The pain was intense, but my anger was worse.

  I collapsed to my knees, glaring at the man who stood over me. Five years. Five years of waiting to fully awaken as a dragon, to be able to transform, to have it all taken away in a few minutes. I had envisioned this moment countless times, but never like this. Not with my body broken, my body reverting to a weak human, and my vengeance slipping away like sand through my fingers. The cold steel of the prince’s blade dripped with my blood, its glint catching in the firelight. My breathing was ragged, each inhale a battle, each exhale carrying the bitter taste of failure.

  The second evil dragon. That’s what they had called me.

  And they weren’t wrong. I was more than willing to burn the entire world to the ground, if it meant destroying the world that had killed my mother. That had taken her away from me because an entitled man thought it his right to take her life. I would not, could not forgive a world that had done that to me. To her.

  The prince looked down at me, his expression unreadable, but his eyes—those cursed, sorrowful eyes—burned into me like a brand. I hated that look. Hated the pity in it. Hated the way it mirrored the helplessness I had felt the night my mother died. His grip on his sword was tight, knuckles white, but his stance wavered, as if some part of him regretted what he had done.

  I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care about his hesitation or the grief I saw in the crown princess’s face as she knelt beside me. I didn’t care about the way she reached out, as if she could comfort me, as if she thought I deserved comfort. Just as I hadn’t care about all the people I had killed, all of the villages and towns I had razed to the ground. I had planned to work my way throughout the empire of Naera, to completely destroy the system that had allowed my mother to be taken.

  Even now, I wanted to spit in her face, to curse her and the prince for stopping me before I could even kill the man responsible for my mother’s death. If I had been able to at least kill him, I would have died with some semblance of peace. But no—fate, cruel and merciless, had denied me even that. My vision blurred, whether from blood loss or sheer fury, I couldn't tell. The warmth of my own lifeblood pooled beneath me, soaking into the scorched earth. My body trembled, not in fear, but in frustration so overwhelming it nearly drowned out the pain.

  Five years. Five years of suppressing my rage, of clawing my way toward this moment, and it was all for nothing. Five years of biting my tongue, of waiting, of enduring the agony of being too weak, too human to do anything. Five years of lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, imagining the moment I would tear his throat out with my own fangs. I had sacrificed everything—my humanity, my name, my soul—to see him die by my hand. And yet, here I was, crumpled at the feet of a man who didn't even have the decency to look triumphant.

  The princess’s fingers brushed against my hair, a whisper of touch so gentle, so achingly familiar, that my breath caught. The warmth of a soft hand, the quiet comfort of a motherly presence—I had forgotten what it felt like. My chest tightened, the years of hatred warring with something softer, something I had buried beneath the weight of vengeance. The tears came unbidden, hot and bitter, slipping down my face as I closed my eyes. Not because I wanted to, not because I accepted this, but because the weight of it all—the pain, the exhaustion, the loss—was too much.

  My mother.

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  If I only could have just seen her one more time. If I could have held her hand, heard her voice, told her I loved her before she was stolen from me. I could feel the chill creeping in, the cold darkness of death overtaking me, but all I could think about was her. I wished I could see her smile again, to hear her call my name with the same warmth she always had, to feel the safety of her arms around me, even just once more.

  Just as the chill seemed to seep deep into my chest, I felt a gentle warmth on my face, like sunshine that breaks through the storm. A part of me wanted to turn away from that warmth, to claw my way back to the battlefield, to force the world to atone for what it had done to me. But it was then that I heard a soft voice, a voice filled with sorrow that I had not heard in years.

  “Cyran. It’s time, sweetheart.”

  I knew that voice. I knew it better than my own heartbeat and my breath hitched as I squeezed my eyes tighter. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I felt her hand in my hair, gently stroking the strands like she used to. Had my mother been waiting for me in the afterlife? Had I known that, I would have allowed myself to be killed sooner.

  “I know it’s hard, sweetie, but… we have to let him go.”

  I could hear the tears in my mother’s voice, and the warmth on my face lessened as I heard someone moving near me. My mother… was never the type of woman to cry and I had only ever seen her cry once.

  At my father’s funeral.

  I finally chanced opening my eyes, and the world around me blurred and shifted. The battlefield was gone. The scent of blood and fire, the weight of my broken body—everything vanished, replaced by something impossibly familiar. My breath caught as I found myself staring into my mother’s tear-filled eyes.

  She was kneeling before me, wearing the same threadbare dress she had worn to my father’s funeral, the fabric clinging to her as if it, too, carried the sorrow of that day. Her hair was pulled back in the same hurried bun she always did when she had too much to do, and her hands trembled as she reached out to me.

  I couldn’t move.

  It had to be a dream. Some final cruel twist of fate before death claimed me entirely. But if it was a dream, then I never wanted it to end. Before I could stop myself, I threw myself into my mother’s arms and it was then I realized I was smaller. I had been a few years into adulthood when I finally became a full dragon, and yet the arms that clung to my mother’s neck were small and weak, nothing like the hands that had wielded destruction. My legs barely reached the ground as I pressed my face into her shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of her—of home, of warmth, of safety. My breath hitched, and I clung to her tighter, as if she might vanish the moment I loosened my grip. My body shook with deep, ragged sobs, the kind I hadn’t allowed myself in years.

  She was real. She was here.

  “Mom,” I choked out, the word barely more than a whisper.Her arms tightened around me, and I felt her hand stroke my hair, the same way she had done when I was a child afraid of nightmares. I let myself sink into the sensation, the warmth of her embrace, the steady rhythm of her breathing. My chest ached, my heart pounding against my ribs as if trying to escape the impossible.

  “Honey,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. “I know. I know sweetie. I miss him too.”

  The way my mother’s voice cracked broke my heart and I clung to her tighter. I hadn’t understood back then, but this time, I understood the grief she was feeling. The grief of losing someone who was your entire world, the person who had been your anchor, your reason to keep moving forward. The grief that hollowed you out, leaving nothing but an aching wound that never truly healed.

  My mother’s fingers trembled as she stroked my hair, and for the first time in years, I felt like a child again—not the monstrous thing that had burned cities, not the second evil dragon that the world had cursed, but simply a boy who had lost too much. I wanted to tell her everything, to spill out all of the rage, the pain, the emptiness I had felt since she had been taken from me. I wanted to tell her how much it had hurt, how much I had hated the world that had stolen her. I wanted her to understand that I had never stopped thinking about her, that every flame I had set was for her, for the justice that I had never been given.

  But all I could do was sob into her shoulder.