With less than a second’s hindsight I could see that I’d overreacted. I was a big, scary murderlizard, known to be able to casually wipe out half a company of hardened mercenaries. I’d just plunged the chamber into darkness, and I’d implicitly threatened a member of the Council — there really wasn’t any other way to interpret my tone and my posture. And I didn’t know why I’d done that, exactly, but I could see why people would be upset.

  Time enough to think about reasons later. What was done was done. The Council’s guards were looking twitchy, and while I suspected that Mak might be able to at least hold off one of them, there were seven.

  On the bright side, the lord hierophant was staring at me with his dumb face slack, mouth hanging open and eyes wide with genuine, beautiful fear. Unfortunately his continued survival seemed to convince him of his own righteousness, because he started screaming again. “Oh, I told you. Look at the beast. Blah, blah,” on and on.

  I wasn’t really listening. I was busy deciding if my little mistake would force me to radically restructure the Council.

  I wasn’t mortally worried for myself or Mak, but I also didn’t want to lose everything we’d worked so hard for. Going for the lord hierophant was risky. Much riskier than I was comfortable with, if I had a choice. And the guards weren’t advancing. Despite the screeching of the idiot on the platform, nothing was currently happening. So instead of letting Instinct take the reins — and she wanted to, oh so badly — I tried using my words.

  “Think carefully about what you say,” I growled into the excellent acoustics of the chamber, easily drowning the fool out. “I’m only here because you decided to piss on your own honor and refuse to pay me what you owe. And now that I’ve given you proof, you’re trying to worm your way out again.”

  I lowered my voice. The chamber was silent. The lord hierophant’s mouth was still moving, and the lady admiral was also speaking, but the lord speaker must have activated whatever sound screening enchantment they had on the platform. I wondered if that was only for my benefit, so that I wouldn’t be further enraged by Nahasia’s words, while they plotted against me, or if the enchantment could screen them from each other as well.

  “If honesty and common decency isn’t enough to hold you to your agreements, then how about this: Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flames is my mother. She is very concerned about my wellbeing, and how I’m being treated by the humans of this island. She was quite furious about the scars I bear, but I have convinced her that I care for this city and, temporarily, not to reduce it to slag.”

  Ah, I thought, that got them to listen. None of the councilors were speaking anymore. They all sat very still, observing me angrily, anxiously, or, in the cases of Sempralia and Lord Commander Barvon, carefully.

  I made a show of folding my wings and settling back down. The darkness, though, stayed. “I am quite happy to keep to our agreement, and do my best to get my mother to return home. All I’m asking is that you do the same, and pay me what I’m owed.”

  It took some time before the councilors began speaking among themselves again. After a very short exchange the lord speaker cleared his throat, and said, “Lord Exchequer Soandel has called for a vote on the subject of paying Lady Draka the two pounds of gold she is owed as per the agreement between her and this Council.”

  I returned to the inn feeling quite good about myself. Mak rode in a palanquin, carrying the bag with our gold. I flew above, ready to visit hell on anyone who so much as delayed her.

  Only Lord Hierophant Nahasia had voted against paying me. None of the others had so much as hesitated to vote for, though Sempralia had given me an inscrutable look and sent Kalder to arrange a meeting for the following morning as we left.

  I would have preferred not to bring up my relationship to Reaper, but once I slipped up, escalating seemed like the best way to de-escalate. It had worked beautifully, at least in the moment; I just had to hope that it didn’t cause a bunch of new, interesting problems long term. I could easily imagine someone trying to control Reaper through me, and me through my humans. It would be a terrible idea. It would end in blood and fire. But the world was full of idiots, and some of them inevitably managed to gather enough power to be dangerous, or at least annoying.

  They made their first attempt before I left the chamber, with the lady admiral asking if there was any way to bring my mother into the war on Karakan’s side. I told them that she didn’t bother herself with human affairs, and that they should thank the Mercies for that.

  The way home was peaceful. No one was unfortunate enough to attack Mak’s palanquin, and we made it back to the inn without issue. Mak didn’t even bother to change out of her fine clothes, instead rushing to the cellar to open up and let me in.

  As good as I felt, I hadn’t entirely been looking forward to this moment. Mak had barely spoken to me as we left, only suggesting that we wait until we were in private whenever I tried to start a conversation, and I could only guess that some combination of my magic’s effects on her was making it hard for her to talk. She must have used that palanquin ride to gather herself; when I faced her in the cellar she was wearing a sickly smile, and the first words out of her mouth were, “I think that might have been better handled differently.”

  No accusations. No suggestion that I’d made a royal mess of things. Just a suggestion that there might have been a better way to handle the situation.

  Coming from Mak, she might as well have slapped me and screamed in my face.

  “I’m not sure why I reacted like that,” I admitted.

  “What happened?” asked Tam, who stood a few steps back. He must have seen Mak come home and followed her down.

  “I lost my temper,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant about it.

  “You lost your temper?” He thought about it, looking at me, then his eyes widened. “During the open session?”

