Chapter 94

Chapter 94
Kate’s POV

I can’t run faster than a dragon that size. His claws are bigger than half my body. And yet, I run. I clutch the skirts of my dress tightly, feeling the thin fabric slip between my fingers, and charge across the clearing as if I’m pushing through a nightmare that insists on materializing with every step.
The trail he leaves behind is a dense, almost tangible substance—a black mist spreading along the ground and rising in trembling spirals, like smoke too heavy to dissipate. As I push through that darkness, my breathing turns labored. Still, I keep going.
“Dan!” My voice tears at my throat. “Wait, please!”
He doesn’t slow down. His colossal body slices through the air with unintentional violence until we reach the trees. Branches crack beneath the weight of his paws, the ground trembles with every stride, and his black scales reflect distorted fragments of the little light that remains. There’s something desperate in the way he moves, as if fleeing is the only possible action, as if staying would mean shattering.
“Dan!” I shout again, feeling his name vibrate in my chest like a prayer.
Nothing.
He keeps running, and for a moment, the image the Queen built tries to force its way into my mind: murderer, hungry shadow, devourer. The words echo with the chill of an ancient sentence. But I reject them before they can take root.
I’ve seen who he is.
I’ve felt who he is.
The memory of his hands holding mine, the way he tries to hide concern behind sarcasm, the way he stepped between me and danger without hesitation—all of it rises with enough force to crush any doubt.
He is not that.
He can’t be.
Desperation swells like high tide inside my chest, compressing my ribs, speeding up my thoughts until they almost hurt. The shadow ahead thickens, the outline of his body beginning to blur with the mist he produces, and I understand with brutal clarity that I’m about to lose sight of him. The idea is unbearable. Something inside me reacts before I can weigh the consequences.
“Stop running!”
The command explodes out of me.
All of Tir na nÓg seems to shudder beneath my feet.
The massive black dragon freezes instantly. His claws remain embedded in the earth, his tail suspended in the air as if time itself has been interrupted, and even the mist around him slows, rippling in obedient, sluggish waves. Something vibrates along the invisible bond between us, thin and powerful, like a string pulled beyond its limit.
My stomach twists.
I feel the weight of what I’ve done as intensely as I feel the ground beneath my feet. The word I used wasn’t just a desperate attempt to make him realize I’m here, to make him calm down—it was dominance.
I promised myself I would never resort to that to bend him to my will, never turn the trust he placed in me into an unbreakable chain.
But that’s what happened.
The tears come without warning, hot and plentiful, blurring my vision as I approach slowly.
“Dan, I… I didn’t mean to…” My voice falters, and I have to take a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t want to force you.”
Each step toward him is accompanied by a stab of guilt spreading through my chest.
The wingless dragon remains still, too large for that space without brushing the treetops, his silhouette carved against the Pearl Moon. When his head finally moves, the motion is slow, heavy, and his eyes meet mine.
There’s a pain there that pierces me.
He looks smaller inside his own enormity, as if all that size can’t protect him from anything.
His breath comes out in warm waves that shift my hair, but the voice that reaches me is low, almost fragile—a sound that doesn’t match the vast body producing it.
“Kate… I’m not a murderer.”
The words aren’t accompanied by anger. There’s no challenge in them—only exhaustion.
He looks away immediately after, his head turning slightly to the side as if searching for a distant point to fix on, to escape the possibility of finding judgment in my eyes. The gesture cuts through me.
“I believe you.” I keep moving forward, closing the remaining distance, keeping my hands visible, open, as if approaching a wounded animal that might startle at any sudden movement. “I will always believe you.”
My mind is in turmoil. The Queen’s accusation still reverberates, mingled with the revelation of the Nine, ancient gods who uphold the world in delicate balance.
The idea that there are nine cracks open the foundation of everything I thought I understood, and the fact that he is included in that number makes it even more vertiginous.
I can’t fit the pieces together. The wingless dragon who saved me years ago, who was deceived and captured to be sold as a collectible item, the dragon who bleeds liquid darkness… an ancient god spoken of with reverence and fear.
“I just need to understand.” My voice comes out steadier now, despite the tears. “How can you be a god. How can there be nine? And why are you here, in this world, with me, as if you were mortal too?”
