We don't leave the palace.
I know we should. The Spire of Echoes waits in the distance, promising answers we desperately need. But something pulls me back, a nagging sensation at the base of my skull that whispers not yet, not yet.
"There's something else," I say, turning away from the palace entrance.
Ghatak doesn't question me. He simply follows, his presence a steady anchor at my back as I navigate the ruined corridors. The bond between us hums with curiosity and concern, but he trusts my instincts.
I wish I trusted them as much.
The palace is a labyrinth of collapsed hallways and blocked passages, but I know it intimately. Every turn, every hidden alcove, every secret passage my siblings and I discovered during our childhood explorations. The memories are bittersweet—laughter echoing through these halls, the thunder of dragon wings, Eira's silver hair catching the light as she raced ahead of us.
Eira.
I shove the thought down. I can't afford to break down again. Not yet.
We descend deeper into the palace, past the royal quarters and the council chambers, down a spiral staircase that's miraculously intact. The air grows colder, heavier with magic. I can feel it pressing against my skin—void energy, chaos energy, intertwined in a way that makes my dragon instincts prickle with recognition.
"Astraea," Ghatak says quietly. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know," I admit. "But there's something down here. Something... calling to me."
He doesn't argue. His hand finds mine in the darkness, and we continue our descent.
The staircase ends in a corridor I don't recognize. The walls here are smooth, unmarred by the destruction that ravaged the upper levels. Protective wards shimmer faintly in the air, their magic still active after all these centuries. Someone wanted this place preserved.
Someone wanted this place hidden.
At the end of the corridor is a door. Not the grand, ornate entrances that marked the important chambers above, but something simpler. Obsidian, carved with intricate runes that pulse with a soft violet light. I recognize the script—ancient draconic, the language of our oldest ancestors.
And I recognize the magic woven into those runes.
Bloodline seals.
"Only someone of royal blood can open this," I murmur, stepping closer. The runes respond to my presence, glowing brighter, and I feel the magic reaching out to me like a living thing. Testing. Confirming.
Recognizing.
I press my palm against the door, and chaos energy floods through me. The runes flare brilliant purple, then fade. The door swings open silently, revealing darkness beyond.
Ghatak summons a sphere of void energy, and we step inside.
The chamber is circular, carved from the same black stone as the rest of the palace. But unlike the devastation above, this room is pristine. Untouched. The walls are covered in more runes—protective wards, preservation spells, incubation magic so complex it makes my head spin just looking at it.
And in the center of the room, resting on a raised dais of obsidian and silver, are two eggs.
Dragon eggs.
I stop breathing.
They're massive—each one easily the size of my torso—and they gleam in the magical light like polished gemstones. One is deep violet, shot through with veins of silver that pulse with chaos energy. The other is pure black, its surface absorbing light, radiating void power so intense I can feel it from across the room.
Chaos and Void.
Mother and Father.
"Gods," Ghatak breathes beside me. His void energy flickers and dies, but the eggs provide their own illumination. The violet one pulses like a heartbeat, steady and strong. The black one seems to breathe, expanding and contracting with a rhythm that matches my own.
I move forward without conscious thought, drawn to them like a moth to flame. My hands shake as I reach out, hovering just above the violet egg's surface. I can feel the life inside—faint but undeniable. A presence. A consciousness, still forming, still waiting.
Waiting for what?
"They're alive," I whisper. "After all this time, they're still alive."
Ghatak circles the dais, examining the runes carved into its surface. "The incubation magic is still active," he says, his voice filled with awe. "Barely, but it's holding. Your parents must have poured everything they had into these wards."
Their last act. Their final hope.
I sink to my knees beside the dais, my vision blurring with tears I refuse to shed. "They knew," I say hoarsely. "They knew they were going to die, and they... they left us this."
"A legacy," Ghatak agrees softly. He kneels beside me, his hand finding the small of my back. "A future."
