I drifted in and out of consciousness, suspended somewhere between true wakefulness and falling into some impossibly deep, dark place of unconsciousness. I had completely lost all sense of time—no longer knew if minutes or hours or days were passing. I had no clear awareness of where I was physically located. I didn't even feel properly alive anymore. The sensation was strange, detached, as though I was observing my own existence from a great distance. Sometimes it felt like an endless abyss was slowly consuming me, swallowing me piece by piece into nothingness.
One time when I managed to claw my way back toward consciousness, I found myself cradled in Aiona's arms. I was surrounded by shimmering golden healing magic that flowed toward me in visible waves, being absorbed into my damaged body with each pulse. Aiona held me protectively, almost possessively, her arms forming a secure cocoon around my broken form. Her expression was difficult to read—something complex mixing concern with determination with something else I couldn't quite identify.
But what struck me most powerfully was that her domain felt fundamentally different from every other time I had visited. The violent, brilliant southern sun that had always greeted me with overwhelming brightness had completely disappeared behind thick banks of gray clouds. And it was raining—not a gentle drizzle but a heavy, relentless downpour that seemed to express some profound grief or anger.
Despite the deluge, we hadn't gotten soaked. Aiona's magic had materialized as a shimmering translucent shield above us, an umbrella of pure power that protected us from the rain while allowing me to hear its rhythmic drumming against the magical barrier.
"Are you sad?" I asked Aiona, my voice emerging weak and threadbare. The question seemed important somehow, though I couldn't fully articulate why.
She didn't answer immediately. She simply continued pouring her healing magic into me, her face maintaining that unreadable expression. The silence stretched between us, filled only by the sound of rain and the gentle hum of magic at work.
"You know," I continued, needing to say this even if she wouldn't respond, "even if I could go back in time with full knowledge of everything that was going to happen to me, with complete awareness of all the pain and betrayal and suffering... I would still choose to do exactly what I did. I would still save them. The choice wouldn't change."
I felt myself beginning to slip away again, consciousness fragmenting as my tenuous grip on awareness loosened. But just before I lost consciousness entirely, I heard Aiona mutter a single word, so quietly I almost missed it: "Stupid."
The word might have been an insult, but somehow it sounded almost affectionate.
---
The next time I managed to gain consciousness, I found myself in Arvid's arms instead. He held me carefully, as though I might shatter if he gripped too tightly. We were somewhere else—not my bedchamber in Draga but some other room I didn't immediately recognize. His eyes were hollow and haunted, with pronounced dark circles beneath them that indicated he hadn't experienced proper sleep in quite some time. Days, perhaps. Maybe longer.
Most strikingly, he had positioned his sword within easy reach—actually embedded in the mattress beside us, the blade thrust through the fabric so the handle remained upright and ready to be seized at a moment's notice. The positioning spoke of paranoia, of expecting attack at any moment, of being prepared to defend against threats even in what should have been a safe space.
Then I lost consciousness again, slipping back into that dark void before I could even attempt to speak to him.
---
After that, awareness became even more fragmentary and disconnected. All I could perceive were sounds—disembodied voices speaking words I couldn't quite grasp in their entirety, partial conversations that reached me as though from a great distance or through deep water.
"...It's a dagger embedded with dragon fire," a voice was saying—male, older, speaking with the authority of someone accustomed to delivering difficult diagnoses. "I thought such things were merely artifacts from the mythical age, stories told to children. To discover that something like that actually exists, and that it was used in such a manner... The wounds it creates are unfortunately incurable by conventional means. That she's survived at all is nothing short of miraculous..."
"...If I have to, I'll do it," another voice declared with fierce determination—Arvid's voice, I realized after a moment. "No matter what it takes. Whatever price must be paid, whatever sacrifice must be made. I don't care about the cost."
"...She must survive..." This voice was different again—female, perhaps Sara, difficult to determine in my disconnected state. "After everything she's done, everything she's sacrificed for us... she has to survive this. She has to."
The fragments of conversation swirled around me without fully cohering into meaning, and then even those sounds faded away as I sank deeper into unconsciousness.
---
After floating in that endless void for what might have been hours or days or weeks—time having completely lost all meaning—I suddenly found myself waking in a completely different location. I was lying on a stone altar before an enormous statue of Rulha, positioned in what I recognized as the ancient temple built into Mount Serana. I couldn't speak or move my physical body at all, but through some strange doubled vision, I could see Arvid kneeling in prayer before the statue. His head was bowed, his hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. His lips moved in what appeared to be desperate supplication.
