Of Flames & Fallacies (The Arterian #1)

by Courtney Whims

Against my better judgment, I dare one more peek. A dark shadow looms over the flame-filled street.

Dragons.

Closer and closer. Close enough that I note it’s a red dragon, with scales shimmering blood-red in the sunlight.

“The one son.” Her voice grows louder. “Chosen to lead them all. Wasn’t a son but a maid.”

My fingers brush over its surface, and the stone hums against my skin as if it bottled the electricity of a storm.

Perhaps the buzz in my skin is a figment of my imagination.

I pull the stone free from the earth and cradle it’s cold, heavy weight in my hands.

Because if it is a dragon egg, I’ll spend my last seconds gasping for air with a noose around my neck. And my mother will be damned.

I’m nearly drowning in desperation for all the things I wanted to hear from her. From our very last moments together. I love you.

Find Cole, and take her to the Dragon Lands. You aren’t safe here. Don’t come back. Trust no one.

Once bonded, a pair cannot be separated. They become intrinsically one. Shall one die, the other shall too.

And if that’s not enough to scare me: he killed his own sister to rule.

shut the journal. My father was sent as a spy?

My father, a rebel. My mother, a loyalist to the King and kingdom. Why did my mother never tell me how he died?

“No one else is here,” the voice echoes again. Except I realize it’s not in my ears. It’s in my mind.

“What was it called that you gave me last night?” “Chicken?” “Yes. What do chickens look like?”

“Well, they come in all sorts of colors. They’re birds, so they have wings and—” “Like me?” “No, they have feathered wings—”

gaping wound, and I back away. Marge blots and sews, blots and sews. Her skillful gloved hands work nearly mechanically. Darian occasionally

toward him, desperate for an ounce of recognition or respect, even

But rather than the fire and flames and screams, I hear a chanting of words. Fire incarnate. Flame in flesh. Blood of power.

But you are, always have been and always will be, my beginning and my end. And every breath of my existence in between.

Our movements catch fire, and there’s nothing left to do but burn.

An abyss of sadness and turmoil rages within his pained eyes as he waits for me to respond.

glance at her with a hesitant smile, and I am grateful for her grounding and comforting influence.

blows. The toad flips over before scrambling to its webbed feet and bounding

“It doesn’t matter what you think of me or how you feel about me now. Because for me, it’s always been you. And it always will be you. I am fearfully yours, my love. Wonderfully in love with every piece of you, broken and whole. Regardless of whether you love me or not. Something might have changed in you, but you never changed in me.”

I spent so long terrified of flames and fallacies, but it transformed into something bigger in this moment—something deeper than any level of consciousness I could comprehend.

Such beautiful, beautiful stars.