I don’t know how long I lay there.

  Curled against the stone, breath shallow and chest hollow, I waited for the ache to settle into something numb. It didn’t. Grief has no edges—it just seeps and settles, thick as saltwater in your lungs.

  Soft footsteps echoed through the cavern.

  The healer returned, silent at first. She didn’t touch me. She didn’t speak. Just stood at the edge of my sorrow, letting it be what it was.

  “I know it hurts,” she said at last, her voice barely more than a ripple. “But you don’t have to wander alone. Stay. Rest. Be among kin.”

  I lifted my head just enough to see her. Her presence reminded me of my mother—not in looks, but in the way she held space, in the quiet gravity of someone who understood pain without trying to fix it. There was no pity in her gaze, only recognition. Her patience wrapped around me like a tide—gentle, persistent, never forcing me to stand, only offering the chance to. Her kindness asked nothing in return, simply existed beside me, unwavering.

  I nodded slowly. “Alright.”

  She smiled gently. “My name is Aelira.”

  “Sovarielle,” I said, then paused. “But… you can call me Elle.”

  For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I felt something warm settle behind my ribs. Not healing. Not hope.

  But safety.

  I stayed.

  Aelira made space for me in the underwater hollow—above the tide, where the stone was warm and dry. For the first few days, I barely moved. I ate what she brought me and slept when the exhaustion pulled me under.

  But over time, I started to rise. To walk. To listen.

  I was still broken. Still missing something the world thought made me whole.

  But here, in the quiet breath of the sea caves, no one told me I was less.

  So I stayed.

  There was a small ledge near the tide line where I liked to sit in the evenings. I’d press my ear to the rock and listen to the sound of the water rushing through the caverns below. It wasn’t the same as scent, but it was something. Something I could hold onto.

  Aelira took her time introducing me to the rest of her horde. Most of them were Water Dragons like her—sleek, graceful, with voices that carried the calm strength of the tides. But there was a small group of Sound Dragons too, nestled deeper within the cliff network. Aelira brought me to them herself, her hand resting lightly on my shoulder as if to remind me I wasn’t alone.

  They welcomed me with easy warmth. Not just out of politeness, but recognition—of the way my ears turned at the faintest shift in tone, the way my shoulders sagged in that silent space where scent should have been. They didn’t question me. They just made room.

  There were a few others around my age—curious, kind, with that restless energy that comes with youth. I tried to talk to them, to laugh with them. I tried to build something new, piece by piece. And I did, in a way. I got along with them. I learned their rhythms, their quirks, their songs.

  But something was missing.

  I watched the others nuzzle in greeting, breathe each other in, exchange a silent language I could no longer speak. I saw the way bonds formed—not just in conversation or time, but in scent. Familiarity. Recognition. I stood among them and smiled, but I felt like a reflection in the water—present, but not part of the depth.

  I was among my kind.

  But I wasn’t whole.

  Maybe I was just too broken to form something new. Maybe grief clung too tightly, like salt on skin that would never wash away. Or maybe it was simpler than that—maybe it was the scent. Or the absence of it.

  I couldn’t read the emotions lingering in the air, couldn’t catch the subtle reassurance of another dragon’s nearness. I didn’t know if they smelled like home, like comfort, like kin. I didn’t even know what I smelled like anymore.

  They could recognize each other with a breath. A tilt of the head. A shared inhale that spoke volumes.

  And me? I was always guessing.

  I laughed when they laughed, stood where they stood. But I couldn’t feel the invisible threads tying them together.

  And I didn’t know if I ever would.

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  It had been a few months.

  I had stayed, tried to find my place in the rhythm of this new horde. I trained beside them, joined their flights, shared their food, listened to their stories. I smiled. I laughed. I nodded at all the right moments. And through it all, I learned.

  The Sound Dragons took me in without hesitation. They taught me how to read the shifting layers of sound in water, how to track movement by vibration, how to wield my voice not just as a weapon, but as a shield. I learned to focus my hearing like a spear—to pick a single point in space and feel its rhythm. I even learned to do the opposite: to strip the sound from an entire room, leaving only silence behind.

  They gave me tools. Skills. A deeper understanding of what I was capable of.

  But deep down, I still felt like I was mimicking something I could no longer be.

  I didn’t belong. Not really. But I tried to make myself fit.

  One night, while wandering near the gathering cliffs, I walked past a stone wall near the lower caves. Voices floated up—soft, unguarded, just a few lengths away.

  If I had been any other kind of dragon, I wouldn’t have heard them.

  But I was a Sound Dragon.

  I heard everything.

  “She’ll never find a mate,” one voice said, matter-of-fact and cruel in its casualness. “How would she? She can’t even smell the bond.”

  Another replied with a sharp exhale, almost a laugh. “It’s like living with a ghost.”

  I stopped walking. My feet rooted to the stone.

  My throat tightened. My heart pounded so hard I thought they might hear it echo.

