I didn't understand.
This woman before us looked nothing like the lost queen I'd learned to recognize from the photos and paintings honoring her memory.
The long, distinctive platinum hair that seemed to gleam like frosted ice sheltering a peering rainbow didn't cascade down this woman's slender shoulders. The queen's delicate skin—like the soft glow of the midnight moon—was hardly comparable to the rough, ashen surface hidden beneath the many scars.
If not for Art's strong suspicion that the queen might share my condition and the golden tint of the woman's scars, I might have assumed Caiden's head injury had compromised his lucidity.
The woman took another step closer to Caiden's frozen body, raising her arm to reach for him. "Atlas, my son, I—"
She winched and pulled back toward the row of dragons when approaching footsteps echoed between the cave walls.
"Caiden! Willow!"
Another light advanced from behind me, showering my back with golden light.
"There she is!"
Art. Piper.
A wave of pure relief washed through my body at the sound of their voices. They had survived. The number of feet racing across the ground suggested Eos and Alia were there, too.
I desperately wanted to turn and witness their faces emerge from between the shadows, but I couldn't move. The slightest strain on my muscles left agonizing torment scraping across my bones and joints. The trickle of something warm and thick sliding down my neck and shoulder didn't bode well either.
"Cursed blood, Will." Piper's voice sounded breathless but without warning of any injury. I winced when she placed her icy hands on my body, the touch like fire against my bruises. "You look even worse than before."
Two other shadows raced past us, one grabbing the bright sphere that seemed to follow them from the air and molded it into a whip that bred sparks against the stone below.
Art and Eos stopped beside Caiden, raising their weapons to prepare for a fight against... against dragons. Spirits, I still couldn't wrap my mind around the grand creatures standing before us.
"What is with you, Caiden?" Art hissed, noting the golden hilt beside Caiden's feet. "Did they bind your hands already?"
"Caiden?" the woman said, brushing her fingertips gently against her lips as if trying to catch the word. "Is that the name you chose?"
Eos stepped in front of Caiden, her limbs trembling terribly at the sight of the monsters peering down on her. "Stay back, lady," she said, her voice about as confident in her decision to act as a shield in case the enemy should attack as her legs.
A low growl made the loose stone rattle against the cave ground as one of the larger dragons stepped forth. The woman raised her hand, and the dragon stopped in its tracks.
"What is your name, Light Manipulator?" the woman asked, squinting her eyes inquisitively.
Eos hesitated, lightly adjusting her weight without taking her eyes off the woman. "That's none of your—"
"Eos," Caiden whispered, grabbing her wrist before she could pull back to attack. "Don't."
The woman gasped again. "Eos."
Eos arched her brow at the woman's strange reaction to her name, but before she could utter another spiteful warning, the woman launched forward and wrapped her arms around Eos, scarcely evading the gleaming whip.
The golden whip vanished, leaving us shrouded by the dim, fiery light from the dragons' scaled chests.
"What are you doing, lady?" Eos squealed, clawing at the woman's body as if the blunt contact was burning her. The woman didn't budge, hanging on to Eos for dear life while tears streamed down her grinning face.
Art stepped forth to help Eos, but Caiden placed a hand on his chest, silently warning him to stay back.
"What a magnificent woman you have become," she said, pressing Eos closer. "Eos—my daughter."
Eos stiffened like every other body in front of me. Silence fell for a dragging moment, brushing the air with hesitation and suspense.
"What?" Eos whispered, not daring to move a muscle.
The woman pulled back just enough to view what must've been Eos' startled face. She sniffled, placing gentle hands against Eos' cheeks. "My sun-blessed daughter."
Caiden stepped forward, placing a hand on Eos' shoulder. "You were not old enough to draw clear memories of our mother's face before she disappeared, Eos, but Uncle Art was right. Father tried to get rid of her, but she survived."
"M-mother?" Eos' voice cracked, and her shoulders dropped.
The woman smiled wistfully, her eyes glazing over as if fresh tears were about to spill across her puffed cheeks again. She nodded before pulling them both into her arms.
"I am so sorry, my children," she sobbed. "I desired nothing more than to bring all of you with me when I fled from your father's violent hands, but I had no means to ensure your survival on my journey to find this place. I only hoped you would be safe until I could return for you, but you seem to have beat me to it."
My breath rattled as I took in every word they exchanged. She really was the queen—in the flesh and without a royal filter.
Queen Pangea pulled back, glancing over their shoulders, past Piper and me, as if expecting something to emerge from the darkness. "Is Calix here, too?" she asked.
My heart dropped at the prospect of an affectionate mother's hope about to shatter. Tarkan wasn't here, nor would he be coming.
"No," Caiden said, his tone depthless and bleak. "Calix was too far gone in Father's manipulative lies. He couldn't be reasoned with, so we had to leave him behind."
