Coris's tale had started off with a prologue of what was common knowledge: the Crosset Famine; a beguiling invitation from Bailiff Johnsy; a hunting trip gone awry.

From there, it escalated into an anecdote of chilling detail, as he described his time in Draken's kidnapping party. Then, it morphed into a fantastical account usually associated with those who have suffered blunt force to the head.

There had been a blast of pure flames, then a gust of ice wind as metallic talons swept him off the snowy glade, skimming treetops into the sky. He showed her the melted arrow he claimed to have pulled out of the dragon's leg, right before they crashed into a cave on the mountainside. He claimed to have woken up later, to a girl with glowing green eyes and red-gold hair. Meya herself.

Meya might have believed it. Might have. If it wasn't for the fact that she remembered literally nothing of the sort. Of course not; it was just too impossible to have actually happened.

She? Transforming into a dragon? Even the notion of Greeneyes being dragon riders who must strip down to call forth their mounts seemed plausible compared to this outlandish theory.

Meya was tempted to think Coris had been high on laudanum. Or that some of his mother's rose oil had seeped through his scalp and trickled through his skull into his brain. Yet, he seemed perfectly in control of his faculties. As usual, the gleams in his silvery eyes were bright and sharp, albeit graver and more urgent.

And, despite the repeated denials from her recollections, her logic argued otherwise. Coris may not realize, but his story provided feasible answers to some of the half-forgotten questions thrown in the old cupboard at the back of her mind.

Why the wound on her arm did not fully heal, and, now that she actually thought back, she was actually bitten by a snake on her right arm. Why she had seemingly stayed home all through the Famine, even when the villagers should have been raring to lynch her whole family. Why Draken had stared awkwardly at her when asked about the Kidnapping. Why her family crest was a dragon. Straightforward, really; she was descended from them. And she was one of them.

The story left off with the start of Coris's painstaking search for her, then a bout of silence descended between them as Coris reached for a long gulp of his now lukewarm tea. A candlelight flickered at the corner of her eyes, as Meya stared at him, trying to take it all in.

"So...you're saying...I'm a dragon." She finally uttered, her first comment in over a quarter-hour. Coris set down his tea with a rattling clink; his hand was shaking.

"Half-dragon, to be exact." He corrected with a sigh, a note of wariness in his tired voice and strain in his subtle movements, as if he was anticipating a fireball from Meya at any moment. However, Meya merely blinked, astounded,

"We can assume that most—if not all—of your inner organs are human. Obviously, you ingest human food and excrete—"

Coris skidded to a halt, as both he and Meya blushed faintly. The young lord then cleared his throat in an attempt at grace,

"—Excuse me...human waste. And, judging from our nighttime escapades, I'd say apart from the heat, your...um...attributes are also human. I assume you have had menarche..."

Coris trailed off with a flourish of his hand that was probably the substitute for You get the idea. Yet, that last word in particular reminded Meya of something that was bound to have arrived by now but hadn't, and she couldn't help gawking at the waffling young man before her as her brain whirred in panic.

No way. He's barren.

But Zier said that that might just be his imagination.

No, Coris has healers backing him up.

But he's so blessed.

So what? Size does not equal substance.

But you luuurrve it, right?

What's that got to do with—Whatever! I'm using Silfum!

Right...! Maybe it's the Silfum. Or the stress from the Heist. That's it! Stress and pungent herbal fumes wafting about my nether regions and messing up my body clock. Yes, that must be it.

Meya nodded to herself in relief. She hadn't noticed that while she was engulfed in her mental prizefight, Coris had picked himself up and strode off to his study desk. Fetching a small journal from his secret drawer, he walked gingerly back and continued as he settled down beside her.

"On the other hand, your draconic characteristics are...here," He trailed off as he rifled through the pages, then, after a sharp intake of breath as he noticed what he had written, flipped his book closed and handed it to the incredulous Meya (Goodly Freda! He's been taking notes on me?!).

Coris's thumb was wedged between the halves to mark the page containing the notes. Meya took the journal, hands trembling with both fear and fury, then deciphered his meticulous list.

The prose was clipped and precise, but it still took her several minutes to read; it was comprised of long, difficult, formal words. Each item was labelled with a rose bullet, the latter ones crammed around a rough pencil diagram of what appeared to be one half Meya's face, and one half dragon head, as if Coris had been adding more and more as he noticed new things.