Then I blinked, and I was suddenly in Aiona's domain again. She too was kneeling in the grass—this proud, ancient dragon who had once ruled as one of the most powerful beings in existence, brought to her knees in prayer. Her head was bowed, her expression one of fierce concentration as she directed her plea toward whatever powers might be listening.
Another blink, and I found myself somewhere else entirely. Somewhere I had never been before, in any of my previous fragmentary awakenings. I was standing at the very edge of a cliff that overlooked the world spreading out below in a breathtaking panorama. The view was absolutely stunning—vast and wild and impossibly beautiful. But something about the landscape below felt wrong in a way I couldn't quite articulate. It felt ancient, prehistoric, primordial. Like something I wasn't supposed to be witnessing, a vista from an age long before human civilization, before even the age of dragons perhaps.
"Aren't you a loved one?" A voice spoke from behind me—deep, masculine, carrying that distinctive quality of inhumanity that marked it as belonging to something far beyond mortal existence.
I turned around slowly, my movements feeling dreamlike and disconnected.
A man stood behind me, though "man" was perhaps not quite the accurate term. He had long black hair that fell past his shoulders in a straight cascade, and eyes so dark they seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. His torso was bare, revealing a physique that suggested immense power held in perfect control. Below the waist, only a small piece of cloth barely preserved his modesty, though I got the distinct impression he wouldn't have cared in the slightest if he had been completely naked. That arrogant expression, that bearing of absolute confidence and authority—I recognized him immediately despite having seen him only once before in that prophetic dream.
Rulha. The ancestral god. The only dragon to achieve true divinity.
"We meet again, my mate's kin," he said, his voice carrying easily despite not being particularly loud. He walked over to stand beside me, turning his attention to the view that his domain provided.
"You are indeed a loved one," he repeated, as though confirming an observation he had made to himself. "You have a man who doesn't believe in gods—who has never prayed before in his entire life—kneeling before my altar and begging for your survival. And you have a dragon who has spent centuries loathing humankind, who swore never to involve herself with mortal affairs again, also offering prayers on your behalf to me. That is quite remarkable, you understand. The devotion you inspire in such unlikely sources."
I looked around frantically, searching for any sign of Aiona or Arvid, but the cliff edge remained empty except for Rulha and myself. Wherever this place was, we were alone.
"Where am I?" I managed to ask, the words emerging with considerable difficulty, as though my throat had forgotten how to form speech.
"In my domain," Rulha answered matter-of-factly, gesturing to encompass the ancient landscape stretching before us. "This is my preferred vantage point, the view I have treasured since before your kind learned to walk upright."
Ah, I thought distantly. So this impossibly ancient vista was this god's favorite place to observe existence.
"Tell me, child," Rulha said, turning to face me directly, his dark eyes boring into mine with uncomfortable intensity. "Do you actually want to be cured? You should understand that you are far closer to death than to life at this point. The balance has tipped decidedly toward oblivion. If you choose life—if you cling to existence—you are choosing a cursed path. You are choosing to face the inevitable transformation that awaits you, to become something that will frighten and alienate those around you. Isn't it perhaps better, wiser even, to simply die quietly before that transformation completes itself? To spare yourself and others what is coming?"
The question should have horrified me, should have sparked immediate fierce denial. But I found myself considering it with strange detachment, as though he were asking about someone else's fate rather than my own.
"I don't know," I answered with complete honesty. "I genuinely don't know if I want to live or die. I don't particularly care either way at this point. I'm so tired, and everything hurts, and the thought of simply ceasing to exist has a certain appeal. Yet... if I were to die now, they would be alone. Arvid and Aiona would be left without me. And I want—I need—to at least say goodbye to them properly. To tell them what they mean to me. To ensure they understand that none of this was their fault."
Rulha studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then something that might have been approval flickered across his features.
"You don't possess a strong enough will to live for yourself," he observed. "You have no burning desire to see tomorrow for your own sake. Yet I will grant you life anyway, for one specific reason."
He turned toward me fully, his presence suddenly more overwhelming, more divine, carrying the weight of godhood in a way that made breathing difficult.
"You will start the next dynasty of dragons," he declared, as though pronouncing a fate that could not be altered or escaped. "You will become the mother of the new age of dragonkind. For that purpose, for that destiny, I will give you life. Because I very much want to see the shocked faces of humans when they look up and see dragons flying over them again after so many centuries of absence. Humans are such fickle beings, you see. So convinced of their superiority, of their dominion over the world. I greatly look forward to seeing what they come up with to try to climb back to the top of the hierarchy once they're no longer the apex predators. It will be most entertaining."
