Page 131 of Realm of Thieves

She steps back into the pool and Brynla runs over to the edge. “But wait,” she says tearfully. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I won’t be gone,” she says as she starts to lower herself into the lava. “I’ll always be here. Anytime you want to see me, to talk, I will be here. I hear your prayers too, you know, even the ones you don’t realize you’re saying.”

“But I love you!” Brynla sobs, dropping to her knees beside the pool. “Mama.”

“I love you, my darling,” her mother says sweetly before she’s fully submerged and all that’s left is an empty pool.

Brynla cries and I crouch beside her, putting my arm around her. “Come on, let’s get you away from the edge. You might have dragon blood, but I’m not about to test your resistance to fire.” I pull her up to her feet and for the first time I feel the full weight of her.

I have to say, I kind of like it.

She’s packed with muscle, she’s solid, she’s curvy, she’s strong.

She keeps me anchored to her, my rock.

I pull her to me and kiss the top of her head, enveloping her in my arms.

“I guess I’m going to have to start calling you dragon girl now,” Itease her. “I’m telling you, if you end up taming the Kolbecks’ dragons, there will officially be nothing that you can’t do.”

She glances up at me. “Your father is still going to hate us for not having that egg.”

“My father can go fuck himself, quite frankly,” I tell her. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Chapter 36

Andor

I’m used to disappointing people,especially when it comes to my family.

But when Brynla and I ran into Vidar, Kirney, and Belfaust’s search party on our walk back from the slangedrage’s cave, and I saw the look on my brother’s face once I told him we’d lost the egg of immortality, it was like a knife to the fucking heart.

It didn’t seem like he cared much that I had died. Literally died. Nearly chomped in half by a deathdrage before being brought back to life by an actual goddess—one who happens to be Brynla’s mother and is made entirely out of lava. No, none of that seemed to matter to Vidar. All that mattered is that Brynla stole the egg and it got destroyed in the process, therefore negating their entire operation.

I have no right to judge Brynla. After all, I’d kept Princess Frida a secret, as well as the plan for the heist, so I suppose this makes us even. And I know now that the fates twisted our path. The egg was never meant to be ours.

I’m glad my father won’t be able to use it. Though it would have given the Kolbecks, and the army of the Elgins, the royal house, the upper hand in the long game, we’d be playing with something wedon’t fully understand. I can’t help but think about the Harbringer, the way that Brynla described Lemi tearing out her throat and eating her face and how she still managed to live after that, to chase after them. Will the Harbringer be forced to remain like that for eternity? Is there truly no way out?

But that’s something we don’t have to worry about anymore. Yes, there could be more eggs. There probably are. But right now, we have to let go of that dangerous dream and concentrate on the actual dangerous dream that’s in our hands.

Before we ran into the search party, Brynla and I found the deathdrage’s fertilized egg stored safely in my pouch that I’d dropped when the dragon attacked. We took the egg and the remaining vials of suen back with us, unsure if Steiner would be able to save the egg since it had been without it’s mother’s heat for so long. But once we got back to the boat and set sail, Steiner put the egg in the incubator, and we could see the faint pulse of its heartbeat under a special light; the dragon inside is still alive and growing.

Like I said, another dangerous dream. The idea that we’ll be raising a deathdrage is utterly insane. Voldansa’s words still ring in my head, even after the multiday journey home. That dragons remember what has been done to them.

This might be the best thing that could ever happen to House Kolbeck.

Or it could be the worst.

“Good luck, brother,” Vidar whispers to me as we exit the carriage.

I step onto the wide path outside Stormglen, my home looking especially imposing today. I suppose there’s a chance it may not be my home after my father finds out what happened. After all, the only reason I was able to blow off my engagement to Princess Frida was that I promised to get the egg of immortality instead.

And there’s my father now, flanked by my uncle, stepping out ofthe gates. My father’s tall, lanky body looking extra intimidating in his long black garb. He claps his hands together with gleeful anticipation, which only makes my heart sink like a stone.

Oh, I am so fucked.

“It’s going to be all right,” Brynla says softly as my father approaches, giving my hand a brief squeeze. “I’ll take the fall.”

“You will not,” I practically hiss at her. “You don’t say a damned word. Promise me that. Promise me.”

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