Page 5 of Iron Hearts and Dragon Magic

“I promised I’d keep him safe and I don’t break my promises. I think it should be obvious I wouldn’t allow your brother to be in danger.”

“He almost died. He’s a dragon now.”

“I didn’t know any of that.” River threw his hands in the air. “I can’t prevent what I don’t know.”

Naia scoffed. “Then what’s the point of going to Ironhold? Of helping them? Because I know you’re helping them. And yet they aren’t telling you a thing. You’re being used and played, River, which is ridiculous for a fae.”

He scoffed. “Of course they think they’re using and fooling me. That’s obvious. That’s how deals between enemies work: each side thinks they’re tricking the other. And yet I found a way in. A way to figure out their magic, find their secrets.”

“Certainly.” She rolled her eyes. “You know everything about them, except their most bizarre magic or their battle secrets. Not that you’d share any of that, of course.”

“I knew they had an ironbringer army, for example.”

“Did you bother telling my brother that?”

River shrugged. “He was ready and didn’t need any warning.”

Naia took a deep breath. Getting angry wasn’t going to help her find a solution. “What exactly have you been doing there, River? What you did just now? Listening while invisible?”

He sighed. “It’s too risky. There’s a high chance they could sense me. Then I’d be dead, and with me all my revenge plans.”

Naia glared at him. “I see. Your revenge would be the only loss if you died. Nobody would miss you.”

He looked down, then back at her. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Don’t go back there. If they’re withholding dangerous, unknown magic from you, you literally don’t know what they’re capable of, you don’t know what their true plans are, you don’t know anything. They’re playing you. Don’t get played.”

“I know they have strange magic. That I know, even if I don’t have the details. And I am always careful. Now, I need to find some proof they destroyed Formosa. I know it was them. And I think they have a dragon heart. I need to find it.”

He’d mentioned the annihilated Umbraar city before, but Naia wasn’t so sure it had been Ironhold. “The destruction of Formosa ruined the trade for all kingdoms in Aluria. Ironhold was the one that lost the most, since they traded gold with Fernick. Why would they destroy that city?”

“They probably thought they could control the way to Fernick instead of Umbraar, using their weapons.”

“Except they don’t. Also, I don’t think they have a dragon heart. See, if it’s true that my real father is a dragon, and that our hearts are special, Ironhold wouldn’t have let me and Fel go, they wouldn’t have given us to Umbraar.”

“But they think King Azir is your father. They have no idea you’re dragons.”

“Yes, but… If they captured my father, let’s say, then got his heart, they would have known what we are.”

“Three dragons came from Fernick, Naia. They could have captured any one of them.”

“They didn’t, River. Think with me. You said the dragons came here after Formosa was destroyed. It means they have some way to know what goes on in Aluria, and some way to travel. If one of them or all of them had been murdered, wouldn’t other dragons have come here to investigate?”

River shrugged. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“When your father captured me, he thought the dragons would sense my suffering and come. If that’s true—”

“It might have been an assumption. He doesn’t know much more than I do.”

“He knew I was a dragon. I mean… If that’s even true. But you didn’t.” There was still a part of her that resisted that thought, but she wasn’t going to figure out anything if she denied the reality that had been presented to her.

River scoffed. “I didn’t even realize you were anironbringerwhen I first met you. There were too many feelings going on for me to sense your magic.”

She caught a breath, but then recovered quickly. “You didn’t knowmy brotherwas a dragon.”

River paused. “True, but listen: only royal families in Aluria are supposed to have magic. It means that it doesn’t pass on to the third generation. The dragons are the arbiters of magic in the world, so I think they are the ones keeping the human magic contained. Now, Ironhold is breeding third-generation ironbringers, not from the royal family. To dodge such a law… they need something.”

“And to raise the dead. Yes, something, for sure, but I don’t think it’s a dragon heart, River.”

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