CHAPTER 247: THE TRUTH OF THE DRAGON

I stood very still, trying to process the question. Come here? I hadn’t come anywhere. I’d passed out after sealing the demons, and then I’d woken up in this place that was apparently...

Oh.

Oh.

I looked around again. At the impossible beauty. At the frost flowers that shouldn’t bloom. At the perfect balance of cold and warmth. At a landscape that existed somewhere outside normal reality.

"I’m inside you," I said quietly. "This isn’t paradise. This is... your realm. Your consciousness. The space you occupy when you’re not manifesting in the physical world."

The dragon’s rumble might have been approval. Or amusement. Hard to tell.

"YOU UNDERSTAND QUICKLY. GOOD. THE SEAL BREAKING CREATED A BRIDGE BETWEEN YOUR MIND AND MINE. WHEN YOU SLEEP NOW, VESSEL, YOU WALK IN MY DOMAIN."

I stared up at him, at the creature who’d been trapped inside me for eighteen years, who’d had every reason to hate me, to destroy me, to burn through my body the moment freedom was possible.

"Why didn’t you take over?" I asked. The question that had been burning in my mind since I’d realized what had happened during the spell. "When the seal broke, when you were finally free... why didn’t you consume me?"

The dragon was silent for a long moment. Then he lowered his head further, bringing his massive muzzle close enough that I could feel heat radiating from scales, could see my reflection in his amber eye.

"BECAUSE, VESSEL," he said, each word deliberate, "YOU ASKED."

"Because you asked."

The words hung in the air between us, simple and impossible all at once.

I stared up at him, confusion warring with disbelief. "Because I asked? That’s it? That’s your reason?"

The dragon’s massive head tilted slightly, amber eyes studying me with an intensity that made me feel transparent. Like he could see through skin and bone to the core of who I was.

"That can’t be your only reason," I pressed, taking a step closer despite every survival instinct screaming to maintain distance from something so vast, so powerful.

"In my first life... in every moment before this... the instant the seal cracked even slightly, you tried to break free. You fought against those chains with everything you had, even if it cost me my life. Even if it burned me from the inside out."

The dragon’s silence was heavy, weighted with centuries I couldn’t comprehend.

I felt my frustration building, heat rising in my chest that had nothing to do with the fire we shared.

"You can’t have been fighting for freedom for so long, clawing at those barriers for decades, only to suddenly stop the moment you finally reached it. There has to be something else. Another reason."

Pyronox stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Or maybe like I was insane for questioning a gift I should have accepted without examination. Hard to read expressions on a face that massive, that inhuman.

But I needed to understand. Needed to know why I was still myself, still standing here instead of being a passenger in my own body while a god walked the earth wearing my flesh.

"Tell me," I demanded. "What changed?"

The dragon’s rumble started deep in his chest, vibrating through the ground beneath my feet, through the air, through my bones. When he finally spoke, each word felt like a revelation.

"SOMETHING CHANGED IN YOU, VESSEL. SOMETHING THAT MADE ME WANT TO STAY. TO KEEP YOU ALIVE."

I blinked. "What? What changed?"

"YOU STOPPED USING MY POWER SELFISHLY."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

"FOR TWENTY-FOUR YEARS, YOU WIELDED MY FLAMES FOR YOUR OWN INTERESTS. HARNESSING THEM TO CARRY OUT CRUELTY. BEING A TYRANT LIKE YOUR FATHER. LIKE HIS FATHER BEFORE HIM. LIKE EVERY IGNIVA WHO HAS EVER TRAPPED A PIECE OF ME WITHIN THEIR BLOOD."

"Ah." I couldn’t help the bitter smile that twisted my lips. "Yeah. That’s me. Was me. Whatever."

"BUT THEN YOU STOPPED."

I looked up sharply.

The dragon lowered his head even further, bringing that massive eye level with mine. I could see myself reflected in it... small, fragile, so utterly insignificant compared to the being before me.

"FOR THE FIRST TIME IN CENTURIES, A PERSON OF IGNIVA BLOOD USED MY POWER FOR GOOD. TO SAVE INSTEAD OF DESTROY. TO PROTECT INSTEAD OF CONQUER."

"I didn’t really plan on doing a good deed," I muttered, almost defensive. "It just kind of happened."

In my mind, the truth was simpler, more selfish. All I wanted was to live quietly for myself with whatever time I had left. Then Soren changed that. Changed everything.

"INTENT MATTERS LESS THAN ACTION," Pyronox said, and there was something almost gentle in that divine voice. "YOU CHOSE TO SAVE THEM. YOU BURNED YOURSELF TO ASH FROM THE INSIDE TO SEND THOSE CONDEMNED SOULS BACK TO THEIR PRISON. THAT CHOICE, VESSEL... THAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE."

Guilt twisted in my stomach. Sharp, unexpected, painful.

Centuries, I thought quietly.

He had been trapped for centuries. At the mercy of humans. Of my bloodline. Used as a weapon, a tool, a source of power for people who saw him as nothing more than...

I cut myself off, swallowing hard. How... How does a god let himself be captured?

The question was stuck in my throat.

Pyronox’s eye narrowed slightly, and I felt the air grow warmer. Not threatening, just... heavy with memory.

But before I could ask him... intuition stopped me. Some deep instinct that said not yet, save that question for later, there are more important things to know first.

So instead, I asked, "What’s going to happen now?"

The dragon’s head tilted again, curious.

"Will you continue to stay inside me?" The questions tumbled out faster now. "Now that the seal suppressing you is gone, will you still take over my body eventually? Or will you remain inside me? Is it even possible to live with that kind of arrangement? Two consciousnesses sharing one vessel?"

"THE SEAL IS REPAIRING ITSELF."

I froze. "What?"

"SLOWLY. DIFFERENTLY THAN BEFORE. BUT IT IS REBUILDING THE BARRIERS BETWEEN US."

"That’s never happened before." My voice came out strangled. "Never. Seals don’t just repair themselves. They’re carved, maintained, reinforced. They don’t... "

But a lot of things that had never happened before were happening now. Orrian had said as much. My actions were changing the story, unraveling the script in ways even he couldn’t predict.

I felt a headache building behind my eyes. The kind that came from too many variables, too many unknowns, too many ways everything could fall apart.

"Will you take over?" I asked again, more directly this time. "Eventually, when the seal finishes forming, will you break through it and claim my body?"

Pyronox said nothing.

The silence stretched. Seconds became minutes became an eternity of waiting while the dragon stared at me with those ancient, knowing eyes.

Finally: "NOT YET."