As he spoke, a ball of brilliant red light began manifesting in his palms—power made visible, concentrated divine energy that pulsed with barely contained potency. He allowed it to float free from his hands, drifting slowly toward me like a soap bubble on a breeze.
"Accept it, child," Rulha instructed. "When you do, you will wake from this death-sleep in four moon cycles. Your body will need that time to fully heal, to integrate what I'm giving you. But you will live."
Four months. Four months of unconsciousness while my body repaired itself. Four months during which Arvid and Aiona would have to simply wait and hope and trust that I would eventually return to them.
But I wanted to see Arvid again. I desperately wanted to see Aiona. I wanted the chance to tell them both that I loved them, that they mattered, that they shouldn't blame themselves for what had happened.
So I nodded my acceptance, and the ball of light embedded itself into my chest. I felt it being absorbed into me, becoming part of my fundamental essence. Power flowed through me like molten gold, burning and healing simultaneously.
Then I was abruptly pulled out of Rulha's domain, consciousness snapping back toward the physical world. I found myself once again on that stone altar in the temple of Mount Serana.
Arvid was still kneeling in prayer, apparently not having moved from that position. His devotion was absolute, his focus entirely on his desperate plea to a god he had never believed in before this moment.
I wanted desperately to speak to him, to let him know I was going to be okay, to tell him to rest and take care of himself. But when I opened my mouth, no words emerged. My voice had been temporarily stolen by whatever process Rulha had initiated.
But by pure chance, Arvid raised his head at that moment and saw my open eyes looking at him.
"Rhia!" he shouted, his voice cracking with emotion. He tried to stand quickly, but his legs—weakened from kneeling for what must have been hours or days—gave out beneath him and he fell. But he scrambled immediately back to his feet with pure determination, ignoring whatever pain the fall had caused, and began running toward the altar where I lay.
But just as he reached me, just as his hand was extending to touch my face, my eyes closed shut again against my will. Consciousness was stolen away once more as Rulha's magic began its work of transformation and healing.
---
I started floating in that void again, but this time the experience felt fundamentally different. I wasn't simply drifting toward oblivion anymore. Instead, I could feel myself healing—slowly but surely, methodically, my body being rebuilt piece by piece. The process was gradual but inexorable, like watching a flower bloom in extreme slow motion.
Sometimes during those long periods of healing sleep, I heard noises filtering through from the outside world—fragments of conversations, sounds of activity, evidence that life was continuing around my unconscious form.
"...She did everything she possibly could for all of you!" a voice was saying with barely controlled fury—Arvid's voice, I recognized after a moment, though I had never heard him sound quite this angry before. "She nearly died saving your lives, and this is how you repay your queen? This is the gratitude you show? The monsters of this world weren't born that way—they were made by people like you, by betrayal and cruelty and fear masquerading as righteousness. I will make absolutely certain that you never see her again. You've forfeited that right forever."
Who was he talking to? Who had earned such wrath? I couldn't quite grasp the context, couldn't hold onto consciousness long enough to make sense of what I was hearing.
---
The next time I woke—truly woke, fully healed—I was greeted by the warm golden rays of evening sunlight streaming through windows I didn't recognize. The light was gentle, soothing, painting everything in amber and honey tones. A pleasant breeze drifted through the space, carrying the scent of unfamiliar flowers and something vaguely spicy.
The place where I found myself was entirely unfamiliar. To my left, I could see three elegant arched doorways, each adorned with white transparent curtains that swayed gently in the breeze like dancers performing a slow, graceful ballet. The architectural style was distinctly foreign to what I knew from Draga or Gorei. Large pottery vessels in the Southern style were positioned by what appeared to be an open balcony—beautiful pieces decorated with intricate geometric patterns. These pots housed a variety of plants with vivid colored leaves—deep purples and bright greens and sunset oranges—that also swayed in the wind, adding movement and life to the space.
The bed I was lying in was enormous, far larger than necessary for a single person. It was laden with numerous pillows of varying sizes and covered with blankets made from thin, breathable cotton—the kind used in warm climates where heavy blankets would be oppressive. That detail, combined with the architectural style and the quality of light and air, told me I was definitely in a warm region. This was clearly not Draga with its cold winters. Not Gorei with its harsh northern climate. But then where was I?
The large double doors to my right side suddenly opened, and the person who entered would provide the answer to that question.