Page 144 of Song of the Heart Scale
Oh,love that crossed through water wide,
Oh, flame that would not die.
A dragon gave his heart away,
And taught the stars to cry.
No throne,no wings, no fire remains,
Just laughter shared in time—
For one small life, for one small hand,
For the love he swore to find.
And somewhere now beneathour skies,
He walks with her… as man.
The song ended.The silence lingered, heavy with something unspoken.
“Clever,” I said, setting my mug down with a soft thud. “They hide in riddles what history will never speak plainly.”
Jacob leaned in, his grin wolfish. “It’s calledThe Dragon’s Ballad. I wonder who it’s about. Do you think we know them?”
I grinned. “Maybe, maybe not. Stories like that never stay buried."
He raised his mug again. “To legends.”
“To inconvenient truths.”
We drank.
For a while, we said nothing more, letting the music carry us as the fire crackled and the night spun on without us. Outside, the world turned. Inside, I allowed myself, just for a moment, to feel... at ease.
I had returned. I was whole. And they would learn to fear me properly this time.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I listened to a song and smiled.
Good luck, Cat and Damien.
EPILOGUE
CAT
Six Months Later
It’s funny how quiet happiness can be.
Not the loud, chaotic kind people expect. Not the fireworks and fanfare. No—true happiness settled into your bones like warmth after a cold winter. It was the hum beneath your skin when you woke up beside the person you loved. It was the soft press of lips to your shoulder in the morning. The way sunlight filtered through cheap curtains onto tangled sheets. The smell of coffee you didn’t make yourself. The feel of hands smoothing over your belly where life grew inside you.
It was Damien standing barefoot in our tiny Los Angeles apartment, glaring at the coffee machine like it was a demon he hadn’t figured out how to slay yet.
“It beeped again,” he muttered, frowning as if the machine had personally offended him.
I laughed from where I sat at the kitchen table, one hand absently stroking the curve of my belly beneath my oversized T-shirt. Four months along, and I’d already outgrown everythingI owned. My body wasn’t just mine anymore; it belonged to something small and growing, something impossibly precious.