Phosphorescent eyes. There was a branching line connecting that statement to Meya and the dragon's eyes. Meya didn't need to know what that first word meant to know what the nosy donghead was referring to.

High body heat.

No surprises there.

Immunity to substances otherwise harmful to man

—i.e. dwale, aconite, etc.

Aversion and severe allergy to Lattis.

Must have picked those up during the Heist.

Ability to transform into dragon and back upon contact with Lattis.

Wait—He'd speculated that right after the Heist!? How long had he been keeping this from her?!

Grinding her lip against the ball of fiery rage roiling up inside her bowels, Meya fought against the urge to let it loose in a particular direction and forced herself to keep reading,

High affinity to metals and minerals.

To Meya's eternal embarrassment, there was an indented paragraph elaborating on that phenomena:

---i.e. Sexual desire and arousal upon physical contact with Rose Crystal.

And, perhaps unavoidably, right below that bombshell there was:

High heat in birth canal (female) serves as natural deterrent for interracial reproduction, by hindering sexual intercourse and killing semen.

---Note: can be subdued by Lattis.

Meya could only make sense of perhaps the first five words, but only that was enough. More than enough.

I'll give you truth, he'd said. And once again she had given herself to him. Yet, as she concentrated solely upon making love to him with all the passion and tenderness in her, he was making a mental note to scribble down details of her most intimate parts in this blasted journal?!

Then lastly, in ink that hadn't yet lost its gleam and seeped deeply into parchment:

Metallic bones and blood capable of melting Lattis

---Evidence: severed phalange and molten ring, preserved by Morelia Hild. Account of Gillian, Nostran mercenary, as recalled by Meya Hild.

And,

Ability to regenerate digits, limbs, and flesh

---Exception: injuries caused by Lattis.

Meya flipped the page, but there was nothing there but splotches of seeped-through ink, and reflected outlines of the previous page's contents. The right-side page was also bare. Hitching up a rancorous smirk, she shook her head and closed the journal with a flump of expelled air.

"Huh. You could write a treatise." She snorted as she handed it back to its owner, who took it barely consciously, his wide eyes still staring at her, unsure and afraid, "I feel like an impaled beetle in some sick collection."

Her analogy seemed to have put into definitive words the guilt Coris was feeling. The enormity of what he had done. The young lord recoiled visibly, sickened by this side of himself he struggled to remedy.

"I'm so sorry. On hindsight, that was despicable." Coris sat back hunched and head bowed. Meya still stared resolutely ahead, as his apology rang hollow in her ears. She was aware that she was angrier than she had ever been in her whole life. Even angrier than she was with Marin yesterday. And she was trying to make sense why.

"We could've written up this list together. With your consent. If only I'd been honest with you." Coris plowed on, desperation seeping into his voice now at Meya's refusal to reciprocate with her forgiveness. His eyes remain downcast, and he did not dare touch the littlest finger of her hand clenched tight on her knee. The journal was still held loosely at the very tips of his fingers, and he pushed it back to her.

"I promised I'd give you truth. So, it's yours now. That's my only copy. Chuck it in the fireplace. Slap me with it. Do whatever you want with it."

He shook the journal, and it prodded her arm. Meya's lips was the only part of her that moved at all.

"What about that copy in your brain?"

Coris jolted at the quiet, yet venomous reminder.

"I'm so sorry." He dipped his head so low that the tips of his hair grazed his lap. "I swear I won't breathe a word of all this to anyone. This secret is yours to reveal."

"But this is why you insisted on following me to the Crimson Hog, isn't it?" Meya was not relenting. Once more, Coris's start confirmed her suspicion. "You wanted to talk to Draken about me. Then you left right before me, Deke, Jezia and Jason came back. But I bet everyone else already knew about all this? About me being a dragon or whatever? What are you gonna do about their copies, then?"

Coris had no reply to that.

"I trusted you, Lord Coris. And time and time again you betrayed my trust."

Coris kept silent. She could feel the cold emanating from his body trembling as he did. His evident contrition could not soften her, could not assuage her feelings of betrayal and hurt. It only tortured her worse that he was a nobleman and a supposed genius. Was it too much to expect even of the lowliest and meanest of men to treat a fellow living, thinking, feeling being with basic respect? Be it dragon or human or something in between?

Still, somehow she strove to see his side. To understand him. To seek out her responsibility in this mess. After all, she hadn't been fully honest with him. They had met as enemies. They hadn't remembered their past. And even now, Meya had no memory of what had happened between them during the Famine. He must have needed time to make sure. And even once he was, it mustn't have been easy to come forth with the truth.