  They didn’t mean for me to hear them. That was clear. Their tones weren’t angry or spiteful. Just… dismissive. Thoughtless.

  And that made it worse.

  My mother had taught me how to hear truth in a voice. And these voices weren’t lying.

  I was only sixteen. I had only lived like this—without my scent—for six months.

  And somehow, I had never let myself think about it. Not truly.

  Fated mates.

  I wouldn’t be able to find mine.

  The bond, the scent, the moment of recognition—all of it would pass me by. I would never feel that lightning strike. Never know when it was right. Never know who was meant to be mine.

  I remembered the first time my mother told me about mates. I had laughed, squirming under her wing, embarrassed by the seriousness in her voice. She had said, ‘You’ll know when it’s him. Your breath will catch. His scent will sing to you—like a voice hitting perfect pitch, one only your soul was tuned to hear.’

  She told me about the first time she met my father, how the moment he stepped close, she stopped breathing altogether. Not out of fear. But because something in her bones recognized him. ‘His scent wrapped around me like a melody I’d always known,’ she had said, eyes distant and full of warmth. ‘There was no question. Just harmony.’

  I used to dream about that. I used to imagine the moment my own breath would catch—that perfect note only I could hear. I wanted it so badly. I counted the years until I might feel it, wondered what his scent would be like. Warm and earthy like the cliffs? Sharp and clean like lightning? It didn’t matter. I just wanted to feel that certainty.

  But now, I never would.

  My mate would still be able to smell the bond. That deep, unshakable recognition would hit him the moment we crossed paths. But I wouldn’t feel it. Wouldn’t sense it. Wouldn’t know.

  I wouldn’t react to the scent of him. I wouldn’t see him the way I should. And that made it worse.

  What if I passed him by, and didn’t even know it?

  I turned slowly, walked away without a word.

  I didn’t cry. Not then.

  But in that moment, I felt less like a dragon and more like something broken. Something weak. Something wrong.

  And I realized—I couldn’t do that to him.

  Whoever he was, wherever he was, my mate deserved more than a bond that only he could feel. More than confusion. More than pain. He deserved a partner who would meet his scent with recognition, who would feel the pull of fate and answer it.

  Not silence.

  It would be better if he never found me at all.

  The decision settled quietly inside me, like the tide pulling back from the shore.

  I would not live as a dragon anymore.

  I would leave the caves. Leave the horde. Leave behind the shape that no longer felt like mine.

  I would live as a human.

  It was the only way to protect us both.

  I left before dawn.

  No goodbyes. No explanations. Just wings slicing through the cold morning air and the sea cliffs shrinking behind me.

  The wind stung my eyes, but I didn’t cry. There was nothing left to mourn—only pieces to shed. I didn’t look back. Not once.

  Below me, the world changed. The sea cliffs gave way to lowlands, then farmlands, dotted with winding roads and smoke from hearth fires. I watched it all from above, a silent shadow no one saw.

  I flew until the horizon bled gold, then shifted before crossing into human lands. I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to be recognized. And more than anything, I didn’t want to be found.

  I walked on two legs now. My human form mirrored the dragon I used to be—black hair like the night sky over the sea, skin sun-warmed and earth-touched from years beneath the open sky. My eyes were the only thing that truly marked me: violet, deep and sharp, always scanning.

  Somehow, the clothes I had worn the last time I was in this form reappeared just as they always had. I didn’t understand where they went when I shifted, where they waited while I wore my scales and wings—but I was glad. I needed them now. I needed to hide the faint glow beneath my skin—the soft violet light that pulsed through my veins like starlight. Something unmistakably dragon. Something I couldn’t let anyone see.

  I wore a hood most days, letting my hair fall over my face, keeping to the shadows. I ate as they ate. Spoke when I had to. Slept wherever the land allowed. I kept to the forests, the edges of roads, the quiet corners of cities where no one asked questions.

  I avoided dragons.

  It wasn’t hard once I was among the humans. They feared dragons, spoke of them in hushed tones, and rarely ventured near the mountains or forests where dragon territory began. Only the mages—those born with elemental gifts—were brave or foolish enough to interact with dragons directly. The rest kept their distance.

  There were signs posted along the roads and in the edges of cities: red symbols burned into wood or stone, warning of nearby dragon land. Territory lines were mapped, updated, and feared.

  Humans knew better than to cross into our world.

  And so, I stayed hidden in theirs.

  This wasn’t a fall. It was a transformation—not into something lesser, but into something sharper. More focused. I wasn’t trying to forget who I was.

  I was trying to survive with what was left.

  Humans didn’t rely on scent the way dragons did. They didn’t greet each other with breath or bond through the air. They watched each other’s faces, listened for meaning in the tremble of a voice, the weight behind a word. That was something I understood. That was something I could do.

  In many ways, I realized I could be a better human than I had ever been a dragon.

  KT