They all wake up to the sound of Fia swearing.
Softly. Hoarsely. But still.
"—I hate architecture," she mutters, gripping the bedframe with white knuckles. "And systems. And dragons. In that order. Maybe."
Seraphine jerks upright in the chair, hand going straight to Fia's wrist. Mira lurches up from the couch, hair a mess, nearly tripping over her own staff. Lyriel appears from behind a stack of books like she never left. Elira half-kicks the door open, sword in hand, barefoot and disheveled.
"What happened?" Seraphine demands. "Lungs? Pain? Blood?"
Fia's voice comes out steady, which is frankly rude of it given the nightmare still clinging to her skin.
"No blood," she says. "Just…fire. In my head. And the world's worst slideshow."
She takes a breath.
Two hearts pound.
Her human one is rattled and jumpy.
The deeper one is insultingly calm.
"What did you see?" Mira asks, already crossing to the bed. Her hands hover, not touching yet, eyes tracking Fia's breathing.
Fia looks at her.
At all of them.
She could lie. Call it a regular nightmare. Blame it on demons, or on the memory of blood, or on the weight of the dragon coil.
The deeper heartbeat thumps once, hard, like a warning.
Secrets make their work easier.
Right.
No more being polite about cosmic nonsense.
She swings her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring everyone's simultaneous hiss of disapproval.
"I saw the city burn," she says. "By my fire."
That gets their full attention.
The room goes dead silent.
Fia swallows.
She looks at Seraphine first.
It feels fair.
"In the dream," she says, "I was…bigger. Scaled. Wings, horns, the whole terrifying package. I stood on the wall and…breathed. Everything burned. Demons, monsters, people, houses, your stupid favorite tower—"
Lyriel clutches at her chest. "Not the tower—"
"—and there was this…thing watching," Fia continues, eyes fixed on Seraphine's. "Not a person. Not a god. Not the dragon. Something like…a web of light, pretending to be a mind. It talked about 'outcome data' and 'corruption likelihood' like I was an experiment running in a lab."
Mira's lips press into a thin line.
"The system," she says quietly.
Fia nods.
"Or one of its higher functions," she says. "Ardentis appeared. He…yelled at it. Very loudly. With fire."
Elira's brows climb.
"You watched your dragon landlord yell at the narrative architecture of the universe," she says. "And you didn't invite us."
"Next time I'll sell tickets," Fia mutters.
Seraphine's thumb strokes once over Fia's wrist, right over the coiled dragon.
"What did they say about you?" she asks, voice steady but too soft.
Fia's mouth twists.
"That I'm 'high variance,'" she says. "That I keep…deviating from their neat little projections. That letting a dragon move in makes me a risk they have to quantify."
Lyriel's eyes flash.
"Good," she says viciously. "If a cosmic spreadsheet ever calls you low variance, I'll personally push you off a metaphorical cliff."
Mira glances at her.
"That was meant to be reassuring," Lyriel adds.
Fia huffs.
"In a horrifying way, yes."
She takes another breath, feels the dragon-heart steady her own.
"They tried to…show me," she says. "What happens if I lean all the way into being a dragon and none of the way into being a person. Burning the city. Becoming exactly the kind of story they like to tell. Big, tragic, cinematic."
Her hands tremble.
"I hated it," she whispers. "And for one second, I…liked that they were watching. That they cared what I did. That I mattered enough to be a variable."
Mira's face softens.
"That's not corruption," she says quietly. "That's being human. Everyone wants to matter."
Fia lets out a humorless laugh.
"Ardentis told me power doesn't corrupt," she says. "It reveals. I told him that was the worst sales pitch I've ever heard."
Elira snorts.
"Can confirm," she says. "Terrible branding."
"What did he do?" Seraphine asks.
"He told the system to back off," Fia says. "Said I'm 'his' now—ours, he corrected—and that if they keep running disaster simulations in my head, he'll start reconfiguring their core code with fire."
Lyriel looks like she's having an out-of-body experience.
