Chapter 4

"This Scale-Stripper wants to steal someone's husband!"

A shrill cry of outrage ignited the crowd in an instant.

The women of the various clans who had been betrayed by their partners in their own lives seemed to find in me the most perfect target imaginable for their fury. Their eyes went red, and they surged toward me.

I had no time to move before the blows came down like a storm. Open palms and claw-tipped fists landed across every part of me, relentless.

"Beat this shameless wretch to death!"

"Seducing other men and still not satisfied! Going after her own sister's husband! She deserves whatever she gets!"

Every kick sent shockwaves of pain through my nerves.

I curled my arms around my head, rolling through the barrage of blows like a dying insect.

In the chaos, I heard Sylvie let out a delicate, trembling cry. She pressed a hand to her chest and swayed sideways. "Lucien, everyone is being so rough. I'm frightened."

A single sentence, effortlessly drawing Lucien and Kael's attention away from me entirely.

Through the thicket of legs kicking and stomping around me, I watched Lucien's face flood with alarm. He rushed over and swept Sylvie up into his arms, turning and striding away without sparing a single glance in my direction.

Kael stood a few steps away, looking down at me with a cold detachment, something close to distaste in his expression.

"They're only letting off steam. You have a dragon constitution. You won't die." He dropped those words and walked away without looking back.

A hard-soled boot came down on my lower abdomen with a sound like a struck drum.

The dragon egg I had been sheltering inside me, still unformed, still so small, shattered.

Golden fluid poured down the inside of my thigh. It was the pure, undiluted essence of dragon bloodline — my second child, the life I had been quietly carrying and fiercely protecting.

No one stopped. The women around me only saw the blood of a creature they found monstrous.

I lay curled on the ground, too far gone even to convulse. The shouting and cursing blurred in my ears, and the faint, fragile heartbeat I had felt in my womb went still and did not return.

Perhaps even this child had understood. This place was a hell, and he had no business being born into it.

When they dragged me back to the clan nest, I was barely breathing.

At the center of the hall, Sylvie was reclining against Kael, sipping a calming spirit tonic. My parents hovered around her, fretting and fussing, terrified that she might have been disturbed by so much as a ripple of distress. I was discarded on the cold stone floor like a torn and filthy pelt.

Sylvie looked at me. Something vicious and gleeful flickered through her eyes before she could smother it. She pushed Kael's hand aside and walked over, crouching in front of me with the air of someone performing a kindness.

"Sister, how did you come to be hurt so badly?"

She leaned close to my ear and let the words fall, one at a time, quiet and deliberate, meant for no one but me:

"I'm tired of that stupid whelp of yours, anyway. Why don't you give me another one? Something fresher. If I'm in a good mood, perhaps I'll let you look at him once before I'm done with him."

Reason broke.

I gathered every last shred of strength I had, raised my hand, and raked it toward her face.

I was going to kill her. I was going to tear that false skin from her bones.

But my hand never reached her face.

A crack of impact. Half my face went numb, and a force like a wrecking blow launched me sideways. I hit the dragon-bone pillar behind me with my back and slid.

Lucien stood over me, his eyes the eyes of someone who wanted to flay me alive.

"Sheng Aria! Have you had enough? You would dare raise a hand against Sylvie in front of all of us? How much further are you going to take your cruelty?"

"You will not hurt my mother!" A child's high voice rang out.

Ember came charging. He held a sliver of dragon bone in his fist, razor-edged, and drove it without hesitation into my already blood-soaked abdomen.

A wet, puncturing sound filled the silence of the nest.

Ember froze. He clearly had not expected the bone to go in. The color drained from his small face in an instant, his hand shook, yet he squared his jaw and held my gaze with something hard in his eyes, refusing to back down.

That moment, the wound in my stomach stopped hurting entirely. Because my heart had been wrung into pulp by that single sliver of bone.

I looked at this child I had spent half my life force to bring into the world. "You protect her like that because you believe she is your mother. But what if I told you that I am the one who gave birth to you?"

"Shut your mouth!"

My father hurled the tea bowl in his hand at me, his composure gone entirely. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting now?"

Ember let go of the bone with contempt and stepped back sharply, his whole face curled in disdain. "You're my mother? If that were true, I'd rather be a feral beast with no bloodline at all. You disgust me."

Disgust.

I watched him withdraw behind Sylvie's skirts, and even the act of breathing stopped for a moment.

My vision began to blur. The countdown only I could see blazed and flickered at the edge of my sight.

I laughed. It rose from somewhere deep and helpless, tears and blood running together down my face, my whole chest shaking with it.

There was nothing left to fight for. No reason to argue. Liberation was minutes away.

I drew a slow breath. I pushed myself up, turned, and lurched in a broken, stumbling line toward the Dragon Fall Cliff at the edge of the nest.

Cold wind sliced across my wounds like a blade, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, my head felt clear.

Footsteps erupted in disorder behind me.

"Aria! What are you doing! That drop is a bottomless abyss! Stop this at once!" My parents' voices finally cracked open, edged with a panic they could not contain.

Kael's expression collapsed. He lunged two steps forward. "Aria! Don't do this to me! If it's the child you want, we can raise one ourselves! Come back!"

I stood at the edge of the cliff, my skirt whipping in the gale.

There was no child left to speak of. My dragon egg was gone. I had no child anymore.

Lucien still would not believe it. He stared at me with his jaw clenched tight. "Have all of you not been fooled by her enough? She is counting on us caring about her. This is just another performance. Another threat."

"Sheng Aria, you are bluffing and you know it! Even if someone gave you the courage, you wouldn't jump! Get back here and apologize!"

The cold wind filled my chest and carried away the last of whatever warmth had remained.

At that precise moment, the ancient voice sounded in the back of my mind, arriving exactly on time.

【Dragon Breath Bearer, the hour has come.】

I turned and looked at all of them, at the whole assembly of people who had spent years bending me into whatever shape they needed, and pulled my lips into the most wretched smile I had.

"If two children and six years of living flayed were still not enough to pay for my sins," I said softly, "then take this life as well. Add it to the debt."

The next second, as they came screaming and lunging toward me, I spread my arms wide, tipped back, and fell.

Freely, without a struggle, into the fathomless sea of cloud below.