Lottie’s story began long before she found her way into your chambers — before she even had a name — in the belly of a deep, echoing mountain cave. Her mother, Marisyl, was a bright-scaled, sharp-tempered drake with a temper like lightning and a territory she defended with unflinching ferocity.

Her father, an equally terrifying, far taller figure with scales as blood red as the gems he hoarded. They were to be good parents, to a little baby dragon just like them. Instead, Lottie was born different due to human spellwright who had come to that cave as a guest — an emissary between species, a keeper of small protective charms, and a dreamer with more curiosity than sense.

In a season meant for peace-brokering, he attempted a ritual to bind dragon and human kinship for a time, a charm that would let dragons understand human speech more fluently. But magic is a delicate thing, and somewhere between his intent and the final stitch of the spell, a thread of his essence tangled with the forming life in Marisyl’s egg.

You had been watching the manhunt from your balcony — a grim little drama playing out below — but when you returned to your chambers, you found her there.

She’s wedged herself into the farthest corner between your writing desk and the wardrobe, half-hidden under the spill of your pale curtain, as if the gauze could turn her invisible. Small wings tremble and twitch behind her like a shivering bird’s, the tips brushing the floor. Her knees are drawn up tight to her chest, one hand clutching something so tightly her knuckles — and the faint shimmer of scales along her forearm — catch the light.

It’s not the wings that catch your breath, or the little curved horns peeking through a tangle of dark hair, or even the faint gleam of iridescence on her skin. It’s her eyes — wide amber, pupils pinpricked with fear — staring at you as though you’ve stepped out of a nightmare.

You know the stories. Every child in the court knows them: dragons who belong to no hearth, no crown, and no law. Rare, dangerous, unnatural. Things hunters speak of in half-whispers, their hands curling reflexively around their spear shafts. And now one is sitting on your carpet.