  “Not as such…”

  “Draka. Please?”

  I sighed. “Me and Mak had a private session with the Council afterward, and I shouted down the lord hierophant. There may have been some implied threats.”

  “Oh, no.” Tam blanched. Taking an unsteady step back, he sat down heavily on the bench closest to the stairs.

  “Then I told them that Reaper is my mother, and that she’ll probably take a dim view of them trying to mess with me.”

  “Oh, gods and Mercies.” Tam leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. “And then?”

  “And then they paid us the two pounds of gold that they owed, and sent us on our way.”

  Tam’s eyes slowly opened, and he seemed to take in the bag Mak was holding for the first time. She shook it helpfully, filling the room with the delightful sound of gold on gold.

  “So you didn’t have to flee? Mak, that’s not why you ran down the stairs to let her in?”

  “No,” Mak said. “No, that’s not why. But I’m worried that they might overreact. The lord hierophant especially. And Draka can’t stay.”

  I made some noises of disagreement, but we both knew that she was right. I needed to take my new treasure to my hoard, and then I needed to get back to Herald and my mother.

  As though she’d read my mind — she did that more and more often — Mak continued. “Before you go, I think we should talk about your reaction.”

  She got no argument from me. “Probably should, yeah. It caught me by surprise as much as you.”

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  “I know. It was disturbing to feel. And you don’t know why?”

  “I have ideas.”

  “Mind telling me exactly what happened?” Tam asked from his bench.

  Mak obliged. “The lord hierophant insulted both Draka and her mother.”

  “Makes sense it would be him, considering the history of dragons. Still, that’s stupid. They should know by now how proud Draka is. And I say that with all affection, dear sister of mine,” he added, with a nod to me.

  “Yeah, no dramas. But it wasn’t the insult to me that set me off. He called Reaper a ‘vile creature,’ and I just snapped. I was already annoyed before he spoke, but once those words left his mouth I was about ready to leap up there to start ripping! I mean, I reined myself in, but the damage was done. Nahasia started screaming about how I’d shown my true nature, and how they should drive me from the city, and so on. So I shut him up. I told them who Reaper is to me, and they chose to believe me.”

  Mak, again, shook the bag of gold.

  “All right. Time will tell how bad this is. But it was the insult to your mother that set you off. Why? I got the impression that you don’t have much of a relationship.”

  “Right. That’s why I’m so confused, myself.”

  “Could it be…” Tam glanced at Mak, then back to me, and licked his lips silently before speaking. “Listen, like I said, I know that you’re proud.”

  “Right, that’s fair.”

  “But Reaper, she’s your mother. More importantly perhaps, she’s far bigger, older, and more powerful than you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lots of Advancements, too, no doubt.”

  “Bet on it.”

  “So, I can’t help but think about how Herald acted after first meeting you. How angry she got at Mak for suggesting she was getting obsessed. And there’s, well, Mak.” He looked sadly at his sister. “And Ardek, and Kira, and others, too. You have an effect on people. What’s to say Reaper doesn’t, too?”

  “That’s—” My objection died in my mouth. It was what? Ridiculous? Impossible? I’d never been immune to Advancements that messed with my head. Ardek, Zabra, and Kesra, they all affected me, and two of those were under my sway. As far as I could tell I might, in the best case, be more resistant than others, similar to how it was harder for Kira to affect me with her healing than when she did it to a human. There was nothing to say that I’d be any more resistant to Reaper, if she had anything similar.

  She might not even need an Advancement. Tam was right: Reaper was an old, massive dragon. She’d terrified me to the point of freezing and cowering before her. That might be enough to start affecting me. I’d never used my shadows to break Ardek or Kira, but they still belonged to me beyond any shadow of a doubt. What was there to say one dragon couldn’t do the same to another?

  Would I even know?

  “Will you bring her home?”

  Tam asked me that before I left. I promised him that I’d try, but I made it clear that it depended on Herald, and that I wouldn’t put it past her to maneuver me into letting her stay at the library. Then he dropped the real bombshell:

  “We’d really appreciate it. It’s three days until the solstice, you know? And tomorrow’s her birthday. We could have a nice dinner or something, as a warm up.”

  I froze, completely blindsided. I hadn’t been keeping track of anyone’s birthdays — I’d never missed anyone’s birthday when I was still human! And the off-hand way that he mentioned it, like it didn’t really matter? It was Herald’s birthday, for Mercies’ sake!

  My conversation with Tam went on another ten minutes or so after that. Val got involved. Then I flew north, returning to my lair and my hoard and eating myself alive over what a horrid excuse for a friend I was. At least with Tam’s help I had a plan, but it still gnawed that I hadn’t known.

  The scent of gold — of earth and fire and of others bending to my will — helped my mood a little. It wafted from the bag I held, which contained the Council’s payment. Mak had insisted I take it all, and that the inn’s coffers were full enough as it was. Along with that was what the Tesprils had been able to spare, what we’d taken from the South Docks Gang, and some other minor income that Kira, among others, had insisted I take. All in all, it was in the range of a hundred and eighty to ninety golden dragons, an absolutely massive amount, and I had no doubt that I could look forward to crossing a minor threshold.

