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Chapter Twenty-Four: Sky
Early 289 AC.
The sky belonged to her.
Lyrax soared high above the waters, her massive wings slicing through the cold morning air. The sun had only just begun to rise, its pale light reflecting off the churning waves below. She felt the wind rush against her obsidian-black scales, the strength of it carrying her effortlessly across the sky.
Her keen golden eyes scanned the surface of the water, searching. Then—there. A flicker of silver beneath the waves, a school of large fish moving together, their glistening bodies flashing in unison.
Lyrax tilted her wings, angling downward in a sharp dive.
The ocean rushed toward her as she folded her wings and shot through the air like an arrow. At the last moment, she unfurled her claws, slicing through the water and snapping up a big meal's worth of fish. The salty taste filled her senses as she pulled back up, droplets cascading off her scales as she climbed back into the sky.
Satisfied with her catch, she flew toward the shore near her cave, where the land was empty and untouched by men. She landed with a powerful beat of her wings, the impact of her landing sending up a spray of sand.
The fish were still wriggling in her claws, but that would not do.
With a deep inhale, she exhaled a steady stream of blackish-blue fire, the unnatural hue of her flames casting eerie shadows across the sand. The fire curled around the fish, searing their flesh instantly.
She let the fire die out and sank her teeth into her meal, savoring the taste. Nothing gave food better flavor than dragonfire.
As she ate, she thought of her Jon.
Perhaps I will cook a small meal for him too when I see him, she mused, pleased with the idea. He always seemed to enjoy well-prepared food, and no fire was more flavourful and better than hers.
With her hunger satisfied, she turned back toward her cave, its entrance wide and open.
Once, the way had been blocked.
Lyrax still remembered the day she melted the rocks sealing the entrance, her fire hotter and more powerful than even she had expected. The stones had turned to slag, dripping like candle wax as she finally broke free. The outside world had been vast and bright, so much bigger than she had imagined.
That had been nearly five years ago.
According to Jon, she was now close to nine namedays old.
She still did not fully understand the men's obsession with marking the passage of time. The way men divided time into chunks, named the passing years, and celebrated or mourned their fleeting lives—it all seemed needlessly complicated.
Then again, from what she had seen through Jon's eyes, the world of men was filled with needless complications.
Even now, she did not understand why she had to remain hidden here, away from her Jon, just because some stag king sat on an iron chair.
Lyrax could kill this so-called stag king with ease.
She would tear through his walls of stone, melt his throne of swords, and leave his halls in ruin. She would make Jon king of men, as he was meant to be.
And yet… she did not.
Because reasons.
Jon had explained them to her, but she had not bothered to listen.
The intricacies of human rule and their endless schemes did not concern her. But Jon wanted her to wait, so she would.
For now.
Lyrax turned her gaze to the back of the cave, where the massive skull of her sire rested against the stone.
The Cannibal. That was what men had called him.
Once, his body had filled this very cave. His flesh had sustained her, his strength becoming hers. Now, only the skull remained, the last remnant of her lineage before she had taken his place.
She stepped toward it, her tail flicking lazily behind her. Her skull the same size as her sire's.
She had stopped growing two years ago, her body reaching the perfect size. Jon had told her she was now half the size of Balerion, the Black Dread, the greatest of dragons.
Her grandsire.
That was what the books Jon read had claimed.
Balerion had grown so large that even flight had become a struggle in his later years. To Lyrax, that was unacceptable.
A dragon that could not rule the sky was no dragon at all.
So when she had reached this size, she had stopped.
It had not been a conscious decision—she had simply known. If she grew any larger, she would begin to lose speed, to lose the agility that made her the ruler of the skies.
Instead, something far more interesting had begun to happen as she stopped growing bigger.
Her scales had hardened, becoming near-impervious to harm. Her fire had grown hotter, the blue in her flames deepening, burning hotter than any ordinary dragonflame.
This was her ideal form.
She was as large as she needed to be. Any bigger, and she would become sluggish like the dragons of old, weighed down by their own size. But this—this was perfection.
Now, she waited.
For the day Jon would come to her, climb onto her back, and they would take to the skies together.
As they were always meant to.
He would rule the world of men, and she would rule the skies.
And on that day, no man, no king, no god would stand against them.