Dragon of Darkness

Chapter 5

Spaco's POV

The first warning wasn’t footsteps.

It was the way the air changed. A heavier scent rolled in from outside—cold wind, damp wool, iron, and something older beneath it. Something that didn’t belong to porridge and hearth-smoke and fresh bread. I even sensed as the cow shifted in her stall, and Tara's posture stiffened ever so slightly, as if even she felt it.

Then the door opened!

I moved before I even thought! I stepped in front of Mira so fast that the bench scraped the floor. My body angled between her and the doorway, shoulders squared, one hand half-raised as if I could shield her from whatever came next. The instinct was ancient. Hardwired into the very essence of my soul. The kind that didn’t come from reason, but from blood.

Protect the den.

Protect what is yours!

Only when the cold air brushed my back did I remember.

My wings!

They weren’t on me.

They weren’t even mine right now. Tara had taken them to mend them. For a heartbeat, my stomach dropped. My pulse slammed against my ribs. If this man was one of Jasper’s — if this was a hunter...

I couldn’t shift!

Right now, I wasn't even sure that I could grow claws or scales. I couldn’t become the thing that made armies run and castles burn.

I was just… this. A half-starved creature in stolen trousers, barefoot and damp, standing in a warm kitchen, as I belonged there.

My head snapped to the man in the doorway was tall. Not tall like a soldier - no, he was tall like a tree! His shoulders filled the frame, and the shadow behind him seemed to swallow the room’s warmth. His hair was dark, his face stern, and when he spoke, it didn’t sound like speech so much as a low rumble pulled up from deep in his chest.

“Tara?” he said, his gaze slid past her immediately and landed on me. “They said you had guests.”

He put weight on the last word, the way a man might say rats or thieves. Like he expected me to already be halfway through looting the house, or dragging Tara by the wrist.

I didn’t move.

I didn’t step aside.

I didn’t lower my shoulders.

I stood there and let him see what he wanted to see. Tara, however, glanced over her shoulder, paused for a moment when she saw me, and smiled, looking strangely pleased with herself. She returned to her task, and when she spoke, she sounded almost cheerful.

“Good morning, Howan,” she said brightly, as if the rumors and the curious stares outside had already worn her patience thin. “As you can see, the rumors are true.” She gestured toward me as if she were presenting a guest at a feast rather than a stranger who’d crawled out of the snow.

“This is Spaco. Spaco, Howan.”

Our eyes met, and it was clear from the very first moment that there would be no love lost between the two of us. He also noticed how I protectively stood in front of Mira, using my own body as a shield.

He thought it was an act - I didn't care!

But the exchange did leave me in a small dilemma. I had no idea what humans were meant to do in moments like this. And since I didn't want to put Tara in an awkward situation, I lifted my hand in something that became a confused mix between a salute and a wave.

Howan’s eyes narrowed.

“Spaco?” he echoed, his tone laced with something that felt like a knife to the throat. “Like the legend?”

It wasn't a wonder.

Not amusement...

No, his tone was laced with suspicion, as if the name itself was a knife. I wanted to tell him to shove it where the sun didn't shine, but I didn't have the vocabulary for that. So instead, I sat down and ignored him, pretending that I wasn't intimidated by the man - especially now when I couldn't shift.

I keep eating, but the porridge in my mouth suddenly turned heavy. It stuck in my throat, and I swallowed too hard, as if his gaze had become something physical.

Damn it!

I hated being this f*****g weak...

Mira stepped forward before I could say anything stupid.

“He didn’t have a name, so I gave him one,” she announced, proud as a queen. Her smile stretched from ear to ear. “It suits him, don’t you think?”

Howan made a sound I didn’t understand. If I’d had my memory, I would’ve recognized it as Elvish—soft, ancient syllables that didn’t belong in a farmhouse kitchen. But I guessed from the tone alone that his suspicion hadn’t lessened - and he was telling me to shove it where the sun didn't shine.

Tara didn’t seem bothered by it. If anything, she looked amused.

“He was one of King Jasper’s prisoners,” she explained calmly, as if she were talking about a stray dog she’d found in the road. “But he escaped.” She glanced at me, and her smile softened just a little. “I’m afraid he doesn’t talk much.”

Howan didn’t return her smile and instead found his inner aquisitor and turned every inch of it on me.

“How did you escape?” he asked.

His arms folded across his chest—thick, powerful arms. My eyes flicked to them before I could stop myself. Even in this human shape, I wasn’t small… but I wasn’t that! His forearms were like both my thighs put together. And I, in contrast, looked like a ghost. When I looked down at myself, I finally saw what Howan saw: bones at my wrists. Hollow cheeks. A narrow chest. A body that had been starved, chained, beaten, and used.

I looked like what humans kept in their dungeons.

I lifted my chin anyway and defiantly met his glare head-on.

“I stole key,” I said, my tone deadpanned. I met Howan’s eyes briefly—then looked away, because I wasn’t about to explain the rest.

Not about Hannes...

Not while Tara and Mira were there.

“I waited for dark. Then I went.”

Howan stared at me for a long moment. Then, in a voice that sounded almost mocking, he said, “That might be the simplest plan I’ve ever heard.”

