“The whole time you were here, you loved him still,” Lethe seethed. “I get it. When you were kissing me. And when you were taking advantage of my indulgence. You loved him still.”
“You must have known that!” I cried, forgetting that the entire prison—including Altair—could hear us. “You saw the messages he was sending me. You can’t allow someone to be tortured as I was and then expect their interactions with you to be genuine. You must understand that from that point on, part of my action was motivated by fear.”
Lethe winced and refused to meet my eyes. “You feared me?”
“Of course I feared you! I feared you because you had me sent to this dungeon in the first place! I feared you because you alone had the power to kill off an entire people, and my husband!”
“Would you stop calling him that?” Lethe hissed.
“I’ll stop calling him my husband if you let me out of this damn dungeon,” I seethed in return.
“I cannot, and you know that,” Lethe said, beginning to recede. “It would endanger us both if I released you from those chains so soon. Perhaps someday you’ll appreciate what I have done for you—what I would have done for you—and what I will do for you still, Penelope.”
Lethe turned and exited the dungeon, casting me one anguished glance as he did so.
In spite of how miserable I was, and how I wished that Lethe could be stronger, for me if not for himself, I couldn’t help but grimace and think that he still didn’t deserve the downtrodden role of Michelle’s fool husband.
Theon
It was still night, and it was late at that, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind struggled with all that had been stolen from me. It seethed to the forefront of my thoughts like a soup on the verge of overflowing from the pot. I needed to get into the sky. I needed to think. I missed The Hearthlands… Everwinter… though I could not be certain that my body would weather the frigid temperature. Though our ability to expel fire remained unhindered—save during the storms of ice and wind—many of my kind would suffer from stiff or even frozen wings in such white skies, and would plummet into the snow below. The skies were also so temperamental now. At times, the weather was crisp but clear… however, a fire dragon would be foolish to depend on that for longer than an hour or two before storms would arise.
And, from the ogres’ beach, it was impossible to tell what clouds hung over The Hearthlands. Everwinter.
I sat up from where I slept on the sand, beneath a sloppily constructed lean-to of palm fronds and driftwood. The temperature here was comfortable to us. Perhaps a touch too moist, but regardless, it was warm. We had no need of blankets or furs any longer.
I glanced over the moonlit beach, where Mother lay resting nearby. Charis and Einhen slept as well. In grand total, we were less than four hundred remaining. Our people, once thousands strong, had been killed in battle, in imprisonment, or had fled to other countries and even dimensions. Less than four hundred remained to fight for our rightful territory. We thronged this lengthy strip of beach, but against the ice dragons, what would our ratio be? There were more of us in the human realm, but in the tundra of The Hearthlands’, where we became slow to move and even slower to heal - where the ice dragons were strongest, fastest, and most ruthless - what chance did we have with even one hundred more fire dragons?
I grimaced, thinking about it. The city seemed more and more a distant dream, an unlikely future. And yet… gods… I’d rather see it destroyed by our own hands than the years of mistreatment the ice dragons would certainly allow.
I took a deep breath, shrugging my shoulders to loosen the taut muscles. I wished Nell was here—but it was better this way. She was safe in Maine. Her parents would take care of her when I could not.
I needed to get out of here. This place, with its camp of homeless fire dragons and its sandy dunes and tropical foliage, was not my home… and if I stared at it long enough, I became sick. I needed to fly. I needed to think. Or to escape from my thoughts, perhaps.
Undressing with a perfunctory lack of self-awareness, I removed my pants and shirt, folding them on the sand until I stood, completely nude and caressed by island breezes. I walked until the wet sand dented beneath my feet, walked until there was no slumbering fire dragon in my range. And I closed my eyes.
Shiny ebony scales coursed over my back and down my arms and legs; gold-streaked spines erupted from my shoulder blades. My proportions ballooned, until I spilled over the shore, until the waves were around my talons and my razor-sharp tail whipped up a salty spray. Then, unleashing a cathartic swath of flame which had been bursting for release, I beat my wings at the calm ocean air and lifted into the night sky.