No one tried to stop me. Not Cal, not Dyter, not . . . him.
As I walked into the night, I vowed I’d never step foot inside that castle again. Even though the monster who had ruled it was dead and gone, it would always be the place where I was broken and put back together again and again for the sadistic pleasure of others. Those men had once been more powerful than I was. I didn’t care that I was stronger for it. I didn’t care that I would be powerful. I didn’t care that I was powerful now. I didn’t care.
“I don’t care,” I screamed at the pitch sky, at the stars of those I loved. Then I bowed my head and walked. My throat was raw from crying. My feet took me on familiar paths, until I stared at the blackened ground that had once been my home. Zone Seven. Where I’d had a mother, a best friend, and an uncertain but hopeful future.
Yet even my memories of that were now tainted by the truth I hadn’t known at the time.
Lies. Ty, Tyr, Tyrrik . . . my own mother.
Everywhere I turned. My entire life. Lies.
I wanted something to be real. I needed something . . .
Tears fell from my eyes to the charred ground. My blue scales erupted, climbing up my arms as my heart began to race. I sank to my knees as racking sobs tore through me, again. Only this time, I cried for me. For my losses. For the girl who once was and never could be the same.
I closed my eyes from the starlight twinkling off my vibrant-blue scales as if reminding me of the truth. I hated them. I hated what they represented.
A truth that everyone knew but me.
I was already barefoot and filthy from my night spent mourning in the middle of the blackened and desolate Harvest Zone. I bowed low and sank my hands into the ground, digging my toes into the ash, too. My tears poured freely, dripping onto the char, and I shared my pain with the soil underneath. I shared with it my losses. I unfolded my heartbreak. I divulged my fears. I told the warm ground underneath my hands everything.
For hours I stayed this way, pouring my heart out to something that could never betray me, never report to another, something that could never spin my words to mean something that would break my heart anew. The soil would never judge me for how I’d changed, or shy away from the hardness in my heart now. I told Harvest Zone Seven all of who I was and could never be again. And when I’d shared everything, when I was empty and my tears had dried up, I collapsed to the ground and let the dirt embrace me.
It felt like an eternity when footsteps crunched toward me. I remained still, lost in memories of Tyr’s wry smile and sure hands.
“Rynnie,” Dyter whispered, tears choking his voice.
I felt his presence crouched by my head. My eyes were swollen, and I could hardly move in my exhaustion.
“I’m so sorry, Rynnie,” he cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
Nothing else could have roused me except the tears of the man I considered my father. I moved my head to look at him.
“I went down to the dungeons.” He gasped, his scarred face twisted in agony. “I saw—” He broke, his body shaking as he cried silently.
“Help me up?” I asked.
He hurried to do so. Pulling me to him as he sat, he propped me up next to him. He wiped his face, and together we surveyed what was left of our home.
“I can’t believe it’s all gone. It doesn’t seem real, does it?” he asked.
I didn’t reply.
He hesitated. “I’m sorry about the man you loved . . . Tyr.”
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the memories that rushed at me. “Please, don’t speak his name. He wasn’t real.”
Dyter sighed.
When I opened my eyes, he was still staring at the endless black.
He turned and looked me in the eye as he said, “But what you felt was real, and I’m sorry your heart was broken.”
Not just my heart. It seemed deeper. I blinked away burning tears.
He spoke again. “Your mother . . .” He paused. “You know she only kept those things from you to protect you, don’t you, my girl?”
I remained mute.
He nodded after a time. “You’ll see it in time. But I hope you know she loved you with all her heart and soul. You were her reason for waking each day.”
A tear slipped over my cheek. “I know,” I managed. “I miss her, Dyter. So much.”
A sob escaped the older man beside me. “I do, too, Rynnie. She was a good friend to me. Helped me when no one else would. I’ll tell you just how one day.”
I smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
After a long moment, Dyter said, “He followed you when you left, did you know? He’s been there, all night, watching over you.” My mentor tilted his head to the rolling hills behind us. “If I could kill him, I would.” He cleared his throat and added, “But being a Drae and all . . .”
His comment startled a laugh out of me. A strong reminder I hadn’t lost everything. “Thank you, Dyter.”
“What for?” he asked. In his haunted eyes, I could see he blamed himself for everything.
For being alive. “For being here,” I said.
Dyter smiled, but it faded a moment later. “Ryn, I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but Tyrrik”—he arched a brow at my dark scowl—“said you will make the transformation to Drae in just a few days’ time. He said when that happens, the emperor will become aware of your existence.”
A few days. Not long enough. My life had changed so much. I wasn’t ready for it to change again. What would happen to me? Would I still be me when I transformed? Unfortunately, I refused to speak to the only person in Verald with those answers. “Why is that a problem? He can’t kill me, right?”
“You know there are worse things than dying by now, Rynnie.”
I did know.
He rocked me in his arms as we sat quietly in the burned remains.
“It’s all gone,” I said. How would we ever get back to what we had been? It wasn’t possible, I knew. But we’d also defeated the king. “But maybe tomorrow . . .”
Maybe I could find the hope I needed tomorrow.
“Well, now look at this, my girl.”
My Phaetyn power was healing me, my energy returned with a slow swelling, and I shifted to look at his scarred face. His gaze had softened and was fixed on my hand.
I wiped my eyes and gazed down.
Soft blue petals, a pale version of my scales, were blossoming between my thumb and forefinger. The flower was small, but as the breeze moved the solitary bloom, the petals glowed in the starlight. My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the only bit of life for as far as the eye could see.
“I’ve never seen a flower like this before,” Dyter remarked.
I had.
Every day since I was two, Mum had held me up to stroke the petals of the welded flower in the Market Circuit. When I’d grown old enough, I reached to touch it myself whenever I passed it.
This was that flower brought to life.
My flower.