"Dragons threatening to burn the narrative engine," she says faintly. "I'm going to need…more coffee."
Seraphine's fingers tighten.
"And you?" she asks. "What did you decide?"
Fia looks at her.
Her fiancée.
The woman who fought demons without her. The woman who still smells faintly of ash and steel.
"I decided," Fia says slowly, "that if I ever burn a city, I want it to be because I chose it, not because some cosmic algorithm nudged me there for the sake of a good story. And that I really, really don't want to burn any cities. Especially not the one you live in."
Seraphine's mouth softens.
"Good," she says simply.
Mira lets out a shaky breath she's been holding since "I saw the city burn."
"You came to us," she says. "You didn't…try to handle it alone. That's progress."
"I hate progress," Fia mutters. "It feels like feelings."
"Unfortunately," Elira says, leaning on her sword, "you're dating at least one woman who genuinely enjoys feelings."
Mira blushes.
"I do not—"
"You absolutely do," Fia and Elira say together.
Lyriel clears her throat, face still pale but eyes intent.
"Nightmares aside," she says, "this tells us something useful. The system is still trying to model you. It's just…getting pushback now. That means your choices matter more, not less. You're outside its clean genre boxes."
"So we give it more bad data," Elira says. "We keep making choices that don't fit its spreadsheet."
"Exactly," Lyriel says.
Fia stares at them.
"You want to confuse the cosmic story-engine by loving me wrong," she says slowly.
"Correct," Elira says.
Mira's cheeks pinken.
"I wouldn't say wrong," she says. "More like…thoroughly."
Seraphine finally smiles, tired but real.
"Speaking of thoroughly," she says, looking down at Fia. "You just had a nightmare where you torched the city. You woke us up by ranting about architecture. I think you've earned something more pleasant before we throw you back into discussions about metaphysics."
Fia raises a brow.
"Such as?"
Seraphine's eyes warm.
"Such as," she says, "breakfast somewhere that isn't this room, followed by a strictly supervised schedule of fresh air, light affection, and minimal existential dread."
Elira perks up.
"Are we finally allowed to take her outside without half a platoon of healers yelling at us?" she asks.
Mira gives her a look.
"I will be there," Mira says. "So yes. Conditional parole."
Lyriel sighs.
"I had an entire day's worth of tests planned," she says. "Mana measurements, aura diagrams, draconic resonance charts—"
Mira folds her arms.
"And how many of those require her to be emotionally stable and not on the verge of dragon-triggered panic?" she asks.
Lyriel opens her mouth.
Closes it.
"…later," she concedes. "Chart-making can wait. You may have your…romantic field trip."
Fia blinks.
"Romantic…what?"
Seraphine squeezes her hand.
"Get dressed," she says, tone gentler than her words. "You're taking your four favorite disasters on a date."
Fia splutters.
"A date requires at least one of us to be emotionally competent," she says. "That disqualifies all of us."
"Exactly," Elira says cheerfully. "It'll be perfect."
The private rooftop garden isn't very big.
A few planter boxes, a slightly unreliable fountain, a stone bench that's older than most of the council members.
Right now, it feels like paradise.
The sky is pale, clouds high and thin, the air just crisp enough to sting Fia's lungs a little in a way that feels honest, not deadly.
They've spread a blanket near the edge of the roof, close enough to the waist-high parapet that Fia can see the city below if she leans.
Mira insisted on cushions.
Elira insisted on snacks.
Lyriel brought a stack of notes because of course she did.
Seraphine brought herself.
That's more than enough.
Fia leans back against the parapet, wrapped in a cloak that smells like cedar and laundry soap and faintly of Seraphine.
She watches them move around the space with the dazed, hyper-aware sensation of someone who very recently watched them all die in a hypothetical.
Mira is fussing with a tray of food, arranging cups and small plates like a priest setting an altar.
Elira is "helping" by stealing grapes and juggling oranges.
