Someone was crying.
The sound drifted through the fog of sleep; small, hiccuping sobs that rose and fell like waves. For a long moment I floated in the space between dreaming and waking, aware of nothing except that distant grief and the warmth pressed against my chest.
Azurene.
I'm here. Her voice was hoarse. You're safe. Go back to sleep.
I didn't want to sleep. Something was wrong. The crying had stopped but now there were voices; low, urgent, speaking in tones I couldn't quite catch. My body felt strange. Heavy in some places, numb in others, and there was a bitter taste coating my tongue that I associated with the palace healers.
Memory surfaced like a body rising from deep water.
The alley. The cage. The blood spreading across the floorboards. Goff's head rolling to a stop three feet from where I'd been thrown against the wall.
Cassandra.
I tried to sit up. Pain exploded through my ribs, my face, my everything. The world tilted and spun and then hands were pressing me back down; firm but gentle, accompanied by a voice I vaguely recognized as belonging to Master Healer Corvin.
"Easy, young prince. You've three cracked ribs, a fractured cheekbone, and more bruising than I've seen outside a battlefield. Moving fast isn't advisable."
"Cas." My voice came out as a croak. "The girl. Is she..."
"No one else was brought back, my lord. I'm told the guards secured only you."
She's alive, Azurene said through the bond. I saw her. Before they put us in the carriage. She was standing in the street.
The relief was so sharp it hurt worse than my ribs. I let myself sink back into the pillows, breathing through the pain, trying to piece together the fragments of the previous night. The kidnapping. The beating. The guards arriving like a storm of steel and slaughter. Bodies everywhere. And Cassandra, reaching for me, being shoved back, screaming my name as they carried me away.
What does she think happened?
Azurene didn't answer. She didn't have to. Through our bond I could feel the shape of her fear, and it matched my own.
I opened my eyes.
Morning light streamed through the tall windows of my chambers, painting everything in pale gold. The room looked the same as always; the same canopied bed, the same bookshelves stuffed with texts I'd been assigned but never read, the same tapestries depicting Azure dragons in flight. But it felt different now. Smaller. Colder.
Master Healer Corvin bent over me, his weathered face creased with professional concern. His Anima; a sleek silver heron; perched on the bedpost, watching me with eyes that seemed to see more than they should.
"How do you feel, my lord?"
"Like I was beaten half to death."
"That's because you were." He touched my forehead, then my wrist, checking something. "You're lucky to be alive. Another few minutes and the internal bleeding might have..."
"I don't feel lucky."
Corvin paused. His expression shifted; something sad entering it, something knowing. He'd served the palace for thirty years. He'd probably seen other children come back from violence with that same flatness in their voices.
"No," he said quietly. "I don't suppose you do."
A knock at the door. Not the polite tap of a servant; a single, heavy impact that made the wood shudder. Corvin straightened immediately, gathering his instruments.
"His Majesty," he murmured. "I'll return this afternoon to check your bandages."
He was gone before I could respond. The door opened and closed in the space between heartbeats, leaving me alone with Azurene and the weight of what was coming.
Father.
Through the open doorway, I saw her first.
Aurellia.
I'd seen the king's dragon before, of course. You couldn't live in the palace without glimpsing her; a flash of silver scales in the courtyard, the distant thunder of her voice echoing through the great hall, the way servants always knew to step aside from certain corridors at certain times. But I'd never seen her like this. Close. Present. Real.
She filled the corridor beyond my chambers. Not through size alone; though she was massive, easily three times Azurene's length even at full stretch; but through presence. The air grew thick. My lungs worked harder. Something primal in the base of my skull screamed that I was in the presence of a predator beyond anything my small body could comprehend.
Her scales were deep silver fading to white along her underbelly, warm and luminous even in the corridor's dimmer light. She moved like flowing water, her serpentine body coiling around corners that shouldn't have accommodated her, and her eyes; amber, ancient, patient; found mine through the doorway.
Little one, she said.
The voice resonated through something deeper than hearing. I felt it in my chest, my bones, my soul. Azurene pressed tighter against me, her own presence suddenly feeling very small.
Great mother.
A flicker of warmth in those amber eyes. Sadness, too. The kind of sadness that comes from knowing what's about to happen and being powerless to stop it.
Then my father stepped into the room.
Vhagar Azure looked the same as always. Tall. Broad. Unhurried in his movements, with a gravity that made you want to straighten your spine and lower your eyes. His white-blue hair was pulled back from a face that seemed carved from stone, and his silver eyes; the same silver as mine, the same silver as every Azure who'd ever sat the dragon throne; rested on me with an expression I couldn't read.
He sat in the chair beside my bed. The same chair where he'd sat through fevers and nightmares and the endless illnesses of childhood. The same chair where he'd told me stories about our ancestors, about the first Azure who'd bonded a dragon and united the eastern tribes.
It was the same chair. But he wasn't the same man. Or maybe he was, and I was just seeing him clearly for the first time.
"Tell me," he said.
Not how are you feeling. Not I'm glad you're alive. Just those two words, delivered in a voice as calm and level as still water.
I told him.
Everything. The first escape, eight months ago. The girl who'd saved me from the older kids. The rooftop, the stolen food, the nights of reading by candlelight and learning to pick locks and sharing secrets with someone who didn't know I was a prince. I told him about Cassandra's laugh and her quick wit and the way she made the world feel bigger than the palace walls. I told him how happy I'd been. How real it had felt.
I told him about Goff and the trap and the cage and the way they'd ripped Azurene away from me. I told him about the beating. About the guards arriving. About the bodies.
Vhagar listened to all of it without interrupting. His expression never changed. His hands rested on his knees, perfectly still, and his eyes never left my face.
When I finished, the silence stretched between us like a chasm.
"Please understand," I said. "She didn't know. Cas didn't know who I was. She never asked for anything, never tried to use me. She's my friend, Father. The only real friend I've ever..."
"I understand."
The words cut through my plea like a blade. Not harsh. That was the terrible thing. Not harsh at all. Just final.
"You are my son. Fourth in line to the Dragon Throne. Every moment of your life has value beyond what you can comprehend at your age; political value, military value, diplomatic value. There are people in this world who would pay fortunes for the leverage your death would provide. There are kingdoms that would go to war over your blood."
"I know, but..."
"You do not know." His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "You are ten years old, Valerian. You know what your tutors have taught you, what your books have shown you, what you have observed from the safety of these walls. You do not know what happens when a prince dies in the streets. You do not know the cost."
I swallowed. My throat was dry. "I could have died last night. I know that."
"You could have died. Yes. But more than that; you could have been used. Held for ransom. Tortured for information. Married off to some rival house's daughter in exchange for your release. Your body could have been paraded through enemy streets as proof that the Dragon King cannot protect his own children."
Each scenario landed like a blow. I hadn't thought about any of it. I'd thought about adventure. About freedom. About Cassandra.
"The men who took you are dead," Vhagar continued. "Every single one of them. But they were not alone. They were organized. Funded. Someone gave them your route, told them when to strike. Someone in this city looked at my son and saw an opportunity."
"That's not Cas's fault."
"No. It isn't." He paused. "But she is part of that world. She lives in those streets. She knows those people. And as long as you are connected to her, you are vulnerable to them."
"So I'll be more careful. I'll take guards, I'll..."
"You will never see her again."
The words hit me like the pipe had hit my skull. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare at my father's calm, impassive face and feel my world cracking down the middle.
"Father..."
"If you see that girl again, I will have her killed."
Not a threat. Not anger. Not even emphasis. Just a statement of fact. The same tone he might use to describe the schedule for tomorrow's council meeting.