He hesitates. The immense body tilts slightly toward me, as if the very command that bound him is gradually unraveling under the weight of proximity.
The shadows around him lessen, retreating like a tide pulling back to the ocean, and he takes a careful step toward me. The ground trembles, but the movement is restrained, almost reverent.
I extend my hands.
They look absurdly small in front of his snout, his curved fangs, the black, cold surface of scales that catch the Pearl Moon’s light. Still, I don’t pull back. He lowers his head slowly until the warmth of his breath envelops my fingers, and then presses his snout into my palm with a delicacy that contradicts all his size and strength.
The touch steals my breath.
The texture of his scales is smooth and firm beneath my fingers, but there is life there, pulsing—a contained energy vibrating against my skin. I slide my hand carefully, feeling the curve of his snout, the line that would lead to his broad forehead if I could reach it, and in that instant, the transformation begins.
The darkness surrounding his body withdraws like smoke sucked into an invisible point, proportions shifting, and suddenly, what stands before me is no longer a colossal dragon, but Dan.
My hands, which were touching scales, now cradle his face.
He’s still taller than me, as always, but he looks infinitely more fragile than he did in that form. His eyes shine differently, and when I notice something dark sliding down his gray skin, my heart tightens.
Tears stream down his face in thick black trails, as if the night itself had liquefied. They deepen the dark marks running along his cheekbones and drip from his chin like dense ink.
“I’m not a murderer.” He repeats it, his voice low, broken, carrying an almost desperate need to be heard.
I pull his face closer to mine, making him lean down, holding him more firmly, my thumbs resting just beneath his eyes to wipe away those tears staining my fingers.
“I know.” My answer doesn’t waver. “I know who you are.”
He closes his eyes for a second, as if those words are the only thing keeping something inside him from breaking completely. When he opens them again and looks at me, there’s still fear there, still the shadow of something too ancient to name—but there’s hope too, fragile and persistent.
“Then tell me,” I whisper, my forehead nearly touching his. “Tell me how you can be a god. Tell me why you’re here. With me.”
And as I wait for his answer, I realize what frightens me most isn’t the possibility that he is something powerful and ancient. It’s the idea that he’s been carrying all that weight alone.
Dan holds my gaze for a few more seconds, as if measuring how far he can go without shattering entirely. His breathing is still uneven, and my fingers remain stained by the dark tears I wiped from his face—a black mark against my skin like physical proof of something too vast for simple words. There’s pain there, too. There’s exhaustion. But something begins to move beneath it, a different tension, sharper.
His eyes change first.
The sadness doesn’t disappear, but it reorganizes, making space for something else. His jaw tightens beneath my hands. I feel the muscle harden, his breath grow heavier, as if a specific name has formed inside him and is now pressing to be spoken.
When he speaks, my skin prickles.
“Elyndra.”
The name doesn’t come as a broken whisper. It comes firm. Weighted. A spark of anger crosses his gaze when he repeats it, lower, almost through clenched teeth.
There’s no reverence in the way he says it. No fear. There’s history. Conflict. It sounds like something too ancient to be simple, a bond that never fully broke but never healed either.
Immediately, I remember Cindel and what she told me.
Is this what Dan has been hiding?
The light around us seems to react almost imperceptibly. The shadows withdraw a little more around his feet, as if retreating at the mere mention. Dan lifts his chin, and for an instant, there’s something in him that isn’t the dragon-man who teased me with a crooked smile whenever he had the chance, nor the wingless dragon who fled as if condemned.
It’s something vast and incomprehensible to me.
Something that feels as though it carries countless eras.
“She was the most cherished of Hraesvelgr’s creations.” His voice is controlled, but tension vibrates beneath the words. “The most adored by all the others, too. But for me…”
His fingers close lightly around my wrists, not to push me away, but as if he needs something solid to anchor himself while he speaks.
“She was my first love.” His gaze returns to mine, and now the anger almost disappears, small and contained, mixed with hurt. “They were always around her, like moths seeking light. But Elyndra’s light was the only thing they wanted, and that was enough for her; to be the center of everything, the sun, all other stars dance and spin around without rest, eternally in need of her warmth.”
