumbled a few steps toward Axel, then dropped to her knees beside him.

  The golden magic that had once blazed from her palms was gone but its echo still thrummed in her bones. She pressed a trembling hand to Axel’s scales. “I don’t even know what I am,” she whispered.

  Darius knelt beside her, his voice low and steady. “You’re Imogen. The woman who saved my life. Who stood her ground on a battlefield soaked in blood. Who made a dragon trust her with nothing but a touch.”

  She gave a soft, bitter laugh. “And the woman who got dragged into a war she never asked for… Who nearly died because she was foolish enough to rip out a poisoned spear.”

  He reached for her hand, brushing the mud gently from her fingers with a soldier’s tenderness.

  “You were brave enough to pull it. That’s what matters.”

  Her breath caught, heart tightening. “He’ll come after us, the general. If he’s still alive, he won’t stop. I’ve already lost everything, Darius. If I stay… I’ll only bring more danger to your doorstep.”

  Darius reached for her chin, guiding her gaze to his. “Then we face it together,” he said. “I’m not letting you go.”

  His eyes held hers, hot and honest and unwavering. And in that moment, with the weight of the world crashing down around her… Something in her chest cracked open.

  Not from pain but from trust. Something real. Imogen leaned forward before she could talk herself out of it, resting her forehead gently against his. “I’m so tired,” she murmured. “But I’m not done.”

  A beat passed between them. breaths mingling in the space between. Not quite a kiss, but close enough to steal her breath.

  Then she pulled back, sudden clarity flashing in her gaze. Her eyes locked on Axel’s shallow breathing and the sickly sheen of poison still threading through the veins near his wound.

  Her healer’s instincts surged forward like a wave crashing over sorrow. “I can help him,” she said, suddenly alert. “I know what I need, if the plants are here. I’ve read about this kind of poison before. I can make something to counteract it.”

  Darius blinked, then nodded without hesitation. “What do you need?”

  She was already digging through her satchel. “Bellroot. Thornleaf. A pinch of silver moss. There’s a stream nearby, if I’m lucky, they’ll be growing near the rocks.”

  He stood with her, brushing a strand of hair gently from her cheek. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  She looked up, that fire returning to her eyes. “Stay with him. He trusts you more than anyone. If something happens… he should see you.”

  Darius hesitated, then nodded, his jaw tight with emotion.

  Imogen squeezed his hand once then turned toward the trees, her steps fast and purposeful full of determination. She was exhausted, unraveling inside but she was not broken and she wasn’t alone anymore.