I could hear Mira and Darian behind me, pleading.
Their voices cut through the roar of the waterfall in pieces—my name, promises, curses aimed at Tamara, at Kereska, at the council, at anyone they could think to blame. They were trying to make me turn around. Trying to convince me they would stay.
I stood beneath the downpour and let the water hammer over my head, my shoulders, my face, as if enough force could strip the feeling out of me.
It didn’t.
Nothing did.
Rage burned hottest first.
Tamara.
Gods, Tamara.
Not the gentle memory I had carried. Not mercy made flesh. Not the woman whose light had once filled the Starlight Palace and made every violent thing in me want to kneel just to prove it could.
No.
This was Tamara the judge. Tamara the jailer. Tamara the sanctimonious architect of my isolation. Tamara, who had taken my place in the pantheon quietly enough that I had not noticed until her hand was already around the throat of what remained of my life.
Humiliation came next.
It crawled under my skin with teeth. The thought of her standing where I had once stood, making decisions in my absence, speaking to the council, moving pieces around a board that had once been mine. My council. My palace. My work. All of it shifting around her while I bled and hunted and broke myself against Liliana’s line.
And beneath that—fear.
Not of death. Not of punishment. Not even of the gods who had chosen her over me.
Of losing them.
Mira. Darian. Sera. Ilyon.
The few who had seen me become something ugly and stayed anyway.
Or tried to.
Betrayal followed fear, colder and sharper. Those loyal to me in the pantheon had allowed this. Perhaps they had even agreed with it. Kereska had laid the spell. Tamara had written the sentence. The council had watched and called it medicine.
Isolation.
The gentlest punishment, according to people who had never been left alone with themselves.
Then came the worst feeling.
Doubt.
It slithered in quieter than the rest, almost gentle.
Am I really that far gone?
Was Nashkel justice?
Was Seravain punishment, or pleasure?
If I am wrong, then what the fuck has all of this been for?
The questions circled like carrion birds, and behind me my friends kept pleading, not understanding that the magic had already touched them. That was the cruelty of it. They thought their promises were clean. They thought their loyalty was untouched. They thought staying was a choice they could simply make and hold.
They did not understand what Kereska had done.
I did.
So I turned.
The waterfall streamed from my hair and armor as I stepped out of the downpour. Mira’s face was tight with panic. Darian stood close to her, one hand hovering like he was afraid she might break if he did not catch her fast enough.
I crossed the slick stone between us and pulled them both into my arms.
For one breath, neither moved.
Then Mira gripped me hard enough to hurt.
Darian’s hand closed around the back of my shoulder.
I let myself hold them.
Just once.
“I wish you a happy life,” I said.
The words nearly gutted me.
Tears burned hot down my face, but the water hid them well enough. Maybe that was mercy. Maybe I was too proud to call it what it was.
“I know you’ll be great parents,” I continued, my voice rougher than I wanted. “And this is where we part, my friends.”
They stared at me like I had struck them.
Darian’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
Mira shook her head, her breath catching. “No. No, don’t do that.”
“Mira—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, but her voice broke on it.
Darian looked between us, confusion giving way to dread. “Lendys, what does it say? The real message. Not whatever bullshit we read.”
Mira dropped to her knees.
Darian followed instantly, one arm around her, steadying her before she could fold completely.
She looked up at me, eyes shining. “Is it bad?”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitched.
Trust Mira to cut through all the divine poetry and ask the only question that mattered.
“Yes,” I said softly. “It’s bad.”
Her face crumpled.
“Kereska placed the spell on you both,” I said. “Likely on Sera and Ilyon too.”
Darian went still.
Mira whispered, “The god of draconic magic?”
I nodded.
Then I turned back toward the alcove, toward Tamara’s glowing words, and placed my hand against the stone.
“You’ll live a happy life,” I said, because I needed it to be true. “I know that. But this is their punishment for me. Alone until I regret. Alone until I learn.”
Mira bent forward like the words had physically struck her.
Darian gathered her into his arms. Good man. Always a good man, even when the world deserved less from him.
He lifted her carefully, though his eyes never left mine.
“Don’t let them have their way,” he said.
I looked at him.
His voice lowered, fierce and certain. “Give them what they deserve.”
For one fractured second, the grief eased.
Not vanished. Nothing so kind.
But his words gave me something to hold that was not only sorrow.
I kept one hand on the stone after they left. I did not watch them go. I could not. The sound of their footsteps fading behind the waterfall was enough to carve the moment into me forever.
Then silence returned.
Tamara’s signature glowed beside my hand.
Your Better.
The words blurred.
Not from tears this time.
From fury.
I pushed against the wall.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the stone cracked.
I paused, surprised despite myself.
Another thin fracture split through the celestial script, running close enough to Tamara’s name that the light bent around it.
That did it.
I drew my fist back.
Every ugly thing in me came with it—rage, humiliation, betrayal, fear, doubt, love turned septic by abandonment.
Then I drove my fist into the wall.
Stone exploded inward.
The alcove ruptured, collapsing around the hidden seam Tamara’s magic had concealed. Behind it yawned darkness, stale air, and the cold remains of an abandoned lair.
Liliana’s brood had been here.
The realization did not soothe me.
It sharpened me.
I stepped through the broken wall and searched everything.
Carefully at first. Then violently.
The lair had been stripped, but arrogance always leaves fingerprints. Scraps of correspondence. Shattered instruments. Discarded ritual slates. Residue from preservation vats. Enough to tell me one of Liliana’s line had occupied this place and left in a hurry under Tamara’s protection.
Then I found the sack.
A small, forgotten bundle tucked beneath a cracked stone shelf.
Inside were scales.
Too large for hatchlings. Too small for younglings.
Not shed naturally.
Removed.
Cut from bodies that had worn draconic truth too openly and needed to pass as something more mortal. Emerald scales, black-edged at the base, faintly warm with lingering identity.
A trail.
Liliana’s brood had handed me a trail in a discarded sack.
I laughed once.
It sounded nothing like joy.
I took the scales, sealed them away, and brought the lair down behind me. Stone collapsed into stone. Tamara’s message shattered with it, her signature buried beneath rubble and water and my refusal to obey.
She had forced me into isolation to atone.
To reflect.
To become better.
Fine.
I would reflect.
I would reflect on every name that had helped her. Every council member who agreed. Every god who thought loneliness would soften me. Every collaborator who mistook mercy for a leash.
And Liliana’s brood?
I would hunt every last one.
Not just them anymore.
Their protectors. Their enablers. Tamara’s quiet little hands hidden in the dark.
I would find them all.
And when I was done, when the last emerald scale had been torn from the last ruined body, I would make Tamara understand exactly what she had made of me.
Whether she begged forgiveness or not would be her choice.
Whether I granted it?
That remained to be seen.