"Aren't you a daring one," I heard Aiona's voice drifting toward me through what felt like layers of cotton wadding. The words reached me, but I couldn't see her. That was because my eyes were closed, I realized after a moment of confusion. I slowly, carefully opened them, but immediately squeezed them shut again just as quickly. The dizzying, violent brilliance of the southern sun greeted me in full blast, flooding my vision with light so intense it was almost painful.
I was in the inner domain—that strange metaphysical space inside myself where Aiona resided, where our consciousness could meet on more equal ground. I came to this conclusion as sensory details filtered through to my awareness: the fresh, clean smell of grass, sweet and green and alive. The soft sensation of individual blades pressing against my skin, tickling slightly. The warmth of sunlight that was intense but not uncomfortably hot.
I felt profoundly weak, as though every ounce of strength had been drained from my body—which, given what I had just done, was entirely accurate. But I also felt something else: a steady rush of magic being absorbed through my skin, flowing into me like water soaking into parched earth. It was a strange sensation, not quite physical but not entirely metaphysical either. Power returning, vitality slowly replenishing what had been lost.
"You held up your part of the ritual," I managed to say, my mental voice sounding as exhausted as I felt.
I heard Aiona scoff, the sound carrying her characteristic mixture of pride and disdain.
"Of course I fulfilled my part of the agreement," she replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm that somehow managed to convey pride simultaneously. "Without me and my magic, without the ancient dragon incantations spoken in the true tongue, the blood you shed would have been nothing but a complete waste. Pretty red liquid with no more power than what flows through any ordinary human's veins. Your sacrifice would have meant nothing, accomplished nothing. But with my contribution, your blood became what it needed to be—a cure, a salvation."
Before we had departed for Draga on that desperate three-day journey, I had engaged in a lengthy and sometimes contentious discussion with Aiona about the precise mechanics of the Curing Ritual. It had become immediately apparent that the feat I hoped to accomplish was technically impossible without the direct participation of a living dragon. The ritual explicitly required genuine dragon magic channeled in specific ways, along with incantations spoken in the ancient dragon tongue—not the Ancient Rothiya that scholars could study and learn, but the true dragon language that had been extinct for centuries.
That primordial language couldn't be taught through conventional means, couldn't be learned from books or passed down through instruction. Every single syllable in that ancient tongue was itself a spell, a manifestation of pure magical power. To speak it was to command reality itself. The sounds couldn't be replicated by non-dragon throats, and even if they could be, without the innate dragon magic to fuel them, they would be merely noise.
So the only viable approach had been a division of labor: I would perform the blood-letting, providing the essential physical component. Aiona would carry out the magical portion—the pouring of draconic power into my blood and the speaking of incantations in that lost language. She had agreed to this arrangement, though not without negotiating several conditions for her cooperation. Conditions I had accepted without hesitation, because the alternative was watching my people die.
I let out a long, relieving sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of my being. The tension I had been carrying—the fear that the ritual might fail, that I might lose everyone I cared about to this ancient affliction—finally began to ease. None of the specific details mattered now. What mattered, what truly mattered, was that my people were going to be safe. Cured. They would recover and live and continue their lives without the shadow of Dragon Blood Depletion Syndrome hanging over them. I let out a soft chuckle of relief and exhaustion and something very close to joy.
Aiona snorted at my laughter, clearly finding my emotional response puzzling or amusing or both.
"Are you truly that happy?" she asked, her tone genuinely questioning, as though my reaction confounded her understanding. "They are merely mortals, after all. Temporary beings whose lives span barely more than an eyeblink in the grand scheme of existence. Why does their survival warrant such profound relief?"
"Don't pretend to be so heartless, Aiona," I told her gently, turning sideways toward where I had heard her voice originating. "I know better. I know you performed this same ritual when you were alive, when you walked the world in your true form. I know you cared about them too—the mortals you're now dismissing so casually. You wouldn't have bothered with the Curing Ritual if you hadn't cared at least somewhat."
When I finally opened my eyes fully, having adjusted to the brightness, I found that she too was lying on the grass, positioned so she could look directly at me. Our faces were perhaps only a few feet apart. For a long moment, she simply stared at me with those ancient, knowing eyes that had witnessed centuries unfold.
Then she looked away, her gaze shifting to the impossibly blue sky above us.
"I suppose I did care," she admitted, her voice barely rising above a whisper. The confession seemed to cost her something, as though acknowledging past affection was a weakness she preferred to keep hidden.
But then her tone shifted, hardening into something cold and flat.
"And then I burned them all to ash," she added, looking back at me with eyes that had gone emotionless, empty. "Every single one of them. Aren't you aware of that part of the story? Don't you know what I did?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with implication and challenge.
