Chapter 2

The moment Lyara arrived home, her expression collapsed.

She stormed straight into the room I shared with Drakar.

She tore through every corner, pulling out anything connected to me, hurling it all outside one piece at a time.

A pair of woven grass rings I had braided myself.

A protection charm I had quietly tucked beneath Drakar's pillow.

I had spent a long time sewing that charm. The stitches were tight and even — every one of them careful, every one deliberate.

Now it was being ground beneath her heel like rubbish.

I stood frozen in place, watching Lyara pass through our home like a hurricane, scattering everything I had built with my own hands.

And Drakar stood right there beside her. He didn't stop her. He gave a helpless little laugh.

His gaze caught mine — brief, weightless.

"Let her have this," he said lightly. "I owe her. A little venting is fair. Whatever she breaks, I'll replace."

My eyes burned.

I shook my head and said quietly, "It's fine. Nothing important."

Drakar paused. He studied me, a vague restlessness crossing his face — but he didn't say another word.

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Along the fence in the yard, my vegetable garden grew in a straight, tidy row.

Drakar had complained about the trouble, said it was easier to just buy food at the market. But I'd still wanted to grow my own.

And for all his grumbling, he had quietly built a low wooden fence around the beds for me later on.

Now Lyara walked straight through those seedlings without a second glance.

She yanked my undergarments from the drying line and shook them with exaggerated disgust.

"You actually hang these outside where everyone can see? Are you trying to advertise yourself? A totally whore!"

She dropped the garment and stepped on it.

Beside her, Drakar couldn't quite suppress a laugh.

His warm, attentive gaze followed Lyara everywhere, completely unaware of the color draining from my face.

I hunched my shoulders instinctively. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed of my own body.

But Lyara wasn't finished.

She prowled the rest of the yard, until her eyes landed on the woven basket sitting against the wall.

The sun had been good today. I'd been worried the room was too stuffy, so I'd carried the basket outside to let the dragonlings nap in the warmth.

My stomach lurched. I called out sharply: "The young ones are in there—"

I didn't get to finish.

She had already picked it up.

I went white and lunged forward without thinking.

But I was too late.

Lyara startled, stumbled back a step — and in that instant, a dark shape flashed past her and caught her before she could fall.

The three dragonlings, curled in their nest of soft cloth, tumbled out like three small fruits shaken from a branch.

They were so small.

So small that when they hit the ground, they made no sound at all.

Only the largest of the three — startled awake by the impact — let out a thin, reedy cry.

"Baby—!"

I dropped to my knees, frantically gathering all three of them into my arms with trembling hands.

They were frightened. Their tiny tails wound around my fingers, their little bodies shaking in stuttering, irregular tremors.

The oldest one had scraped the skin from his forehead. A faint bead of blood welled up at the wound.

The pain of it squeezed the breath out of my chest.

Drakar had been closer to that basket than Lyara.

If he'd wanted to, he could have pressed it down before she ever reached it.

He hadn't. He had chosen to catch Lyara first.

And then watched, without so much as a furrowed brow, as our young hit the ground.

I used to wonder about all those nights — the desperate, tangled closeness, the thousand small tendencies he had of bending toward me, the thousand ways he had of sheltering me.

If that wasn't something like love, I had asked myself, then what was?

But in this moment, I could no longer pretend I hadn't been wrong.

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