Pre-dawn is that ugly grey space where nothing has decided what it is yet. Not night. Not morning. Just a chill, damp breath over the world.
And I bolt upright like someone poured ice water straight down my spine.
Heart pounding. Breath ragged. Panic already clawing its way up my throat before I‘m even properly conscious.
“Oh no. Oh no no no—shit!”
The camp is still. Grass beaded with dew. Bushes barely whispering. Everything quiet.
Except my brain, which is screaming.
“I forgot,” I gasp. “I forgot! The ultimatum! The stupid ghost ultimatum!”
Beside me, an enormous mound of scales and arrogance shifts. A single golden eye cracks open. He blinks at me like I‘m an inconvenient cloud.
“What,” Dragon mutters, voice flat as stone, “is wrong now.”
I‘m already gesticulating wildly.
“Ghost Uncle!” I hiss. “The twelve moons! The whole ’prove your worth or I drag you into the spirit realm and peel your soul like an onion‘ thing! Remember!? Big speech! Lots of echoing! Trembling earth! Family drama!”
The Dragon stares at me.
Then he yawns.
My eye twitches.
“I LOST COUNT OF THE DAYS!” I shriek. “When is it!? How much time do we have!? DO WE HAVE ANY!?”
He thinks.
He blinks.
He shrugs.
“It was about ten days ago.”
The silence that follows is so loud it hurts.
I slowly, carefully, deliberately stand up, hands shaking, hair wild, voice climbing toward murder.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN TEN DAYS AGO!?”
He gives a lazy flick of his tail.
“I mean,” he says conversationally, “the deadline already passed and I am evidently still here.”
I stare at him.
My brain summons vivid images: spectral chains. Screaming winds. My Dragon dragged through the sky while bellowing indignantly. The afterlife filled with disappointed relatives judging us forever. I grab his face between both hands and shake him.
“YOU SHOULD BE DEAD. OR CURSED. OR—OR HAUNTED. OR IN GHOST JAIL!”
He pries a horn free of my grip.
“I am not.”
“He PROMISED!” I insist. “He literally promised to rip you out of this world if you didn‘t ’prove your dignity as a worthy companion of his noble bloodline‘! That sounded very follow-throughy!”
“Yes,” Dragon says dryly. “He makes those speeches often.”
I blink.
“Often?”
“Frequently.”
“…and!?”
He exhales.
“And then he forgets.”
I freeze.
“Forget… forgets what?”
“The whole thing.”
I gape at him.
“You‘re telling me,” I say slowly, voice flat with disbelief, “that the mighty ancestral terror… the towering undead patriarch… the spectral judge of our fates… the ancient roaring guardian of honor…”
“Yes?”
“…is just a dramatic old corpse who throws tantrums and then gets distracted?”
“Yes.”
My jaw opens.
Closes.
Opens again.
“You— you can‘t be serious.”
He rolls onto his back, wings flopping uselessly.
“He once declared a three-century vendetta because someone touched his favorite shrine urn,” Dragon continues lazily. “Ranted for hours. Promised storms of vengeance. Swore doom on the entire valley.”
“And?”
“He forgot by the next full moon and started lecturing us about table etiquette.”
I just stare at him.
Then I flop backward onto my blanket and cover my face with a groan.
“I hate your family.”
He hums.
“So do I.”
There‘s a long breath. My panic slowly drains out through the soles of my feet. My heartbeat stops trying to tunnel out of my chest.
Then suspicion creeps back in.
“…are you sure?” I ask, peeking between my fingers. “Truly? Not ’dragon confident‘—as in very sure about absolutely nothing?”
“If he remembered,” Dragon says reasonably, “I would currently be howling in spectral torment while he monologues. I am not. Therefore, he does not.”
I exhale.
The soft grey world settles again.
Silence.
“…you could‘ve mentioned this earlier,” I mutter.
He shrugs.
“I forgot.”
We lock eyes.
I stare at him.
“Wait—so what now? That‘s it? The whole ’you are unworthy of your lineage, cast into eternal shame, flayed in spectral fire‘ thing just… gets forgotten?”
He sighs. A long, slow, I-hate-this-conversation sigh.
“Oh no. Not even close.”
My stomach drops.
“Explain.”
“The old bastard forgets,” the Dragon says wearily, “but never forever. Sooner or later—week, moon, century—he‘ll remember. He always does.”
I squint at him.
“That‘s deranged.”
“Yes.”
“That‘s weaponized senility.”
He exhales smoke from one nostril like a dying incense burner. “He once forgot that he excommunicated my sister and then sent her a congratulatory letter for her mating season. She sent back his own femur.”
I blink.
“Your family makes mine look positively balanced.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “Your family sold you for temple credit and a box of dates.”
“Still less drama.”
The Dragon stretches his wings just enough to rustle the grass, then tucks them back under with a sigh like stone slabs grinding together.
“He‘ll remember. And when he does, we‘ll get the whole speech again. The dignity. The bloodline. The failure. The shame. His spectral eczema. I‘ll be declared a disgrace to scaled kind and threatened with obliteration via ghost fire and ceremonial antlers.”
I rub my temples. “And you‘re just… okay with this recurring emotional terrorism?”
“Not particularly,” he says. “But it‘s less exhausting than arguing.”
I groan and flop back onto my blanket, hair splaying out like a bad omen.
“So we‘re just waiting for the next divine tantrum?”
“Yes.”
I turn my head toward him, deadpan.
“Tell me again why I didn't just stay in that forest cult with the endless foot rubs and nipple piercings?”
He hums thoughtfully. “Because they tried to eat a merchant.”
“Oh. Right.”
Silence stretches out between us again. The pre-dawn chill curls around my ankles like a judgemental cat.
Finally, I mutter, “We need a better plan than just wait for undead dad to forget again.”
“I agree.”
“…and?”
“I suggest bribes.”
I sit up. “Bribes? You want to bribe your own ghost uncle?”
He looks vaguely insulted. “It worked on Aunt Threxaval.”
“She accepted a teacup.”
“She was a woman of culture.”
“He is a floating sack of bones and vengeance.”
“Still has a weakness for vintage brocade and choral arrangements,” the Dragon mutters, mostly to himself.
I stare at him.
“We‘re going to die,” I declare.
He shrugs. “Eventually.”
I flop back down.
“I hate your family.”
“So do I.”
Pause.
“…but I do have a lovely antique scarf in the loot sack.”
He opens one eye. “Gold-threaded?”
“Peacock pattern. Stolen from a bishop.”
“Hmm. That might buy us a week.”