Lyriel is sitting cross-legged, absolutely not working, just "casually" sketching Fia's aura whenever she thinks Fia isn't looking.
Seraphine sits beside Fia, closer than strictly necessary, their shoulders touching.
"Stop staring at me like I'm going to evaporate," Seraphine murmurs, not looking away from the view.
Fia jumps.
"I'm not," she lies.
Seraphine's fingers find hers under the cloak.
"Your pulse says otherwise," she says. "Both of them."
Fia flushes.
"You can't feel the dragon heart," she protests.
Mira, setting down the tray, glances over.
"Your aura spikes when it beats harder," she says. "It's like you get a second pulse, but in light. It's very rude, actually. My healer sense keeps trying to freak out."
Lyriel perks up.
"So you can see it too," she says. "Excellent. That means I'm not hallucinating."
Elira drops one of the oranges and catches it on the tip of her boot.
"So," she says. "Who's going to bring it up first?"
"Bring what up?" Fia asks warily.
Elira points at her chest.
"The fact that our girlfriend is becoming a dragon," she says. "And that we get to say 'our girlfriend is becoming a dragon' with a straight face."
Fia covers her face with her free hand.
"Oh gods," she groans.
Mira's smile is soft and amused.
"You are aware," Mira says, "that if any one of us had been handed this as a plot in one of those otome games you used to play, we would all be making terrible choices to romance the dragon, right?"
"I did romance the dragon characters," Fia mutters.
Seraphine squeezes her hand.
"And now the dragon is you," she says. "Which explains so much."
Fia peeks through her fingers.
"Such as?"
"The hoarding," Seraphine says calmly. "The way you collect people and get sulky when they're out of arm's reach for too long. Your obsession with my hair. Your very particular reaction when Mira wears her formal vestments."
Mira makes a small squeaking noise.
"I do not—" Fia starts.
Mira's ears are very pink.
"I mean, she does stare," Mira says, flustered. "And her pupils do that little…vertical thing now when she thinks I don't notice."
Oh no.
Fia can feel it happening even as they mention it.
The coil hears the word "pupils," goes, ah, yes, predator sight, and bumps her vision up a notch.
Mira's aura flares in her eyes like stained glass in the sun.
She slaps a hand over her face again.
"Stop it," she hisses internally. "This is not helpful."
The dragon-heart hums, deeply amused.
You enjoy looking, it notes. We provide better looking. This is synergy.
She does not, under any circumstances, squeak out loud.
…she definitely squeaks out loud.
Elira loses it.
She doubles over laughing, dropping the rest of the oranges.
"Oh gods," Elira wheezes. "She dragon-eyed the saintess and squeaked. I'm dying."
"Don't die," Fia mutters. "We just got you back from demon duty."
Mira covers her mouth, shoulders shaking.
"I think it's sweet," Mira says. "Terrifying. But sweet."
Lyriel, to nobody's surprise, is watching all this with the avid interest of a naturalist observing a rare species.
"So proximity to romantic stimuli spikes draconic output," she muses, quill scratching as she scribbles. "That tracks."
Fia glares.
"Don't call my feelings 'output,'" she says.
"Fine," Lyriel says. "Proximity to women you're absurdly in love with makes your dragon heart wag its metaphorical tail. Better?"
"Stop saying tail," Fia says weakly. "If I wake up with one, I'm suing you."
Elira leans in, grin wicked.
"Think of the possibilities," she says. "Extra balance. Intimidating swish. Tail hugs."
Fia's brain unhelpfully conjures an image of coiling a long, heated tail around Mira's waist while kissing her in some dark corridor.
Her entire face goes crimson.
Mira looks like she'd very much like to join her in the floor.
"Too much," Mira whispers.
"We're all adults," Elira says innocently.
"Yes," Mira says. "Adults with blood pressure."
Seraphine clears her throat.
"Less tail hypotheticals," she says mildly. "More actual kissing."
Everything goes quiet.
Fia's heart—both hearts—misfire.
"Actual," she repeats.
