The sun has sunk into the far horizon and night has come. I’ve sat with Nova for hours, Flash coming by to bring me food I barely picked at. Tim and Jace saw fit to leave me be, standing guard at the rim of Nova’s crater. Morgana told me to snap out of it, that Nova was dead and that Videlia and my people needed me.

I told her there was yet hope.

She broke a rock with her fist on her way up from the crater—what cooky old lady does that?—and spoke to David, saying my mind had finally broken.

But as the hours have passed, her words have seeped into my mind, beating against the hope I cling to. Discouragement has set. Perhaps I didn’t hear the Allfather right. Maybe he didn’t mean for Nova to be raised again. Maybe he was only asking if I believed for another reason.

Is Morgana right? Is she… gone?

Nothing responds. And I wonder if I truly have been bitten by a crocasp and experienced the poison induced hallucinations. It would make more sense than what actually occurred.

I take my eyes from Nova’s form—which has not bloated, leaving me a slender hope even as no breath filters through her nose—and look up at the stars. I see the many filtering constellations, the twinkling lights in an onyx theater crafted just to showcase their majesty.

And Pa’s words spoken to me so long ago begin to sink deep into my soul, touching places blocked by the walls I had put up in my life.

‘You may never know your purpose this side of The Sixth, my son. We see too little of life from our small perspectives to see the ripples we send across the worlds. But even if you never receive an answer to your question, I hope you always know you have a family who believes in you. We care for you deeply, just as you are.’

I smile, letting his words circle my soul and take root, the seed he planted blooming into a flowering tree. “I finally get it, Pa. I get it.”

At times, I wish I had been born anyone else. Anything else. A human whose greatest fear isn’t killing thousands of people but of simply putting food on the table for his family. There is a joy in the simple things, a joy I wish I could catch and hold to for once in my life.

But my joy lay in other things. My joy lay in living for today and trusting my future into the Allfather’s hands. It lay in knowing I have a pack who cares and I love fiercely in return. It's in serving those who are bound in chains but who can be free. In knowing that I may not can see my purpose, but that I can live knowing my purpose is held in the grand tapestry of life, come what may. Life or death may come, but through it all my hope is not of this world. It is beyond this world, beyond the Four Worlds entirely.

I stand, my legs cold and numb where the blood and muck filtering into the crater have created a stinking pit my stomach stopped revolting against long ago. At least it is not yet summer, with the chill of the night air staving off the worst stench.

I turn, finally giving up. It’s time for me to accept that once more a beloved friend has been taken. My heart aches for her dragonlings.

I bow my head, unable to find the strength in my tingling legs to climb the crater.

Just one more family I will need to find a way to support until they can stand on their own. Just one more to mourn, to cry, and to allow memory to serenade until time passes and the memories fade until nothing but the feeling of the soul’s imprint on your own can be held in your heart. But I know where she is, and I will rejoice that she has finally gone home, even as I grieve her deeply. For she is worth the grief. She was a beautiful creature with a soft soul despite everything she had been through. Despite being disowned from her clan and abused by the one who should love her the most.

She was a light in a world of darkness, a bright shining star that touched so many with her gentle and soft spirit. I wish it had been me instead. She deserved to live so much more than I.

A sound makes me turn.

And I about jump to the top of the crater.

Nova is… gone?

Where’d she go?

A cough comes from somewhere in the depth of the dragon-sized imprint where mud and muck slowly seep into where Nova’s legs and wings once lay.

I force my legs to stumble through the puddles I dare not name.

And I come upon something I cannot identify.

I take off my cloak that Morgana had foisted on me, muttering about catching cold, and wrap it around a form huddled on the ground, steam rising from her skin and enfolding her body and protecting her privacy.

Not that I would look.

I subtly sniff the air, and beneath the day’s old stench of metallic blood and the rotten and pungent aroma of spilt innards, is a smell I know well.

The smell of a sweet pine bonfire mixed with something like rain or the freedom of skies high above the ground that is cleaner and almost more real than what one can smell on the surface.

She coughs again, her entire body shivering beneath my cloak. She opens an eye, and it’s… brown. But she has no whites, a bit like my own eyes, just a shade of the deepest earth instead of the onyx sheen of my own. She narrows her eyes and squints as she tries to focus.

Fear alights in those depths, and she gasps, looking around wildly with pupils dilating and her face growing a pale grey. I didn’t realize it before, but her skin is covered in tiny scales that make her appear as if she has a diamond pattern all along her face and neck. Her skin is the same shade of black of her dragon on her arms and legs, but along her neck and cheeks it’s almost a bit more of a grey sheen than black.

Is she a Changeling?

No. She is something the worlds have not seen for a very long time. She is a Chosen Heirling. Cynic’s voice is coated in awe and breathless in wonder… even though he has no breath with which to speak.

What is that, exactly?

An Allfather chosen being of such sacrifice they are granted a second skin. Shifters and Werecats began as Chosen Heirlings.

I… what do I do?

Don't ask me. I'm just the head voice.

Her eyes land on me, and she shakes her head, pure black hair with a blue sheen clinging to her skin. She rises to her hands and knees, kneading the mushy ground with fingers instead of claws. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and confused… and adorable.

I squat down, unable to contain my smile. “Nova, it’s alright. It’s me, Roland,” I say softly, patting myself on the chest.

She shakes her body with a huff, and my cape falls off. I glance away from her, but keep a watch from the corner of my eye as she sniffs each of her appendages and spins in a circle looking for a tail.

She comes over to me and sniffs my forehead. I close my eyes, trying not to invade her privacy and be a gentleman.

She places a hand on my chest. “R-rrol-lannnd,” she says, her words a high-pitched, hesitant trill that ends in a growl.

But it’s a word. I feel her through the hand burning into my chest, through our bond through which we are connected on a soul-deep level. I feel her fear… but also her curiosity and… is that giddiness?

I cough. “Could you—uhhh—put my cloak around you?”

I feel more than see her cock her head in confusion. If she still had feathers, they would be bristling in confusion. Scratch that, her hair that I thought was… hair, is actually tiny, dainty feathers that do stand up a little when she’s curious, just like in her dragon form. And they glisten as if they have tiny stars or fireflies within them.

With a huff she does as asked. She trills in her throat and then coughs, as if her new throat is not made for such sounds. I open my eyes to find my cloak about her shoulders and covering everything important.

“Roland? I swear, I leave for a moment in time and you disappear with a dead dragon. I’m going to have grey hairs and die in my hundreds because of you!”

Flash emerges from the fog... and he freezes. The grin drains from his face and his eyes pop from his head like goldfish I had once seen in my birth father's ponds.

I step in front of Nova.

He raises a shaky hand, pointing at Nova. “Whaa--?”

“I can explain!” I say quickly, looking back over my shoulder to find Nova wondering off… or should I say crawling off? My cloak is on her back like a turtle’s shell as she waddles on her hands and knees away from us.

“Nova… wait!”