He chuckled. “And yet I do not kill you. What do you make of that, little fae?”
“It fits with the curse.”
His black-scaled head lowered, approaching halfway. “What do you know of the curse?”
Fear of the creature still tingled in my veins. Every movement felt like a predator’s evaluation. “I watched Carys cast it over this kingdom. Watched her invoke your power.” Finally, I met eyes. “She kept her promise to you, didn’t she?”
“Kept her promise?” He scoffed. “Not nearly.”
“What did Carys choose”—I nodded at Eury—“the flames, or her soul?”
“You still don’t understand, little fae.” Caustrix’s nostrils widened, shrank. “But you have time. Maybe the rest of your life. Would you like to hear a story?”
“A story of what?”
“Of a king.”
My chest tightened. “Yes.”
A pleased rumble sounded in the dragon’s chest. “A thousand years ago, you fae had become docile and weak. Naturally, your kingdom had been ravaged by humans. They plundered your land, your women, every valuable thing you possessed. They killed all dragons, though I know not how. They even stole the last dragonegg, guarded by the Sylvanwild queen. She kept it deep underground—in the mountains near Noctere, beside a lava flow—hoping it would hatch.”
So he was an Unseelie dragon. Caustrix belonged to our court. “And did it hatch?”
“Yes. After hundreds of years, the creature inside the egg felt safe enough to emerge.”
“And you came into the world.”
Two rings of smoke appeared from the dragon’s nostrils. “I came into the world, the rarest of all dragons. Do you know of the acid dragons,veyre?”
“I know of you.”
“Our blood is a solvent.” Pride laced his words. “It eats the world to make room for itself. Where acid flows, no magic but our birth court’s may survive.”
That was why Eury could stand in his flames. That was why she could call the acid rain. This was the power that had scared me from that first night, and quickened my breathing even now. “That’s why she can’t use solaire.”
“My acid drinks every drop of magic her little body tries to hold. Feralis thrives because it’s mine. The rest?” A laugh. “She’d need a straight injection of it through the center of her to make any difference, and I suspect such a thing would kill her. She does have a heart, yes?”
I didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t grace him with any reaction.
“Two days after I hatched,” Caustrix said, “the Sylvanwild queen was beheaded.”
I saw a flash of a head severed from a body. The horror in the dragon’s small, wide eyes. “By a human king.”
“Of course.”
Of course.
“The king loved me. Well, as much as humans can love. I was his greatest prize, singular in the whole world and small enough to ride on his shoulder. Yet he was covetous, fearful. And so he brought medown into the earth so I could grow in secret. He came down often, told me stories and sang songs.”
The terrible truth shimmered in the distance. I didn’t want the dragon to continue; I couldn’t bear to interrupt.
“Humans live short lives—shorter when they’re paranoid,” the dragon said.
“As most humans with power are. How did he die?”
“Oh, I imagine his heart stopped. I only know he never returned. And after years, I presumed in his paranoia he told no one about me.
“The years stretched. I grew. Did you know a dragon grows even without food? As it turns out, a dragon cannot die from starvation—not of the body, or of the mind.”