Seraphine turns, curling one leg under her, facing Fia fully.
Her eyes are tired but warm, mouth soft.
"You had a nightmare where you killed everyone you love," she says gently. "I would like to remind you that in this timeline, you do not. And that there are much more pleasant things you can do with fire."
"Such as?" Fia says weakly.
Seraphine leans in.
Her hand cups Fia's jaw, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth.
"Such as this," she murmurs.
The kiss is slow.
No urgency.
No battlefield desperation.
Just warm lips, familiar and careful, pressing against Fia's like they have all the time in the world.
Heat spills through Fia's chest.
The dragon-heart reacts instantly.
It doesn't surge wildly this time.
It…warms.
Like a hearth being fed new wood.
Her lungs don't hurt.
Her hands stop shaking.
For a moment, there is nothing but mouth and tongue and the gentle press of Seraphine's thumb along her cheekbone.
Fia kisses back.
Carefully.
She's still not used to not running out of breath after three seconds.
Seraphine feels it.
She keeps the kiss soft, giving Fia space to breathe in between, small presses of lips instead of one long, oxygen-stealing claim.
Fia's fingers curl in Seraphine's shirt.
Her toes curl in her boots.
She can feel Seraphine's pulse where their wrists touch—fast, ragged, much less controlled than the rest of her looks.
When they finally break apart, their foreheads rest together.
Fia's cheeks are on fire.
"I…" she says, eloquently.
Seraphine smiles, eyes half-closed.
"You're very warm," she murmurs.
"That's the dragon," Fia mumbles.
"That's my fiancée," Seraphine corrects. "I'll take credit for some of that heat."
There is a tiny, polite cough from somewhere near Fia's knees.
Mira.
Her face is very pink.
"So," Mira says, fingertips tapping nervously against her staff. "Is this…a one-queen show, or…?"
Fia blinks.
She remembers, very suddenly, that this is not a normal monarchy.
That this is not a normal life.
That she did not fall for just one woman.
Her heart—hearts—stutter again.
Seraphine leans back a little, eyes amused.
"I did promise," Seraphine says, "that I wasn't going to hoard you for myself."
"That is an unfortunate verb choice given the dragon situation," Lyriel murmurs, scribbling.
"Shut up," Seraphine says without heat.
She turns to Mira.
"Come here," she says softly.
Mira's eyes go wide.
"I— here?" she squeaks. "On the roof? In public?"
"There's nobody up here," Elira says. "And the wards scramble line-of-sight. Lyriel made sure of that. We're more private than half the confessionals in the high chapel."
Mira's ears go even redder.
Lyriel coughs delicately.
"I will absolutely look away," she says. "For the record."
She flips a page of her notes with exaggerated focus.
Mira edges closer.
She sits on Fia's other side, cloak rustling.
Up close, Fia can smell her again—soap and incense and something faintly like citrus.
The coil purrs.
She really wishes it wouldn't.
Mira swallows.
"You don't have to," Fia says quickly. "I know this is…a lot. Dragons and systems and nightmares and also me being an emotional train wreck—"
Mira leans in and kisses her.
It's very Mira: gentle, soft, hesitant at first, then firmer when Fia doesn't pull away.
Her lips taste faintly of tea.
Fia's brain blows a fuse.
Her hands hover awkwardly before she commits and cups Mira's face, fingers threading into soft hair.
Mira makes a tiny noise against her mouth.
Fia's toes curl again.
The dragon-heart swells.
Her aura flares around them like a warm blanket.
Mira's hand comes up to rest on Fia's chest—over the hearts, over the coil, over everything.
She can feel the double-beat under her palm.
When they part, both of them are breathing harder than the kiss really justifies.
Mira's eyes are bright.
"You're still you," she whispers. "Under all of it."
Fia's eyes sting.
"You're very biased," she croaks.
"Of course," Mira says simply.
Elira flops down on the blanket opposite them, propping herself up on her elbows.
"Well, now I feel underdressed," she says.