"Then again, I guess it must have taken a while, mustering up the will to tell me." She shrugged with a wan, bitter smile, and Coris perked up at that change of tone, somehow even more alarmed than prior, "I guess you have your duties, Lord Hadrian and all. Gotta keep tabs on weirdos like us Greeneyes, haven't you? I mightn't have come out different, say our roles are reversed."

"Don't justify this. You have every right to be furious." Coris argued, his voice taut as his expression. Meya simply repeated her shrug.

"You're a nobleman. I'm a peasant girl. Aaand a Greeneye, to boot." She drawled in faked amusement, then chuckled to herself. Coris's retort was instantaneous.

"And does that strip you of the right to outrage? Being a peasant girl and a Greeneye didn't stop you risking your life to rescue a nobleman. Thrice. And it doesn't make your dignity any less worthy of my respect. Of anyone's respect!"

Meya wasn't expecting to hear that from him. From anyone. Her brain was telling her she shouldn't be this furious with Coris. After all, he was probably just doing what he had to do for Hadrian. For Latakia. Yet, her heart longed to believe in the truth of what he had said. That she deserved to be offended.

"I should've realized sooner. I should never have spied on you. Observed you like you weren't human."

"But I'm not human, am I?" Meya contradicted quietly.

"Yes, you are." Coris argued.

"No, I'm not."

"You can have it your way, but does that make any difference? Human. Dragon. Greeneye. Your body may be different, but you have feelings as acute as mine. I should have respected that, but I didn't. Whatever contempt you feel for yourself, I deserve it."

Meya turned slowly to scrutinize the anguished boy at her side. Why was he so desperate? What did he want from her? Was it forgiveness? Was it punishment? Or was it simply for her to stop blaming herself?

She couldn't find it in her to take time and figure it out. She was too mentally sapped and exhausted. She decided to just abandon her grudge and move on with the conversation. There are much more pressing issues than her blind, besotted, oft-betrayed trust in this lad before her.

"Never mind. I'll save it for next time." She reassured, sarcastic, then quickly added when Coris raised his eyebrows, incredulous, "No, really. Don't. Do it. Again—Ever."

Meya hammered down each word like three-inch nails into wood, blazing eyes locked with his pale silver. Her forgiveness may be swift, but the same may not be said for her trust. And she would probably never forget.

Coris gave a few deep nods in acceptance. Meya cleared her throat, resuming in what she hoped was a casual tone,

"So, I'm a half-dragon. And you're saying that all Greeneyes are like me?"

She stared down at her hand scratching at a smudge of dried soup on her dress. Her blank expression and level voice was undecipherable, and Coris could only keep watch on her from his distance as he obliged,

"You saw Gillian and his men that night. He and Dockar transformed into dragons upon contact with Lattis, while his men—" He flipped open the journal once more, this time all the way to the back cover, then extended it towards Meya, "—used this Lattis whistle to transform."

Despite herself, Meya glanced down at the foul volume once more. On the inside of the back cover, swinging slightly from a short length of torn string whose ends were glued to the leather, was a tube made of the familiar opalescent silvery metal.

A little way from the mouthpiece, a slot was carved out for a knob with intricate, minuscule, maze-like carvings. She fiddled with it, and it turned once with a clear stop, then back around. Dragon mode and human mode, she'd guess. Though how a dragon would be able to pick this thing up and blow it was anyone's imagination.

"I've sent men and hounds to scour the hill for evidence. They found this around where Gillian was standing. It probably came off when Zier slashed his neck." Coris explained as Meya glanced up again. Their eyes met, and Meya held his gaze, though her stare was still unreadable, "I reckon the Nostrans escaped partly so as not to reveal more of their secrets to us."

Meya nodded numbly, her head and heart somewhere else. The enormity of the revelation was catching up to her, creeping up her fingers and toes towards her heart like frostbite. All her life, she had known she was different, of course. Everyone around her never tire to point out her abnormalities. She was a Greeneye. An anomaly. A pariah. An outcast. But by all means still human. She had gotten a few weird, creepy characteristics, but overall she was still human. And though she'd rather be normal, she could still live with the lot she had.

Yet, now she was learning those were less quirks than symptoms. Telltale signs. Evidence of her monstrous nature. She was a dragon. And she didn't belong here. Not just in Crosset, but in the whole of Latakia.

