Page 158 of House of Ashes

“She will be Naga,” Myst said quietly, resting her chin on my shoulder. “More than you…less than me. A creature between worlds, one not seen for millennia.”

“I know. Will she hate me?”

“I’m no mystic, child. I cannot see the future any more than you can.”

My eyes burned, but no tears came. “But will she be…the way she was? Or will she seem…different?”

The word I wanted was dangerous, but to speak of Kirana in such a way felt disloyal. Like I was condemning her changes before they had begun.

Myst rubbed her snout with one claw. “That depends on her. She could be as she was…or she could have a mind closer to ours. I have never created a Naga before. It is not encouraged among my kind.”

“I imagine not,” I whispered.

What I had read of the Naga…they did not sound like something I would ever wish to become myself. It had been enough to convince me to swear off the tonic forever.

But perhaps I would feel differently if I were dying. When it came to survival, it was impossible to overcome the body’s brute-force will to live.

And if someone had offered me that choice on Mistward, in the days where every second was a fine line between life and death…I might have chosen it.

Just to survive. For another chance to live.

My eyes burned, but no tears came. “Myst…why did you help, then? If the true dragons are against it…”

My Ascendant curled her warm, coiled body around my shoulder, rumbling deep in her chest. It felt like a cat's purr, soothing me despite her answer. “There is a scent on the wind I do not like. It is—it is an old smell. An ancient smell. It has been so long, I can’t recall what it is…but it fills me with fear, Serafina. A terrible fear.”

A shudder ran through me.

There was one thing that could cause an Ascendant—the greatest of us, the children of Larivor and Naimah—to feel fear.

“Her children.” My voice cracked.

Ustrael’s spawn. The devourers. The Primoris.

“Just so.” Myst’s claws dug into my shoulders. “But the age of the Ascendants is coming to an end, slowly but surely. I have seen the signs. For every Ascendant born, for every House created, another five fall…and if my nose is correct, we will need all of us to make it through the coming days. Even if it means taking terrible risks.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Even if we must anger Father Wind and Mother Flame with our choices.”

“You can’t mean that…that one of them is awake.”

This was a war between us. Between dragonbloods and their Houses.

It was not a feeding ground for Ustrael’s spawn.

Myst snorted, but she laid her head against mine, cheek to cheek. “I think we’d all notice if one was awake, child! No, but the warning signs are there. Only a fool would choose not to heed them.”

“I don’t want to heed them.” I remembered my words to Kalros, not much more than a month ago…calling his House cowards for refusing to face a newborn Primoris.

How easy it had been to call someone else a coward—when there had been nothing demanding bravery from me.

“Then you are a fool.”

“But I will.” I sighed. “Of course I will heed them, however much I’d rather hide.”

Myst preened her flawless scales. “I knew you would. You are my blood, after all.” She tapped her sharp claws on the crown of my head. “And so is Erebos’s daughter, now. When she has become fully Naga, she will belong more to my line than to his.”

“Because the blood is fresher?”

“Pure and undiluted.” Myst tilted her head as she thought, the silver of her eyes burning bright. “Perhaps she possessed…oh, let us say a few drops of his blood. He is far removed from his descendants, as old as I am. Now she will be as close to me as you are, my child.”

If not more so. Kirana would become something…intermediary, a step between dragon and dragonblood.

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