The expectant smile on Queen Pangea's face faded, leaving a veil of heart-aching sorrow to draw across her eyes. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Calix always looked up to his father more than—"
The words faded on her twisting tongue when she caught a glimpse of Art standing in the shadowed light. "Arthur," she whispered, gazing wide-eyed at the frozen man.
Art cleared his throat, breaking the ice freezing him in place. "My queen," he said, bowing like some commoner. "I am— I—" Art sighed, brushing frustrated fingers through his ruffled hair. "It's good to see you alive and well, Pangea."
I would've blinked in bewilderment if I could. Art acted like a chaste teenager.
Pangea lifted her chin, erasing the expectant glint from her eyes. "I see that the Templars treated you well."
Art nodded and wove his fingers behind his back like an old professor. "Indeed, they did."
What, in Pavo's good name, was happening? And did no one plan to question the queen about the glorious creatures standing guard behind her?
My throat suddenly tightened, stinging like I'd inhaled a cloud of fine dust. I coughed.
The first soothed the itch, and the ache was bearable. The second was worse. My throat no longer itched but burned as if molten stone grated the sensitive walls. I couldn't stop.
"Cursed blood," Piper hissed when a warm, coppery liquid slid over my tongue and spilled past my lips. "Atlas!"
Caiden spun on his heel, turning his back on his mother—the queen. The world blurred before I could see his face.
"Her pulse is slowing." Piper's voice was getting a little distorted, too. "I don't have enough power to heal her!"
Feet raced across the ground before a voice as powerful as a storm carried a warning through the air. "Stop, Atlas!"
Queen Pangea's voice breathed another drop of stamina into my system. I couldn't give in to the darkness again—not unless my heart ultimately gave out.
"Remove yourself from the dragon-blood, Water Iridis," Queen Pangea said.
Piper's fingers clenched tighter around my arm. I guess it should've hurt, but I could barely move my limbs by now, much less feel my skin.
"I mean no disrespect, my queen," Piper snapped, trying hard to stifle her urge to growl at the queen. "But I will not let my best friend die because some royal who turned her back on her people told me to."
A short-lived wave of warm relief surged through me from where Piper's hands braced me. She hissed a hushed curse before the blissful warmth fled my skin, leaving me cold and plagued by another wave of pain.
"As much as I admire your devotion to save your friend, I must once again ask you to step back. The healing powers of a Water Iridis fade in comparison to those of a Moon Dragon. So, step back, and let us save the dragon-blood before you can worsen her suffering."
The ground stirred as if a great weight shifted forward. Piper let go with a gasp and stumbled away from me.
A milky shade disturbed the orange blur in the hazy world I could still discern. A warm, reeking gust of air rushed over my skin, ruffling the folds of my torn clothes.
Muffled voices sounded from around me, but I could no longer distinguish words from sounds. My heart felt heavy in my chest, strenuously working to keep pumping life into my veins. The beat was sluggish and seemingly weak.
Another warm breath brushed over me. This time, I spent my remaining supply of energy cracking my eyes open to view the frosted figure towering over me.
I couldn't focus properly, but the blurry outline reminded me of Kaoru. Perhaps she had come to save me again. I hoped not. What if she couldn't survive healing me this time? My life couldn't possibly be worth risking the existence of the healers' powers.
Pain erupted throughout my entire body. Every nerve sang with torment as if about to burst; every muscle felt like they were being split apart and rearranged; my skin seared as if blisters were forming and popping across every inch of me.
I yearned to scream—to roar and to claw apart my flesh for it to breathe through the suffocating fire, but I lay paralyzed. My screams were stifled by my lungs, and my nerves were too frayed to convey any coherent messages for my torn muscles to understand.
A moment later, the persistent pain faded like a hazy cloud caught by a fleeting wind.
My eyes flung open to stare into a pair of large, golden eyes, the boundless black caught in the middle, forming a rift that looked like it could transport me to another dimension.
I gasped, immediately expecting a surge of fire to follow the act and spread to my lungs, but no pain formed through my throat.
"Kaoru," I whispered, but when my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I saw a creature with little resemblance to the feathered dragon from the Templars' home.
Instead of feathers shifting in the breeze, acute, plate-like scales washed in shifting colors of frosted white and a shadow of azure along the base. Spikes progressing in size stretched from the smallest knob between its flaring nostrils to a long, arching point between its twisting horns.
The dragon huffed at me as if offended by the name that clearly did not belong to my savior. It briefly squinted its golden eyes at me before receding and returning to the shadows of the bigger dragons behind Pangea.
It was shorter than Kaoru, too, carrying more resemblance to a gigantic lizard rather than a snake. The spikes continued along the dragon's spine, following the long tail before eventually fading into a deadly, barbed blade.
"Will," Piper said, scrambling back to my side. "Are you okay? Did it hurt you?"
