Mira's POV
"Twelve hours isn't enough time to learn what I am when I've spent twenty years not knowing!"
The words burst out before I could stop them. Kaelen turned from the window, his ice-blue eyes narrowing, and I realized I'd just yelled at the Dragon King. The man who could kill me with a touch.
But I was so tired of being scared.
"Then we start with what you do know," Kaelen said, surprisingly cool. "Your mother. Tell me about her."
"She was a musician at court. My father had an affair with her, and I was the result. The awkward secret they kept in the kitchen." The familiar shame burned. "There's nothing special about her. Nothing special about me."
"What was her name?"
"Elaine. Just Elaine."
Something flashed across Kaelen's face. "And she had...?"
"Silver-blonde hair like mine. And strange eyes that changed color." I touched my eye patch. "I inherited that too."
"Take it off."
"What?"
"The eye patch. Take it off. Now."
My hands shook. Nobody saw my real eyes except Mama. She'd always told me to hide them, that they made me a target.
But what choice did I have?
I pulled the patch away.
Kaelen went perfectly still. His dragon eyes locked onto mine. One green. One gold. Mismatched and wrong.
"Impossible," Kaelen breathed. "Those are winter fae eyes. Royal winter fae eyes."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means—"
The door burst open. An old man in frost-covered robes entered, holding a glowing staff. Six dragons followed, all looking grim.
"Your Majesty," the old man said. "Forgive the interruption, but Dorian has accelerated the timeline. The truth-stone trial starts in one hour. He's claimed the Right of Immediate Justice."
My stomach dropped. "One hour? But—"
"I know." Kaelen's voice went cold. "This is Dorian's play. He wants you checked before I can protect you."
"Can he do that?" A silver-haired woman appeared—Iskra, the one who'd protected me earlier.
"Unfortunately, yes." The old man looked at me with pity. "The Right of Immediate Justice can be claimed when there's threat of war. Dorian claims keeping her alive risks the land."
"That's insane," I whispered.
"That's politics," Kaelen clarified. He turned to the old man. "Theron. You're the oldest dragon here. Has a human's blood ever turned to snowflakes before?"
Theron's old eyes studied me. "No, Your Majesty. Snowflake crystallization only happens in three bloodlines: pure dragons, winter fae royalty, or..." He paused. "Or a true mate bond forming."
The room went quiet.
"True mate bonds are myths," someone said.
"So are winter fae," Theron responded. "They've been dead for two hundred years. Yet this girl has their eyes." He moved closer. "Child. When did your mother die?"
"She didn't. She's living. They locked her up when I left, but—" I stopped. Why was everyone staring?
"Winter fae don't age like humans," Theron said softly. "If your mother looked young enough to bear a child twenty years ago, she's not human. She never was."
The floor dropped beneath me. "No. She would have told me."
"She protected you," Kaelen said. "By hiding what you are. Winter fae and dragons have been at war for ages. If anyone knew, they would have killed you both."
"We don't have time for this," a dragon said. "The court is gathering."
"Then we go now." Kaelen grabbed my hand, and warmth flooded through me. "Mira. Listen. When you touch the truth-stone, it will ask questions. You must answer truly, or it will kill you. Understand?"
"But if I admit I'm not Princess Vivienne—"
"Then I'll deal with it. But if you lie, you die, and I can't save you."
We rushed through passageways lined with watching dragons. None looked nice.
The truth-stone room was packed with hundreds of dragons, all watching me with glowing eyes. In the center sat a giant black stone pulsing with red light.
Dorian stood beside it, grinning. "Ready to play?"
"This is illegal," Kaelen said coldly.
"The Right of Immediate Justice doesn't require preparation." Dorian's red eyes gleamed. "Only truth. Unless you're afraid of what we'll discover?"
The court muttered agreement. They wanted to watch me break.
"Fine." Kaelen released my hand. "But I invoke Blood Right. If she survives, no one touches her. Dragon law."
"Agreed," Dorian said too quickly. "Now, little bride. Place your hand on the stone."
I looked at Kaelen. He nodded once.
I stepped forward. My hand touched the stone.
Pain burst through me—fire and ice and lightning. I screamed as it entered my mind, ripping through memories.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME? " M-Mira. Mira Castellan. " ARE YOU PRINCESS VIVIENNE? " No." The court exploded in shocked whispers.
WHY ARE YOU HERE? " My sister sent me. She drugged me and took my place because she didn't want to marry the Dragon King. She said if I didn't claim to be her, they'd kill my mother. " WHO IS YOUR MOTHER? " Elaine. Just Elaine."
The stone pulsed brighter, digging deeper.
WHAT ARE YOU?
"I don't know," I sobbed. "I'm just a jerk. Just a servant—"
The stone shocked me to my knees.
LIES. WHAT ARE YOU?
"I don't know!" I screamed.
Then the stone showed me a memory I'd never had—my mother, younger, with silver hair and bright winter magic. She wore a crown of ice in a castle of frozen light. Beautiful. Powerful. Not human. "Elaine Winterlight," someone whispered. "The winter fae heir who disappeared two hundred years ago."
The stone freed me. Kaelen caught me before I fell.
"Two hundred years?" I whispered, confused.
"Fae don't age," Theron said, voice full of wonder. "Your Majesty. This girl is winter fae royalty. Her mother was heir to the Frozen Throne."
"Which makes her a princess," Iskra said. "A real one."
The court burst in chaos. But I couldn't focus because Kaelen was looking at me strangely.
"You really didn't know," he said quietly.
"I swear. I thought I was nobody—"
"YOU THOUGHT WRONG."
The voice boomed through the room. It came from the truth-stone itself—but stones didn't speak.
The stone cracked. Red light poured out, making a shadow figure.
It laughed.
"Finally," the shadow said. "Two hundred years of waiting. Tell me, child—did you think your mother fled because she was afraid?" It moved closer. "She ran because she was pregnant with you. Because you're not just winter fae."
Kaelen stepped between us, frost bursting from his body. "What are you?"
"I'm the one who killed all your wives, Dragon King. The one who made you think you were cursed. The one preparing for her return." The shadow pointed at me. "Because you're not just the winter fae heir. You're also half dragon."
The world stopped.
"Impossible," Theron breathed.
"Not impossible. Just forgotten." The dark circled us. "Her father wasn't human. He was a dragon prince in disguise. A dragon who fell in love with a fae princess and made a hybrid that should never have existed."
"What does that mean?" My voice broke.
"It means you're the only thing who can break the barrier between worlds. You're the key to freeing something very old and very hungry that's been trapped for two thousand years." The shadow reached for me. "And I've been waiting for you to come of age. For your skills to wake. For you to walk into the North where the barrier is weaker."
It smiled with too many teeth.
"So thank you, Princess Vivienne, for being so mean. Thank you for sending her exactly where I needed her to be. Tomorrow at midnight, when her powers fully awaken on her twentieth birthday, the barrier breaks. And everything you love will burn."
It vanished.
Leaving us in a room full of dragons who all turned to stare at me.
Not with curiosity. Not with anger.
With terror.
"She's the Doorway," someone whispered. "The prophecy was real."
And I realized that being nobody would have been so much safer than being the girl who might destroy the world.