His fingers remain closed around my wrists, warm and steady, as if I am the only thing keeping him from dissolving into memory. When he speaks again, his voice no longer trembles; it deepens, gaining an ancient density, heavy with a past too large for human time.
“She wanted more,” he says, and Hraesvelgr’s name follows in the air, heavy as a mountain. “Much more than being the brightest among us. Much more than being loved.”
His gaze drifts for a moment, as if seeing something far beyond the Pearl Moon, beyond Tir na nÓg, beyond anything my eyes could ever reach.
“Elyndra couldn’t stand the idea of existing beneath anyone. Not even him.” His jaw tightens again. “Hraesvelgr was the Creator. The origin. The first breath. Everything came from him, including us. And that was never enough for her.”
A different kind of chill runs down my spine.
“She wanted to surpass him,” Dan continues. “She wanted to be greater than Hraesvelgr.”
There’s something almost reverent in the way he speaks of that dragon, even now. And there’s something profoundly human in the wound threading through his voice when he speaks of Elyndra again.
“I always knew my role,” he says. “The shadow. The dark. The one who receives all the fear when newborn creatures don’t know how to name what they feel. When something went wrong in the mortal world, they looked to me.” He shrugs. “Darkness is always easier to blame.”
Dan releases my wrists but doesn’t step away. His hands slide down to hold mine more gently now.
“I loved her anyway,” he confesses, and there’s a raw honesty there that crushes my heart. “From a distance. I knew that beside her, I would always be the stain on a perfect painting.”
The image that forms in my mind hurts.
“Then… Elyndra began to draw closer to me.” His eyes return to mine, as if checking that I’m still here, still listening. “She said she admired me, that she never understood why I kept my distance… that she saw something in me the others didn’t.” A brief, almost disbelieving smile crosses his face. “She courted me. And let herself be courted.”
I can imagine it with terrifying clarity. Light and shadow intertwined. The impossible happening.
“That didn’t please Fenrathis. He had been courting her for ages,” Dan continues. “Even when she gave him no real hope. He believed that with enough time, she would yield. When she turned her eyes to me… he saw it as an affront.” His breathing slows. “He confronted me.” Dan’s eyes darken. “And then he tried to kill me.”
My heart races.
“I didn’t want to fight.” His voice gains a roughness that wasn’t there before. “But I couldn’t simply accept death to preserve his pride.” His hands tighten around mine slightly. “I defended myself. My shadows… reacted.” He closes his eyes for a second. “They went beyond what I intended. They wrapped around him. Entered his scales, his lungs, his heart.” His throat moves as he swallows. “When I realized it, Fenrathis was already dead.”
I feel his fingers tremble against mine.
“Elyndra said she would help me.” His gaze hardens when he says her name again. “She said she would extract my shadows from his body. That she would hide any trace that could incriminate me.” He inhales deeply. “I trusted her.”
Those three words carry more pain than anything else he’s said so far.
“She removed the shadows from Fenrathis’s corpse. But she didn’t destroy them. She didn’t hide them anywhere.” His eyes grow distant again. My chest tightens before he even finishes. “While Hraesvelgr was resting, she used them to infect him.” His voice turns colder. “That must have been what she wanted from the beginning… And he fell ill quickly. None of us understood how such a thing was possible.” Dan’s breath falters for a moment. “Then she said she knew how to save him, and that for that, she needed his Secret Name. That only with it could she extract the poison.” His mouth twists bitterly. “And he… trusted her.”
“When Hraesvelgr gave his Secret Name to Elyndra,” Dan’s eyes now burn—not with tears, but with ancient, controlled fury, “she killed him, then summoned the others to witness the thing that had prevented her from curing him. And that thing was my shadows. She declared that I had poisoned them both. That my shadows were pure corruption. That I had been consumed by envy and hatred.” His voice doesn’t rise; it lowers, more dangerous. “The others believed her.”
I can see the scene forming: ancient gods gathered, light accusing shadow.
“They hunted me,” Dan continues. “And when they finally captured me, they tore out my wings.” An empty smile appears at the corner of his mouth. “Because death would have been too simple.”
My throat closes.