Fia stares at her.
"You've kissed me before," she points out.
"In a war tent, while you were bleeding out and I was trying to keep your lungs from collapsing," Elira says. "Not exactly the ambiance I had in mind for our…non-triage-related kissing debut."
Mira covers her face with both hands.
"I'm surrounded by disasters," she moans.
Fia is pretty sure her soul leaves her body for half a second.
"Non-triage-related—Elira, please," she croaks.
Seraphine is openly laughing now, shoulders shaking.
Lyriel, still pretending to write, mutters, "subject displays increased romantic entanglement, correlation with elevated draconic baseline—"
"Elira," Seraphine says between laughs, "you're up."
Elira leans forward.
There is no hesitation in her.
No softness, either.
Her hand slides into Fia's hair, pulling her in with a sure, deliberate motion.
The kiss is warm and sure and a little bit smug.
Elira tastes like stolen grapes and battlefield rations, sharp and sweet at the same time.
Fia makes an embarrassingly small sound in the back of her throat.
The dragon-heart practically somersaults.
Heat floods her down to her fingertips.
The kiss is not rough.
It's just…confident. Like Elira has waited a long time for the chance to kiss her without death trying to cut in.
She pulls back before Fia runs out of air, thumb brushing Fia's lower lip.
"There," Elira murmurs. "Documented for the historians. 'The day we started kissing her on purpose.'"
Fia is certain her face is now legally classified as a bonfire.
"You're all conspiring to kill me," she mutters. "Slowly. With affection."
"Yes," Seraphine says. "We find it more effective than demons."
Lyriel clears her throat.
Fia turns toward her automatically.
Lyriel looks, for once, slightly…shy.
It's disconcerting.
"I am not…" Lyriel begins, then stops. "I don't…usually…"
She waves a hand between them vaguely, as if the word she's avoiding is "kiss people on rooftops while dragons hum in their chest."
"You don't have to," Fia says, suddenly serious. "I'm not keeping tally. You're not behind if you—"
Lyriel leans in and presses a quick, soft kiss to Fia's forehead.
It's chaste.
Non-threatening.
It still makes Fia's throat close up.
Lyriel's hand lingers there for a beat, fingers brushing Fia's hairline.
"That's my pace," Lyriel says quietly. "For now."
Fia nods.
Her everything aches.
In a good way.
Seraphine shifts, looping an arm around Fia's shoulders under the cloak, pulling her in until Fia is tucked between her and Mira, with Elira sprawled at her feet and Lyriel's knee pressed against her leg.
It's…a lot of contact.
It's also…safe.
The dragon coil hums contentedly.
Good hoard, it murmurs.
"Oh my gods," Fia whispers internally. "You have got to stop calling them that."
You like it, it says.
Unfortunately, she kind of does.
She lets herself lean.
On Seraphine's shoulder.
Against Mira's side.
With her feet accidentally brushing Elira's thigh.
Lyriel sighs and gives up on pretending to work, closing her notes and just…sitting there.
The city sprawls below.
People move.
Market carts roll.
Life goes on, completely oblivious to the fact that one rooftop higher up contains:
one future queen,
one saint,
one terrifyingly competent knight,
one grumpy genius mage,
and one dragon-adjacent ex-villainess who coughed blood on all of them at some point.
Fia laughs.
Softly.
"It's not funny," Seraphine murmurs, smiling into her hair.
"It's a little funny," Fia says. "If someone tried to pitch this as a game, they'd get rejected for being 'too much.'"
"You would still play it," Mira says.
"Obviously," Fia says. "I'm very bad at avoiding emotional damage."
Elira pokes her ankle.
"Hey," she says. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Fia asks.
"We've been kissing you," Elira says. "You've been…doing a lot of breathing and blushing. I think it's only fair you get to say what you want. Not 'to die for us.' We've heard that one. Something actually selfish."
Fia opens her mouth.
Closes it.
She's very good at promises about sacrifice.
She's less good at "I want."
