Was-Serqet was her name. This time, it wasn’t a whisper of a suggestion from an unknowable, outside force. The name came from inside her, welling up like a spring breaking through the earth for the first time to bubble out in a stream flowing downhill. It was there, it was alive, it had power. Snakebite-quick. Strength. Resilience. This was Was-Serqet. From her bed, Anzi watched as Netra raised her spines and crept around the new hatchling on the floor. Serqet followed her progress, turning in place with slow shuffles as her wide claws clicked against the wood. Dark red, compact, covered in segmented armor from behind the frill all the way down her flanks and rump. An also-segmented tail that unmistakably resembled a scorpion’s, right down to the coiled curl and what could only be the nub of a growing stinger at its tip. It twitched and hovered over her back, staying pointed at Netra as the latter circled the younger dragon with a gro

How to explain what she knew? How to convince him her information was good? How to make him see that bringing the dragons here had been a terrible idea no matter what his reasons? Anzi was still scrambling to put together proper responses for when he inevitably demanded answers and explanations. She didn’t want to give everything away, a conditioned cautiousness that she saw no reason to do away with, but in order to persuade him to go along with her wild plans, Kai needed at least some justification to cling to. But he said nothing. The silence stretched on as she waited for him to explode in either anger, outrage, or fear, but all he did was stare at her with a—what was that, a secretive expression? Slowly, her hackles rose as her gaze turned from stern to suspicious, and it wasn’t long before she pieced together what he wasn’t saying. “You know already,” she said. “You knew before I told you. You know that Tet’s going to do somethi

Netra didn’t like crowds. She barely tolerated company. So with the presence of the four strange men in the room, it was a miracle she hadn’t yet leaped out at them and left her claws in their bare chests. Anzi kept her eyes glued to the dragonet whose spines were already raised and bristling with undisguised hostility. And since when had her teeth become so jagged? There had been a few strewn about here and there over the past several weeks, but Anzi hadn’t noticed the new ones growing in. They looked too big for her maw and certainly big enough to sink and crush bone, too. She gave her a baleful glare, a wordless warning to behave, and was answered with a rebellious, wider display of those fierce dragon teeth. Was this what it was like to take care of a child? Constant disobedience and attitude? She would never have any of her own, she swore it. Then again, it was too late. Netra was all but her child anyway. “I really have to order you to leave,” she

Sparring was agonizing thanks to her hobbling leg and the occasional ripping spasms that made her grit her teeth against the crippling pain that flooded her from thigh to foot, but she wasn’t going to show weakness. Pierro’s growing smirk as the minutes slipped past was already making her want to murder him, and he was probably one stumble away from taunting her again, his favorite pastime. She had to stop caring so much, she told herself as she and Doufan circled each other in the dirt. Two of the standing torches had gone out by the training ground they had chosen, but it was still bright enough to see the man’s narrowed eyes and the angular, serpent-like face they peered out of. Doufan, the most mysterious of them all. Pierro was loud and brash; there could be no comparison. Aimee was quieter, but only in the haughtiest and most transparent of ways, and Anzi—Anzi had never been mysterious at all. Standoffish, yes, she could admit it now, but never my

Only Netra’s terrible hunger was capable of moving Anzi from her post by the infirmary door where she could keep an unblinking eye on both Kai and his suspicious ‘companion’ Neb Minnakhet. Just a couple of hours after exiling herself to the hallway, she was forced to go in search of something for the dragon to eat. The kitchens were only too happy to supply the imperious white dragonet with all the meat she could possibly stuff into her gullet—how was she growing so quickly?—while Serqet wandered elsewhere, bumping into corners and exploring the tiny dust bunnies along the walls. The younger hatchling wasn’t nearly as demanding and seemed to be able to go days without nourishment. And even when she was hungry, she seemed content to search for it on her own in the form of lizards, insects, and whatever else she could find rather than begging (screaming) for a meal. Such polar opposites. It made her wonder even more about drago