“They cast me into the mortal world.” His gaze returns to mine, deep and exhausted. “I was forgotten.”
The words don’t sink gently into my ears.
It feels as if the ground has dropped a few inches, and my body hasn’t yet decided whether to fall. It’s too much information. Too many names. Too many deaths. Gods betraying gods. Light using shadow as poison. The Creator—whom I didn’t even know existed—speaking his own Secret Name to the one he believed was his most faithful daughter.
My head spins.
I try to arrange the pieces, but they don’t fit—they overlap, collide, shatter. Fenrathis is dead. Hraesvelgr was betrayed. Elyndra deceiving and emerging victorious. And Dan… Dan believing. Twice.
My chest aches physically now, because I can see exactly where he broke. It wasn’t when they tore out his wings. It was when he realized he had trusted the wrong person. And that was only the first time he was betrayed by love itself, because Cindel came later, even if it wasn’t truly her fault.
My hands are still in his. Dan looks at me as if waiting for something—judgment, perhaps. Or distance. Or fear.
I don’t feel fear.
I feel vertigo.
I feel anger for him, a sadness so deep it barely fits inside my own body. And mixed with all of it, something that cuts through me like a thin blade: guilt.
I love him.
The thought rises clear and inevitable, and with it comes a silent terror. He loved Elyndra. Trusted her and was used. He believed in someone who saw him as a piece in a larger plan. Someone who needed him to gain power. He loved Cindel. Trusted and was used once more. And that put shackles and a collar on him.
I swallow hard.
I needed him too—and I still do. And for one horrible instant, a question slips into me like slow poison: what if, without realizing it, I am also using what he feels for me? What if, one day, I say the wrong word?
The vertigo deepens.
“Dan…” My voice comes out weaker than I’d like. I press my forehead to his again, needing the contact to keep from losing myself in the spiral of my own thoughts. “I’m so sorry.”
It isn’t enough. Not even close.
I’m sorry for Fenrathis. For Hraesvelgr. For him, being loved only when it was convenient. For being turned into the villain of a story written by someone else.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there.
I bring my hands to his face again, squeezing slightly this time. He breathes slowly, and I realize that despite everything, there’s a subtle relief in the way his shoulders ease just a little. As if saying it out loud had lifted part of the weight he carried alone.
And that’s when the air changes.
A cold current slides around us like invisible fingers brushing the back of my neck. The warmth that still lingered from Dan’s presence drops a few degrees. The leaves in the trees stop moving, as if they’ve received a silent command.
I hear a raven somewhere.
I turn slowly.
The Fairy Queen is there.
She didn’t arrive with the pomp that usually precedes her entrances. She’s simply there, as if she has always been part of the landscape. The Pearl Moon illuminates the outline of her wings, but there’s something different about her now—something too rigid in her posture, something too glassy in her gaze.
The cold intensifies.
Dan goes still.
The Queen’s eyes settle on him first, lingering, assessing, and then slide to me. When she speaks, her voice carries none of the music that once accompanied her words. There is no melody. Only a low, drawn-out tone with a gravity that doesn’t even seem to belong to her.
“What a touching narrative. A betrayed god. A deceived lover. A martyr cast into oblivion.” A thin smile curves her lips, but doesn’t reach her eyes. “It is always more comfortable to shape one’s own story around pain.”
The cold tightens around my chest.
She moves slightly through the air, and the shadow at Dan’s feet reacts, stirring restlessly.
I hear the raven again.
My heart beats faster.
“The forgotten dragon is skilled with words,” the Queen continues, her voice now taking on an almost hollow quality, as if echoing from somewhere too deep. “To say he was betrayed is simpler than admitting he desired what did not belong to him.” Her gaze fixes on him. “To say he was used is easier than facing wounded pride.”
The air around her grows even colder, and for a second,d I have the impression that the very light of the Pearl Moon dims.
“Perhaps,” she concludes, and the word sounds like a sentence pronounced from an invisible throne, “the forgotten dragon is merely trying to rid himself of guilt… rewriting the past so it may fit within the understanding of the one who carries the anfa’anam.”
The raven lifts its voice for the third and final time.
And I feel, with terrifying clarity, that that voice does not entirely belong to the Fairy Queen.