Where should I go now? What should I do? Should I be glad? Should I want this?

As unbidden thoughts appeared one after another, coagulating in a slow yet torturous swirl of chaos inside her head, Coris's soft voice pierced the gloom like a faraway, hollow, insubstantial echo.

"All this must have come as a huge shock. I'm sorry for not letting you be the first to know. Again."

The journal slipped unhindered and unnoticed from Meya's unfeeling fingers, landing on the bare floor with a muffled chime of metal, stone and leather.

"I'm...I'm a dragon." She stretched up a wide, shaking grin, one with no joy in it, as she began to tremble so hard even her voice became jittery,

"So the folks back home were right. I'm a monster. I'm not a harbinger of misfortune. I'm not Chione's minion. I'm just a plain old big, ugly, flying, fire-breathing, murderous monster."

"No. You're not. You're not a monster." Coris was trying to correct her, but the desperation in this evident lie only served to underline the cruel truth, slashing a line on her heart like a metal quill, as his cold hands on her arms burned like icy steel.

"You're just another living being. Like me. You've seen Gillian and his men. You've seen Frenix. You've seen Heloise. You've seen Old Mother Gelda and her grandson. We all have dragon blood in us. You're just like everyone else."

"No, I'm not..." Meya muttered, shaking her head vigorously, "I'm not..."

"Meya, please." Even as Coris pleaded, Meya shrugged him off and sprang up, pacing restlessly about the room.

"Why? Why me?" She demanded hoarsely of unseen deities lurking in thin air, fingers entangled in her hair as she broke into a half-run, as if she hoped it would shake away this malediction in her blood. As if she could somehow escape the draconic half of her body.

"Why must it be me who inherited this from my parents? Why didn't any of my siblings get this? Why isn't anyone in Crosset like me?"

"Meya, there's nothing wrong with being a dragon. And you're still the same as you always were."

Coris struggled to find words to comfort, to reassure, but even as pure human as he was, he knew they were empty and irrelevant. He didn't answer her questions. He couldn't prove his statements. He couldn't understand how she was exactly feeling. He didn't know what she wanted. For perhaps the first time in his life, Coris didn't know what to do except stand there, helpless, gaping, entirely silent, as she tore herself to pieces before him.

"Even my own mother couldn't hug me for longer than two breaths. My wet nurse was Draken's cow, because no nursing mother in the whole of Crosset could stand to hold me. Everywhere I went folks chuck rotten eggs and fling mud at me because my eyes freak them out. I can't even lay with a lad without hurting him. How gruesome is that? What kind of girl burns men when they get inside her!?"

Meya's hands moved to cover her face. Tears were trickling out between her fingers and dripping from her chin. She crumpled to her knees, shaking her head as her fevered whispers rented through the still night air.

"I never wanted this. I don't want this. Isn't my life difficult enough already? Why can't I just be born normal?! What have I done wrong, Freda? Why?"

With that one ringing wail of despair, Meya fell on her side on the cold flagstones. Slapped awake from his stupor, Coris rushed over,

"Meya!"

He painstakingly heaved her up by the shoulders. She was still conscious, yet her eyes were squeezed shut. Her hands had left her tear-streaked face and were now tearing and clawing feebly at the bosom of her dress, as if trying to flee from her own skin. He locked her fingers in his as he pressed his chest against her back. Her skin burned like a sheet of iron on him, but he gritted his teeth and held tight without the merest twitch. As Meya fought with whatever strength she had left, he leaned down and spoke heavily into her ear.

"I'm here. I'm here with you. And I'm not leaving. You're not a monster. You're my rescuer. You're my friend. You're the May Queen. And you're not alone. There are many, many people like you, out there."

His words could only make Meya's tears fall thicker and faster.

"We're going to Safyre and Everglen. We'll find more Greeneyes. We'll learn more about your folk. And we're going to help them. All of us. If it's the last thing I do. Please...Please..."

Even as he pleaded, Coris didn't know what he wanted her to do. And whether he should want it. But what was he expecting? Back when she first transformed and he explained the truth to her, she had simply brushed it to the back of her mind, preferring to focus more on ensuring their survival, then she had forgotten it.

Here, now, however, there was nothing urgent to distract her. They were safe and sound. There was nowhere and no reason for her to run. And he was fumbling madly to keep her shattered self in one piece between his thin arms. All he knew was he must keep holding her, never letting go like all those people before him, even as she burned like fire on him.

Be brave as she had been for you.