The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

”I know what I told her. And I know what she heard.” Astraea’s voice did not change. ”And I know what it costs her to hold it. She is not a girl who finds lying easy. It leaves marks.”

Kaelen was out of his chair before Draeven could speak.

”You will not speak of her as though....”

”Kaelen.”

Draeven did not raise his voice. His brother stopped with his hands curled at his sides, breathing hard.

”Sit.”

Slowly, Kaelen sat down.

Astraea watched all of this with a tranquil, attentive expression. If it frightened her, she did not show it.

”I will tell you what I can,” she said. ”I will tell you what is mine to tell. I will not tell you what belongs to her.”

”Which is what?” said Thorne.

”What she is. Why she is afraid. What she has done to protect herself, and who she has done it for.” The pale eyes held his. ”Those are hers. She will give them to you when she chooses, or she will not. I will not be the one who takes them.”

Thorne’s mouth flattened. He sat back slowly.

”It is the same phrase she used,” he said, mostly to himself. ”Only what I’ve told you. You taught her to speak that way.”

”She learned it before she met me,” said Astraea. ”I only recognized it.”

She said it gently, and he did not answer.

”What are you?” Draeven asked.

He had not intended to ask it so soon. But it rose out of him with the weight of the last hour, the long unease of the throne room, the creeping knowledge that every one part his dragon had known her the moment she came in. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

”We have been trying to name it for days. You are not human. You are not a dragon. You carry a power I do not recognize, and INFERNUS will not leave off looking at you.”

”I know.” Astaea replied.

”Then answer.”

For a long moment she did not speak.

She stood in the firelight with her hands folded and her face composed, and then she did something none of them expected. She smiled, small and wry and a little tired.

”I am a witch.”

The room went very quiet.

”Not a girl who has learned a few spells from a grandmother’s book.” Her voice was soft. ”Not even a witch as the old texts count them. I was a witch when your curse was a single sentence in a language no one speaks. I was old before your father’s father drew his first breath.” She lifted one hand and turned it over. The firelight ran across the palm. ”I have lived a very long time.”

Kaelen was staring at her.

”A witch,” he said.

”Yes.”

”Then why do I feel....”

”Because I carry something of yours.”

She lowered her hand.

”A long time ago,” she said, ”I took into myself the essence of a dragon. I will not say how. I will not say whose, or whether I was given it or took it or whether it took me. It is not a story I tell.” The pale eyes were distant. ”But it is in my bones. It has been in my bones for longer than any of you have lived. That is what your dragons smell when I come near. They know it the way you would know your own mother’s voice in a crowded hall.”

She looked directly at Draeven.

”They do not know me. They know what I am carrying.”

INFERNUS, deep in his chest, gave a long, shuddering exhale.

Old fire,the dragon said. It was almost a whisper.Old, old fire. Sleeping.

Draeven pressed his fist against his sternum.

”You are not the Mother of Dragons,” he said.

”No.”

”You do not claim the title.”

”I could not.” She said it simply. ”The title was not given to the first who carried dragon fire. It was not given by blood or by age or by power. It is held by one who was chosen, and I was not.” The smallest shadow crossed her face. ”I am only the lantern that was left burning until she came.”

Thorne’s eyes narrowed. ”You said that to her. In the pale room. That you had been waiting.”

”Yes.”

”For her.”

”For her,” said Astraea, and nothing more.

She gave them four things.

She gave them the first as though handing a coin across a table.

”Carrick Greythorne does not act on his own. You know that. You have known it for some time.” She did not wait for a nod. ”He serves someone who has been moving pieces on your board for longer than your curse has been cast. I do not have the name. I have the shape of it. It is old, and it is patient, and it has spent a very long time arranging for this moment.”

”What moment?” said Draeven.

”The moment when the Mother of Dragons is found.” Her gaze did not waver. ”It is not hunting her to kill her. Not yet. It is hunting her to have her. It wants her whole, and it wants her willing, and it has spent two centuries making certain the three of you could not give her what she needs.”

”What does she need?” said Thorne.

”That is the second thing,” said Astraea.

She spoke quietly.

”The title is not a title of birth. It was never a bloodline. It is not given by prophecy.” She held out her hand and closed it into a fist. ”It is earned. By something the prophecy only names in passing and that the three of you have not yet understood.”

”Earned how?” Kaelen asked.

”By choosing.” Asraea replied.

He stared at her.

”I will say no more than that. But I will say this.” Her voice sharpened, very faintly. ”You have been searching for two hundred years for a woman who can lift your curse. You have imagined her as a thing that would be found. Claimed. Brought home. You did not imagine she would have to decide.”