Ashes Embraced

16

Night settled heavier than usual.

The cavern dimmed to embers and low breaths.

Dragons lay in scattered shapes across stone.

Wings folded.
Tails coiled.
Scales catching faint red light.

Cara lay in her usual place near the inner rock curve.

Not under the wing tonight.

Not summoned.

Vyrisa was absent.

Gone somewhere deeper into the mountain.

Or higher into the sky.

Cara kept her breathing slow.

Even.

Pretending sleep.

The mark was quiet.

Blocked.

Distant.

A scrape of claws echoed faintly from the cavern mouth.

Not loud enough to wake most.

But Cara had learned the rhythm of the nest.

She listened.

Another voice.

Lower.

Controlled.

Lyris.

Cara did not move.

She let her body remain loose.

But her ears strained.

"She is changing," Lyris hissed.

Not shouted.

Anger compressed tight.

"She is distracted."

Silence answered her at first.

Then another voice.

Male.

Measured.

Drakon.

"Our queen has not been distracted."

"She shelters it."

"She shelters what she chooses."

"That is the problem."

The word snapped.

Sharp.

"She does not shelter weakness."

Cara's throat tightened.

She forced herself to breathe evenly.

"The human weakens her," Lyris continued.

"She rests. She softens. She allows proximity."

A pause.

"She places it in her lap before the nest."

Stone shifted.

Drakon's reply was quieter.

"You mistake rest for weakness."

"That is not rest."

Lyris' claws scraped stone.

"She is becoming indulgent."

"And you are becoming reckless."

The words landed heavy.

Silence stretched.

Cara pressed her cheek into the stone to hear better.

"She is queen," Drakon continued.

"She has made her choice."