Page 6 of Beneath Scales and Shadows
In their shared room, Morgana fell asleep almost immediately, exhaustion claiming her after days of double duty. Somehow, there was a ping of guilt for being the cause of hersister’soverworked predicament.
She lay awake, staring at Earth through the window, her mind racing.
The strange sensations in her body, the pull toward the mountains, the flashes of scale-like shimmer on her skin—none of it made sense.
A soft tap roused her from her thoughts. Carefully, she climbed out of bed, hoping to not wake up Morgana. The last thing Sora wanted was to ruin hersister’sgood night’s sleep by making her more suspicious of her.
She opened the door to find Lyra, a finger pressed to her lips in warning.
“Come with me,” Lyra whispered, glancing nervously down the corridor. “There’s something you need to see.”
“What is it?” Sora kept her voice low, conscious of Morgana sleeping behind her.
Lyra’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “A book. About the thing you were looking for before the lake. About why you’re changing.”
“Changing?” The word sent a shiver through Sora. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen how you react to scents now. How you keep looking toward the mountains.” Lyra pulled a folded parchment from her sleeve. “This fell from your pocket when they brought you in. I kept it safe.”
Sora unfolded the parchment with trembling fingers. In the dim light, she could just make out a series of symbols etched in fading ink—the same symbols she had traced on the dragon dagger just before her death on Earth.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
Lyra’s expression grew solemn. “It’s about the prophecy. About what you are becoming.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We can’t talk here. Meet me in the north tower at midnight.”
“What am I becoming?” Sora clutched the parchment tighter.
Lyra’s answer sent ice through her veins.
“Something the king would kill to prevent.” Her eyes locked with Sora’s. “Something that hasn’t existed in Celestoria for generations. An omega with dragon blood.”
CHAPTERTHREE
SORA
The north tower’s spiraling staircase seemed to stretch endlessly upward, each stone step worn smooth by centuries of usage. Sora pressed her back against the wall at the sound of approaching guards, her heart thundering in her chest. The parchment with its dragon symbols felt like a burning brand against her skin where she’d tucked it into her bodice.
When the guards passed, she continued her ascent, guided by nothing but the faint glow of moonlight through narrow-slit windows. The blue-tinged light caressed her skin, and with each touch, something stirred beneath her surface—a warm and restless energy that both terrified and exhilarated her.
What’s happening to me?
Lyra waited at the top, silhouetted against a circular window that framed the impossible vision of Earth hanging in the star-strewn sky. In her arms, she cradled a leather-bound tome nearly half her size.
“You came.” Relief colored her voice. “I feared you might think me mad.”
“After everything that’s happened, madness seems the most rational explanation.” Sora approached, her gaze fixed on the formidable-sized book. “What is that?”
Lyra’s fingers traced the embossed cover reverently. “Lady Elspeth believes I borrow her herb lore texts. She doesn’t know I’ve been accessing the restricted section when she sleeps.” She set the book on a dusty table beneath the window. “This is the true history of Artania—the one King Ralph’s grandfather purged from the official records.”
The book fell open with the weight of ages, its pages crackling with protest. Illuminated illustrations sprawled across yellowed parchment—dragons soaring above mountain peaks, humans with scaled skin walking among ordinary folk, ceremonies conducted beneath dual moons.
Other creatures framed the pages—elves with their pointy ears and bows, fae with their two pairs of strong, iridescent wings, similar to dragonflies, and large horse-sized wolves transforming into humans.
What type of creatures live on Artania? Those of myth and legend on Earth?
“The Dralux Clan,” Lyra whispered, pointing to an illustration of a massive obsidian-scaled dragon. “They once lived in harmony with Celestoria. Dragon riders protected the kingdom from invaders, and in return, humans gave them treasure and protected dragon eggs to usher in the next generation of dragons for new riders.”
Sora’s historian mind drank in the images. “What changed?”