I want to laugh. Want to scream. Want to rage at the unfairness of it all. My parents are dead, my siblings scattered or worse, my entire species exterminated. And here, hidden in the depths of a ruined palace, are two eggs that represent everything we lost.
Everything we could still save.
"How long?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. "How long until they hatch?"
Ghatak studies the runes, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Dragon eggs are... complicated," he says slowly. "They don't hatch on a set timeline. They wait until conditions are right. Until they sense safety, stability, and the presence of their parents or guardians."
"So they've been waiting," I say. "For two thousand years, they've been waiting for someone to come back."
"For you to come back," he corrects gently. "The bloodline seals, the chaos and void magic woven into the incubation wards—this chamber was designed for you, Astraea. Your parents knew you'd find them."
The weight of that realization crashes over me like a tidal wave. My parents, in their final moments, thought of me. Protected these eggs. Left me a message written in magic and hope.
Don't let our line die. Don't let everything we built turn to ash.
I reach out again, and this time I let my fingers brush against the violet egg's surface. It's warm, almost hot, and the chaos energy inside responds to my touch. The pulse quickens, just slightly, and I feel something stir within.
Recognition.
"They know me," I breathe. "They can feel me."
"Of course they can," Ghatak says. "You're their sister. Their guardian. The one who's supposed to protect them."
Sister. The word hits me like a physical blow. I have siblings again. Not the ones I lost, not the family I mourned, but new life. New hope. Two dragons who will never know our parents, who will grow up in a world so different from the one they were meant to inherit.
And I'm supposed to raise them.
The absurdity of it strikes me, and I let out a sound that's half-laugh, half-sob. "I don't know the first thing about hatching dragon eggs," I say. "I was barely an adult when I went into that coma. I've never raised children. I've never even thought about it."
"Neither have I," Ghatak admits. "But we'll figure it out."
"Will we?" I look up at him, and I know my expression is wild, desperate. "We're the last two dragons on this planet, Ghatak. We don't even know if there are others out there, if anyone survived. And now we have two eggs that need... what? Warmth? Magic? Constant supervision? What if I do something wrong? What if they die because I'm too ignorant or too broken to—"
"Astraea." His hands cup my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "Breathe."
I do, dragging in air that tastes like ash and magic and grief.
"We will figure this out," he says firmly. "Together. That's what the bond means. That's what being mates means. You're not alone in this."
Not alone.
The words settle something inside me, quieting the panic that threatened to spiral out of control. He's right. I'm not alone. Not anymore.
I turn back to the eggs, studying them with new eyes. The violet one—chaos—is slightly larger, its surface covered in intricate patterns that shift and change when I'm not looking directly at them. The black one—void—is perfectly smooth, its darkness so complete it seems to swallow the light around it.
My siblings. My responsibility. My future.
"We need to move them," I say, my voice steadier now. "This chamber is protected, but it's still in the palace. If the structure collapses, if something happens..."
"Agreed," Ghatak says. "But we need to be careful. Dragon eggs are resilient, but the incubation magic is delicate. If we disrupt it too much, we could damage them."
I study the wards again, tracing the flow of magic with my senses. It's beautiful work—layers upon layers of protective spells, all woven together in a tapestry so complex it would take me years to fully understand. But the core of it is simple: preservation. Stasis. Keeping the eggs alive until the right moment.
Until I came back.
"We can reinforce the wards," I say slowly. "Add our own magic to the existing structure. Make it portable."
Ghatak nods. "It'll take time. And power. But it's possible."
"Then we do it." I stand, squaring my shoulders. "We protect them. We keep them safe. And we find a way to hatch them."
"The Spire of Echoes," Ghatak says. "If there's information about dragon incubation anywhere, it'll be there."
The Spire. Right. Our original destination, before we found... this.
I look down at the eggs again, and something fierce and protective rises in my chest. These are mine. My family. My responsibility. And I will burn this entire planet to ash before I let anything happen to them.