"Why did you do that?" I asked softly, keeping my voice deliberately gentle and coaxing. I genuinely wanted to understand, needed to understand what could drive someone from caring enough to perform healing rituals to destroying everything they had protected.
"Why do you want to know?" she countered immediately, clearly not falling for my gentle approach. Her defenses were up, her expression guarded. "What purpose does knowing serve? The past is dead and done. Understanding my motivations changes nothing."
"You told me yourself that we are one," I reminded her, using her own words as the foundation for my argument. "You've said repeatedly that we're becoming a single being, that our separation is an illusion that will eventually dissolve completely. If that's true, if we truly are going to be part of each other in such a fundamental way, then we should know everything about each other. All the good parts and all the terrible parts. The triumphs and the atrocities. That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it? Complete understanding, total transparency."
She frowned at my logic, clearly displeased that I had turned her own reasoning back on her. But I could see her considering it, weighing whether to trust me with this piece of her history. Her expression shifted through several emotions—resistance, consideration, resignation.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak, to share whatever terrible truth had been haunting her for centuries.
And then it happened.
A piercing, agonizing pain erupted through my chest—specifically through my heart—so sudden and intense that my entire consciousness seemed to shatter around it. I struggled desperately against the sensation because it was absolutely, unbearably painful in a way that transcended anything I had experienced before. My mouth filled with the taste of copper, and I felt myself spitting blood, though whether that was happening in my physical body or just in this mental space, I couldn't determine.
Aiona's expression transformed instantly from guarded confession to shocked confusion.
"Rh...ia," her voice wavered, uncertain and alarmed in a way I had never heard from her before. "What's happening? What—"
But before she could finish the question, before she could reach for me or determine the source of the pain, I felt myself being pulled away from her domain. Some violent force was dragging me somewhere far away, yanking my consciousness back toward my physical form with brutal intensity. I tried desperately to hold onto Aiona, reaching out with everything I had. She also tried to maintain our connection, her hand stretching toward mine, her face twisted with effort and growing alarm.
But the pull was simply too violent, too powerful to resist. It tore us apart despite our efforts, dragging me away while she remained behind. Aiona's form became smaller and smaller as I was propelled backward through vast distances of inner space, floating away from her domain and back toward my own consciousness trapped in my physical body.
---
This time when I opened my eyes, I was no longer in that sunlit meadow of internal consciousness. I was back in my chambers, lying in my own bed. The familiar ceiling beams above me, the tapestries on the walls, the quality of light filtering through the windows—all confirmed my location.
But something was terribly, horrifically wrong.
The pain I had felt in Aiona's domain intensified rather than fading, becoming if anything more acute and immediate. It was unbearable, overwhelming, all-consuming. I let out an involuntary whimper—a sound of pure agony that I couldn't suppress—and forced my eyes to focus downward toward the source of the terrible sensation in my chest.
There was a dagger embedded in my chest. Actually piercing through flesh and bone, the handle protruding obscenely from between my ribs. Blood was already soaking through my nightgown, spreading in a dark stain that grew larger even as I watched.
*Ah. It hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts. It hurts.*
The words repeated in my mind like a desperate mantra, though whether I was speaking them aloud or just thinking them, I couldn't tell. The pain was so intense it was almost dreamlike, surreal, as though this couldn't possibly be happening to me.
Then I saw a hand—not my own—reach down and wrap fingers around the handle of the embedded dagger. The hand pulled the blade out with a wet, horrible sound. Blood immediately began gushing from the wound like water from a broken dam, flowing freely now that the blade wasn't plugging the hole. The sight was almost mesmerizing in its horror.
But I had no time to process what was happening because the dagger came down again almost immediately, piercing a different spot this time. Another explosion of agony, another wound opened in my chest.
*Why? Why? Why?*
The question screamed through my mind, desperate and uncomprehending.
*Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?*
I finally managed to summon enough presence of mind through the haze of pain to look up, to see the face of my attacker. Recognition hit me like a physical blow, somehow more shocking than even the stabbings themselves.
I knew her. I had known her my entire life.
Tears were streaming down her face, cutting tracks through what looked like days of accumulated exhaustion and distress. Her expression was twisted with anguish and determination in equal measure.
"The Dragon seed must die," she was mumbling under her breath, speaking so quietly I could barely hear her. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, repeating a mantra that would give her the strength to continue what she was doing. "The Dragon seed must die. It has to die. There's no other way."
"Martha...?" I managed to whimper, forcing her name past lips that were growing cold and numb. My voice was so weak, so broken, barely more than a breath.
But the only answer I received was another piercing stab, the dagger plunging down once more to open yet another hole in my chest. Each wound was placed with terrible precision, as though she knew exactly where to strike to cause maximum damage.