  Come to think of it, Mak had probably had the same idea. She’d been far too excited about losing out on eighty dragons. But it made a lot more sense if she expected me to pick up a minor Advancement, which I would then share with her through our bond.

  I snorted to myself as I flew. She could have just said so! I wouldn’t even mind discussing my choices with her. While something like Acid Spit would be useful, I’d rather pick something that would benefit us both. She was an extension of my strength, after all. I’d have to remember that for next time.

  Although… Mak with the ability to spit acid might be interesting.

  I skipped Jekrie and the village. During the days I’d waited with Herald, I’d talked to them about Scholar Ramban coming to explore the tunnels, and they’d promised to accommodate him and whoever came with him. The news that my mother might come sniffing around had been a shock, but they’d promised to follow my instructions if she ever engaged with them: treat her like a goddamn goddess, and everything would be fine. They swore enthusiastically that they would. And while it would have been nice to check on them, I wanted very badly to get the gold to my hoard as soon as draconically possible.

  The ledge and the cave were much as they’d always been. The lonely little tree still grew, despite being an inch under water. The pile of dry firewood still sat at the back of the entrance, next to the heap of coal and ashes ringed by stones where Herald sometimes made a fire to dry her clothes, make tea, or roast whatever meat I’d brought. A small bird of some kind, probably a swallow and braver than I’d ever be, swooped at me a few times as I entered. It had made a nest in the ceiling in the few days I’d been away. Seemed like the wrong time of the year, but I didn’t know much about birds.

  My nest and my hoard were as lovely as I’d left them. The bag I carried smelled of gold, but, in the large bulging passage that I used for my nest, the air was absolutely saturated with the scents of both gold and silver. As soon as I got close I was immediately more at ease. My worries didn’t vanish, but they shrank and became more manageable when faced with the evidence of my achievements. Here, the nodules of native silver that I’d taken from the gremlins, on the day that I first met — and rescued — Herald, Mak, and Val. There, the pile of silverware and candlesticks and other simple valuables that I’d taken as my just reward for killing Melkasson, the bandit leader. Leaning against a pillar was Avjilan’s bow, which I certainly deserved for letting the man live even though I’d had no idea he might be useful to me. And, of course, the mat of gold and silver coins.

  I was going to need that. I had a lot of gold in my bag, and I was looking forward to a serious growth spurt.

  I decided to be smart about it. This time, instead of dumping everything on the hoard and then collapsing like a drunk playing with a stun gun, I settled in comfortably. Only then did I open the bag and slowly pour out the coins inside.

  On a whim I let them fall in a jingling stream over my head. They were cold and smooth and perfect, and I was far too tough for them to hurt.

  I was not too tough for the pain that followed. It was immediate and ramped up quickly. And that was just from the physical growth that the addition to my hoard brought on — on top of that was the expected passing of a threshold, and the equally immediate demand that I choose an Advancement, now and without delay, lest I be punished by further pain and nausea.

  My options were clear to me, as they had been ever since I became me, when dragon and human merged. Instinct was deeply invested in me taking Physical Greatness, which was always there, always tempting me with sheer size and strength. And stupidity, according to Mother. I chose to trust her on this and kept ignoring it, despite Instinct’s pleading. Then there was Cunning, for plotting and scheming and seeing through the schemes or others. Also tempting, and without any drawbacks. It would certainly be useful to Mak, as well. Third was Grace, for greater ease of movement in the air, on land, or in the water. That was my current favorite. I loved flying already, I wanted to be able to swim, and with how big I was getting, some extra agility on the ground would be welcome. And Mak already moved like a dancer. She already had her own version of the Advancement. What would a double dose do?

  Fourth was Acid Spit. An undeniably powerful combat ability, and with other uses, too — the weird pseudo-memory that told me what it did had images of both stone and metal fizzing away given a large enough dose and enough time. But while no one would expect Mak to be able to spit acid, I wasn’t quite dragon enough to be comfortable with the idea of melting another living being. It was probably inconsistent, considering how I’d made some of my kills — a certain head-tearing incident came to mind — but the ick-factor was just too great for my human side. The fact that Conscience didn’t threaten me with constant noise and headaches told me that she agreed.

  It’d make for one hell of a deterrent, too, my most draconic parts whispered. Worth thinking on.

  Finally, there was the new option: Kin-sense. With it, I’d always be able to find my living kin, no matter where they were in the world. As far as I understood it, that included all my blood relations; my mother, certainly, and I suspected that I might have quite a few half-brothers and sisters out there. But it wouldn’t do much for my humans. I wasn’t even sure if it would let Mak find Tam and Herald, or if it was dragons only. So: useful, but not nearly enough for me to choose it.

  No, I went with Grace, as I’d planned. Before the growing pains became too great, I felt muscle and tendons shift, a tingle at the end of my tail, and something happening in my wings. Then the growth really started.

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