"We'll need to prepare," I say. "Gather supplies. Make sure the wards are stable enough to transport them."
"And we'll need to decide where to take them," Ghatak adds. "The cave where we woke is secure, but it's not ideal for long-term incubation. We need somewhere with more space, better resources."
I think of the devastated world above, the ruins and bones and silence. "Is there anywhere on this planet that's safe?"
"We'll make it safe," he says simply. "Whatever it takes."
Whatever it takes.
I kneel beside the eggs one more time, placing a hand on each. The violet one pulses under my palm, warm and alive. The black one hums with void energy, a deep resonance that vibrates through my bones.
"I don't know if you can hear me," I whisper. "I don't know if you understand. But I promise you—I will protect you. I will keep you safe. And when you hatch, when you finally come into this world, I will make sure you have a future worth living."
The eggs don't respond, of course. But I swear I feel something—a flicker of awareness, a whisper of recognition.
Hope.
Ghatak's hand settles on my shoulder, and I lean into his touch. "We should rest," he says quietly. "Reinforcing the wards will take everything we have. We need to be at full strength."
He's right, but I don't want to leave. Don't want to let these eggs out of my sight, even for a moment. What if something happens? What if the wards fail? What if—
"They've survived two thousand years," Ghatak reminds me gently. "They'll survive a few more hours."
Two thousand years. Gods. These eggs have been waiting almost as long as I've been alive. Longer than most civilizations last. And they're still here, still alive, still waiting.
Waiting for me.
I stand slowly, reluctantly. "We'll come back at first light," I say. "Start working on the wards then."
"Agreed."
We leave the chamber, and I seal the door behind us with my bloodline magic. The runes flare and settle, locking the eggs away from the world. Safe. Protected.
For now.
As we climb back up the spiral staircase, exhaustion crashes over me like a wave. The emotional toll of the day—waking from a two-thousand-year coma, discovering the extinction of my species, finding my parents' remains, and now this—it's too much. My legs shake, and I stumble.
Ghatak catches me before I fall, sweeping me into his arms like I weigh nothing.
"I can walk," I protest weakly.
"I know," he says. "But you don't have to."
I don't have the energy to argue. I let my head rest against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It's soothing, grounding. A reminder that I'm not alone.
Not anymore.
We emerge from the palace into the dying light of Draconis poisoned sunset. The sky is still that sickly orange, the air still thick with ash and decay. But somehow, it doesn't feel quite as hopeless as it did before.
Because now we have something to fight for.
Not just vengeance against Sadie and her demons. Not just answers about what happened to our world. But life. New life. Two dragons who will carry our legacy forward, who will prove that we weren't completely destroyed.
Hope.
It's a fragile thing, as delicate as the eggs hidden in that chamber. But it's real. And right now, that's enough.
Ghatak carries me back to the cave where we woke, and I don't protest. I'm too tired, too overwhelmed, too raw from everything we've discovered. He lays me down on the stone floor, and I curl into him, seeking warmth and comfort.
"We're going to be parents," I murmured against his chest. "To dragons we didn't even know existed until today."
"Yes," he agrees, his hand stroking my hair. "We are."
"That's insane."
"Most things worth doing are."
I huff out a laugh, and it feels good. Feels normal. "You're taking this remarkably well."
"One of us has to," he says dryly. "And you've already had two breakdowns today. I figured it was my turn to be the stable one."
"How generous of you."
"I thought so."
We fall silent, and I let my eyes drift closed. Sleep pulls at me, heavy and insistent, but my mind won't quiet. Too many thoughts, too many questions, too many fears.
"Ghatak?" I whisper.
"Mm?"
"What if I'm not enough? What if I can't protect them?"
His arms tighten around me. "Then we'll find a way to be enough. Together."
Together.
The word settles over me like a blanket, warm and reassuring. I'm not alone. I have Ghatak. I have the eggs. I have a purpose.
I have hope.
And for the first time since I woke up in this nightmare, I let myself believe that might actually be enough.