Her eyes were wide and so full of intense worry I started to consider whether they might start bleeding from the strain.
"N-no," I said, still struggling to find my voice. "I-I think the d-dragon h-healed me."
"Healed..." Piper's voice trailed off as if her tongue couldn't quite formulate the questions, twisting her overstimulated brain.
I needed to sit—to feel that my body was no longer broken, but my limbs were still so heavy. A troubled grunt pressed past my cracked lips when I pushed to force myself to my elbows. Spirits. It felt like I'd been sprinting a marathon.
"Don't overexert yourself," Piper added, quickly bracing my back to help me up. "That... dragon may have healed you, but you still seem affected."
"The Water Iridis is right, dragon-blood. Arok may be an experienced healer, but even his abilities are limited by the fragility of the human body," Pangea added just before a sharp pain swiftly danced along my spine as I slumped over my knees. "Your life may no longer be in danger, but it would be wise to acknowledge your weaknesses and let your friends help you until the pain subsides."
"I have a name, you know," Piper snapped with a questionable sneer.
"Piper," I hissed.
"What? I cannot remember much from her rule, and I have no recollection of her so-called fame. All I know is that she was waiting for us here with an army of glowing dragons. It is a possibility that she caused the ground to collapse beneath us or manipulated the forest to drag Alia to the frailest part of the island."
I arched my brow. "She wields the air, Piper," I said. "Like me. She doesn't manipulate the forest or the ground."
That didn't seem to convince her. "If she has the power to command a dragon to heal someone, what makes you think she hasn't got a dragon that can manipulate the earth?"
My breath hitched. That was... an awfully good point.
"Mother?" Eos asked, twisting her head to look at Pangea, whose brows had pinched.
She sighed and removed her scarf, wrapping it around Eos to hide her pleading gaze. "I am afraid there is some truth to the Water— Miss Piper's words."
Caiden turned to her with widened eyes and parted lips, but before he could sputter his furious monologue. "I never meant for anyone to get hurt, but I needed the dragon-blood to find the golden cave where I had intended to meet her. I had no involvement in the method, but I assure you that Reza will be punished accordingly.
"The ground, however, was an unexpected accident. It is beyond my knowledge how or why the patch suddenly collapsed. I am merely praising us fortunate that Reza managed to construct that track system to break your fall before it was too late."
Wait? The golden cave actually existed.
"Are you kidding me?" Piper exclaimed. "Willow—the dragon-blood, or whatever—almost died! Alia almost died if it hadn't been for that golden-blooded healer waiting to welcome us to this dragon den!"
My body no longer ached, but my head and heart did. I hadn't even noticed Alia wasn't here. And another golden blood. We weren't the only ones.
There was so much new information. I wasn't sure how to process it.
"I understand your frustration, Miss Piper, but Realyn is a competent healer. She will take good care of your friend."
"I know," Piper snapped. "That's why we left Alia with her so we could find Willow, but that doesn't mean I trust you."
Pangea narrowed her eyes. "You have some nerve—"
"Stop it!" I hissed. "We came here to find answers, Piper. Queen Pangea may be the only one who can—"
"Pangea!"
I twisted my head to look behind us—an action that felt almost unnatural without the pain.
Alia's arm was fixed across an unfamiliar girl's neck. Sweat coated her brow, her skin glistening like a river of flaming lava in the dim light.
The woman carrying her looked exhausted, her coarse, ebony hair clinging to her slender face. She could barely keep her narrow eyes open and struggled to carry Alia across the floor.
"Pangea. Her injuries were too severe. I-I need Arok," the woman said.
The scaled, white dragon from before raced across the ground before the woman had even spoken his name. He caught them with his leathery wing the second their legs buckled, ensuring a safe descent to the ground.
I stared wide-eyed as the dragon stepped toward the woman, nudging her with his enormous snout as if worried. She placed a hand on him, caressing him and muttering a few words I couldn't hear. Then, he turned to Alia, opening his jaws wide.
A sting of worry skirted across my skin, pinching my nerves before a white glow leaked from the back of his throat. Alia suddenly drew a deep breath as if something that had previously blocked her lungs crumbled, leaving room for air.
I startled when I felt a gust of wind at my back and turned to see Pangea now standing mere feet from us. "You said you came here for answers, Dragon-blood. We can provide those, but this secret has more layers than a single answer can give.
"So, to understand where your golden blood stems from, you must know how the Iridis actually came to be."
I wasn't sure I understood. We knew how the Iridis came to be. She'd just confirmed the existence of the golden cave, but Pangea looked too serious for any of her words to be a joke.
"You have all been told that Jonathan Pavo stumbled upon a cave of immense power," she continued as Arok healed Alia. "Part of that is true. Jonathan did stumble upon the cave, but what gave him his power was not the gilded stone.
"It was the dragons."