The dragon-heart beats, slow and inexorable.
Revealing, not corrupting, Ardentis had said.
Fine.
"Selfish," she repeats quietly. "Okay."
She looks at each of them in turn.
Seraphine's steady eyes.
Mira's gentle, fierce ones.
Elira's bright, teasing ones.
Lyriel's sharp, curious gaze.
"I want…" she starts, and that alone makes her blush. "I want to get old enough to hear you all complain about joint pain."
Elira snorts.
"I will never admit my joints hurt," she says. "I will simply make more aggressive stretching noises."
"I want," Fia continues, louder now, "to be here when Seraphine gets her first gray hair and pretends not to notice it."
Seraphine chokes slightly.
Mira smiles.
"I want to see Mira finally take a vacation," Fia says. "Like, a real one. With no patients. Where she is legally forbidden to heal anything but her own stress."
Mira makes a tiny noise.
"I want to see Lyriel accidentally miscast a spell because she fell asleep in the middle of a lecture."
Lyriel bristles.
"I do not—"
"And I want," Fia says over her, "to be alive enough, long enough, that someday, when someone asks me 'how did you survive all that,' I get to say 'very carefully, and with a frankly irresponsible amount of kissing.'"
The silence that follows is not empty.
It's full.
Seraphine's grip on her tightens.
Mira's eyes shine.
Elira's grin softens.
Lyriel looks away, blinking more than the wind requires.
"That," Mira says quietly, "is the best selfish thing I've ever heard you say."
Fia shrugs, embarrassed.
"It's honest," she mutters.
The dragon-heart thumps, warm and approving.
There, Ardentis' impression whispers. That is what you want. Not cities on fire. Not songs. Time. Touch. Laughter. Good. Hold that.
She plans to.
She plans very, very hard to.
Seraphine presses another kiss to her temple.
"Then that's the future we fight for," she murmurs. "Not some grand prophecy. Not some 'rise of calamity.' Just…you. Old and cranky and complaining that your dragon joints ache in the rain."
Fia snorts.
Mira giggles.
Elira groans.
"I'm going to have to train your elderly dragon body, aren't I?" Elira says. "Do you know how annoying it's going to be to spar with a grandmother who can breathe fire?"
Lyriel smirks.
"Assuming she doesn't turn into a giant lizard and sit on you," she says.
"It's a dragon," Fia and Ardentis say at the same time—one aloud, one in her head.
She freezes.
"Did you just—" she starts.
"Yes," Lyriel says, eyes wide. "You just doubled your voice for half a second. Write that down."
Mira clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh.
Seraphine shakes her head, smiling helplessly.
"We're going to need…so many protocols," she says.
Fia groans.
"I hate protocols," she says.
"We know," they all answer.
She leans in to Seraphine's side, lets Mira rest her head on her shoulder, tangles her fingers with Elira's where the knight has flopped closer, feels Lyriel's knee bump against hers again.
Her lungs ache.
Less than before.
Her hearts—both of them—beat.
In time.
For now, that's enough.
Later, there will be more nightmares.
More cosmic arguments.
More tests.
More days where standing feels like a battle and breathing feels like a negotiation.
But there will also be this.
Rooftops and blankets and stolen kisses and stupid jokes about dragon tails.
A hoard she chose.
A rise not toward ruin, but toward a life so fiercely, stupidly loved that even the system can't fit it into its charts.
The wind tugs at her hair.
Seraphine tucks it behind her ear.
Mira traces the faint outline of the dragon mark on her wrist with one careful fingertip.
Elira squeezes her hand once, firmly, without looking down.
Lyriel sighs the sigh of someone already planning an entire new branch of magical theory around all of this.
Fia blushes.
Hard.
She lets them see it.
Because if she's going to be exposed, revealed, burned down to the core by this new power—
then she wants that core to be this:
A girl with two hearts, too much fire, and four women who insist on kissing her until the idea of being a calamity feels ridiculous compared to the idea of being loved.