I didn’t know whether it was praise or an insult.

“You honestly expect me to believe that?” he then added slowly, folding his huge arms over his chest. My shoulders didn’t loosen, but something in my chest eased slightly. If he had been Jasper’s, he wouldn’t have wasted time with words.

He would’ve had chains.

"Your faith, your problem," I replied with a shrug, stunning the man for a split second.

His gaze dropped to the bench. To the table. To the bread. I followed his every move, but while he was trying to find something out of place, I found that I liked the way Tara’s home looked lived in—warm and stubbornly human.

Then Howan's eyes returned to me.

“What is this?” he asked, grabbing the cloak that Tara had been mending, and unknowingly - almost teasingly - held my greatest weapon just out of my reach.

I barely suppressed a snarl as the question hit me like a slap. My wings weren’t on my back. They weren’t folded around me like they should’ve been.

I felt suddenly naked.

“Torn,” he added, as if speaking to himself. “Strange fabric. Where did you get it?”

“Born,” I said, forcing my jaw to loosen.

Howan’s eyebrows rose.

“You were born with it?”

Cold ran down my spine. My skin prickled. I could feel it—my body’s old habit, the first warning of scales wanting to rise beneath the surface.

I felt threatened!

Not by his words, exactly… but by what they might lead to...

But before anything happened, Tara cut in, saving my hide before I could make it worse.

“I think he means he got it when he was born,” she said quickly, calm as stone. Then she turned to me, her eyes narrowing slightly—not in anger, but curiosity. “I will say, though… you understand our language remarkably well. Who taught you?”

“No one,” I said. It was the truth. “I teach me.”

Tara blinked.

“You taught yourself?” Howan scoffed, sounding impatient this time. But before he could say or ask, Tara cut him off.

“What’s your native tongue?” she asked.

“Native?” I echoed, eyebrows raised. I’d never heard the word before. “What mean?”

“Do you speak another language than ours?” Howan asked, sharper now. I hesitated - not because I didn't want him to know, but because he was the one that asked. Then, a look at Tara and I noticed that she was curious too. So I nodded...

“Well then say something,” he said. “In that language.”

And suddenly I didn’t know what to say!

It was stupid. I’d spoken that language all my life—at least, all the life I remembered. It came easier than human words. It lived in my bones.

In my blood!

But now, with Tara watching and Mira smiling and Howan’s eyes on me like a blade, my mind went--- Well, there was one thing. Something I always carried, even though I didn’t know where it came from. Something I thought of in the dark, when the world was quiet enough for memory to breathe.

The words came out of me like a prayer.

“The night is your friend,” I murmured, the old language rolling off my tongue like smoke.

“Darkness is your ally.

Light is in your heart… the flame’s eternal hope

No one can corrupt your friend, and no one can extinguish your flame

for so it is for all who are born as—”

A dragon!

The last word burned behind my teeth. But I couldn’t say it. My heart started hammering against my ribs. I could feel my skin wanting to change, wanting to turn grey. My breath came faster.

Freedom.

I’d tasted it.

And I would not lose it again.

Howan’s voice cut through me like a stone dropped into water.

“I don’t know that language,” he rumbled. The relief was so sharp it almost hurt. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. Like I’d been holding my breath without realizing it.

“I’ll be honest,” he added, his gaze still hard. “I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

“That sounded beautiful,” Tara said, softer now. Her voice had changed. She looked at me as if I were something wounded rather than something dangerous. “What was it?”

“Song,” I said shortly.

It wasn’t exactly a lie. I just didn’t know what kind of song it was.

“A song your mother taught you?” Tara asked. I shook my head. Something pinched in my chest again. A quiet ache. I didn’t know if I had a mother. I didn’t know if I was alone. But if the choice was between being alone… and being owned by Jasper…

Then I’d take loneliness.

“I remember it,” I said quickly, before the thoughts dragged me under again.

Mira’s eyes were bright.

“That sounded romantic,” she said dreamily. “Can you say more?”

I looked down at her. At the freckles on her cheeks. At the way she stared up at me like I was a storybook come to life. My heart gave a strange extra beat.

She was human.

And she was someone I wanted to protect.

Both of them were...

A dragon protected what it held dear.

I didn’t know why I felt that. I only knew it was true. I leaned closer and spoke in broken human words, careful and slow.

“Your mother is very beautiful,” I said, forcing my mouth around the sounds. “And you look like her.”

Mira’s face lit up.

“What did you say?” she whispered, delighted.

I leaned down and tried to translate it again with my small, clumsy vocabulary. I didn’t have enough words to do it properly, so I made do with what I had. Mira giggled and blushed, then shot a quick glance toward her mother.

Tara’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Not angry, but a mother wanting to protect her daughter...

I smiled despite myself.

“Our secret?” I asked Mira, and held out my hand.

She laughed—bright and contagious, the same laugh her mother had.

“It’s a deal,” she said, and clasped my hand firmly. Her hand was small and warm. And for the first time in years, I felt something I didn’t recognize at first.

Not fear.

Not hunger.

Not rage.

Something gentler.

Something dangerously close to hope...