"Why?" I managed to gasp out, needing to understand even as I felt my consciousness beginning to fragment, to slip away as blood loss and trauma took their toll.
"Because you are the monster who will burn us all!" Martha's voice rose, no longer a mumble but a desperate shout filled with terror and conviction. "You must die! Don't you understand? Your mother was supposed to kill you when you were seven years old, when the signs first appeared. That was the agreement, the sacred duty passed down through generations. But instead, she protected you! She hid the truth and kept you alive, and see what has resulted! You've given your entire body over to the monster inside you! The dragon is taking over, and when the transformation completes, you'll destroy everything, just like all the prophecies warned! So you must die now, before it's too late!"
And then she raised the dagger again, preparing to strike once more.
I heard Aiona's voice then, distant at first but rapidly growing closer and more urgent. She was searching for me frantically, reaching across the barrier that separated her domain from my conscious awareness, trying to find me and understand what was happening. When she finally managed to bridge that gap and see through my eyes, when she witnessed what Martha was doing, the magic Aiona carried with her exploded outward with devastating force.
The blast of raw draconic power sent Martha flying backward through the air as though she had been struck by a giant's fist. She crashed into the wall with bone-breaking force and crumpled to the floor, the dagger falling from her hand and skittering across the stone.
"Rhia! Rhia!" I heard Aiona's voice in my head, filled with panic and rage in equal measure. She could see everything now—see the wounds, see the blood, see Martha struggling to her feet despite the impact, see the dagger she was reaching for again.
My weak "No, don't" fell on deaf ears. I could feel Aiona's consciousness exploding with an incandescent rage more intense than anything I had sensed from her before.
"YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH!" Aiona's voice—using my voice, speaking with my mouth—roared with a fury that made the windows rattle. "AFTER EVERYTHING SHE DID FOR ALL OF YOU! AFTER SHE NEARLY DIED TO SAVE YOUR MISERABLE LIVES!"
I felt Aiona seizing control of my body, taking over completely despite my protests. She raised my hand—or was it her hand now?—and I felt her will reaching out through the air. She teleported in an instant from the bed to stand directly next to Martha, appearing in a flash of power that left afterimages burning in the air.
Then Aiona commanded the dragon blood flowing through Martha's veins—that same blood I had shed to cure the syndrome, that same blood that was supposed to save lives, not end them. Martha was suddenly lifted into the air as though grabbed by invisible hands. Her feet dangled uselessly as she struggled to breathe, gasping and choking as something constricted around her throat and chest.
"No, please," I whispered weakly from behind the wall of Aiona's consciousness, pleading with her, begging her not to do this. "Please don't. Martha raised me. She loved me. She's confused, she's frightened, but please don't kill her. Please."
Aiona paused for a single second, obviously hearing my desperate plea. I felt her consciousness waver slightly, felt the grip on Martha loosen just fractionally.
But then Aiona deliberately turned away from my begging, hardening her resolve.
"Dex!", (Explode) she commanded in that ancient tongue that was itself a spell, channeling her will through the blood that ran through Martha's body.
And Martha exploded.
The woman who had raised me since I was a small child, who had read me bedtime stories when I couldn't sleep, who had walked hand-in-hand with me when I was a toddler just learning to navigate the world—that woman was suddenly no longer there. She simply... ceased to exist as a coherent being.
Instead, there was only a grotesque mess. Fragments of flesh and bone and tissue. Blood splattered across every surface—pooling on the ground, streaking down the walls, even speckling the ceiling in a macabre pattern. Gone. Utterly and completely gone, reduced to scattered pieces that bore no resemblance to the person they had been moments before.
I felt something inside me break at the sight. Something fundamental and essential that I would never be able to repair. My mind, unable to process the horror and trauma and grief of what had just happened, began retreating from reality entirely.
I was taken to an endless void—a place of nothing and nowhere, where sensation ceased and thought became impossible. I was losing everything that anchored me to reality, every connection that had defined who I was. Maybe this was all just a terrible nightmare, I tried to tell myself. A horrific dream from which I would eventually wake. Not real. It couldn't be real.
That had to be it. I was dreaming. This was just an unusually vivid nightmare, nothing more.
Martha would never have done that to me. She would never have tried to kill me. I was certain of it. Absolutely certain. The Martha I knew, the Martha who had helped raise me with such care and affection, would never have raised a weapon against me no matter what she believed or feared.
So this wasn't real. It couldn't be real.
I retreated further into that comforting delusion, into the void where nothing could hurt me anymore, where terrible truths couldn't reach me. Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard Aiona calling my name, thought I felt her trying to pull me back to awareness.
But I didn't want to go back. Reality was too painful, too broken, too impossible to face.
So I let the darkness take me completely, embracing the void and the numbness it offered, and allowed myself to believe the lie that none of this had actually happened.