“Come home.”
My mother’s voice slipped through the opening doors.
I moved before I could think.
The dragon’s claw came down between me and the temple.
Not on me.
In front of me.
Stone shattered beneath it.
“Do not answer.”
I stared up at him.
“That is my mother.”
“No.”
“You recognized her voice.”
“I recognized what it copied.”
The doors opened another inch.
“Adrian?”
My chest tightened.
The dragon’s enormous golden eye narrowed.
Then he said:
“Ask her your first name.”
I looked toward the darkness.
“Mother?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“What was my name before Adrian?”
Silence.
The dragon didn’t move.
Neither did I.
Then the voice answered.
“Adrian has always been your name.”
My blood went cold.
The dragon whispered:
“No.”
The temple doors slammed shut.
Something struck them from the inside.
Once.
Twice.
Then my mother’s voice screamed my name.
“ADRIAN!”
I stepped backward.
The dragon lowered his head.
“My mother knew another name.”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
His eye fixed on me.
“Aren.”
The sound did something to me.
Not a memory exactly.
A pressure.
Like hearing a melody I’d forgotten before I learned words.
“Aren,” I repeated.
The pendant fragment against my chest became warm.
The dragon recoiled.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
“Why?”
“Because it heard you.”
“What heard me?”
He looked toward the temple.
“The thing your mother removed from you.”
I pulled the broken pendant free.
It was black stone wrapped in silver wire.
Mother had given it to me when I was six.
She’d told me never to remove it.
Three days ago, during an attack on the lower sanctuary, it had cracked.
Since then I’d been hearing voices.
Seeing doors that weren’t there.
Dreaming about this mountain.
I had assumed the pendant was protecting me.
The dragon said that wasn’t quite true.
“It was containing a residue.”
“Of what?”
“An oath.”
I frowned.
“An oath isn’t a thing.”
“This one was.”
Long before my birth, the gods had created living seals.
Not people turned into objects.
Not children bred as weapons.
Something more complicated.
Divine promises could be bound to a mortal host.
The host carried part of the agreement.
As long as that person lived, certain ancient gates remained inaccessible.
“And I carried one?”
“As an infant.”
“Who put it inside me?”
The dragon looked away.
“The gods.”
“Which gods?”
“I do not know all of them.”
At least he didn’t invent certainty.
“But Athena was present. Hermes carried the message. And Zeus approved the binding.”
My anger rose.
“Why?”
“Because they were afraid.”
“Of what’s inside?”
“No.”
His golden eye returned to me.
“Of what was outside.”
That made no sense.
He shifted.
Clouds rolled from his scales.
For the first time, I saw bronze chains running around his body.
Not restraints.
Inscriptions.
Names.
Promises.
He was carrying oaths too.
“What are you?”
“My name is Drakon.”
I almost laughed.
“Your name is Dragon?”
“In your language, eventually.”
Fair enough.
“I guarded the first covenant before Olympus existed.”
“And you knew me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Your mother brought you to me.”
“When?”
“You were eleven days old.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“She told me I gave birth in the southern valley.”
“She lied.”
“She told me my father died before I was born.”
Drakon was silent.
“Was that a lie too?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer surprised me.
“You knew me as a baby but don’t know my father?”
“Your mother never named him.”
“What did she tell you?”
Drakon’s expression changed.
“She said, ‘They put something inside my son. Help me take it out.’”
The gods had placed the oath inside me.
Mother discovered it.
Then she came here.
To Drakon.
He couldn’t remove it.
But he knew someone who could.
Someone inside the temple.
“Who?”
Drakon looked at the sealed doors.
“A woman named Lyra.”
“Goddess?”
“No.”
“Priestess?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The last person who survived carrying the same oath.”
My mother and Drakon entered the temple with me.
Lyra performed a ritual.
The oath was removed.
But divine magic couldn’t simply be destroyed.
It needed another vessel.
“So they put it in the pendant.”
“Yes.”
That was why Mother made me wear it.
The pendant wasn’t protecting me from outside magic.
It was holding what had once been inside me.
“Then why did the gods hunt us?”
“They weren’t hunting you.”
“The soldiers followed us for eleven years.”
“They wanted the oath.”
Not me.
That distinction didn’t make their behavior better.
But it changed the motive.
Mother spent my childhood moving from city to city because if Olympus recovered the pendant, the gods could restore the old covenant.
“And what does the covenant do?”
Drakon looked toward the summit.
“It keeps the First Door closed.”
I looked at the temple.
“That door?”
“No.”
Of course not.
“The temple is built over it.”
“What’s behind the First Door?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re its guardian.”
“I guard the covenant.”
“That’s different?”
“Very.”
I was starting to hate ancient magical job descriptions.
Then the voice returned.
Not through the doors.
Through my pendant.
“Aren.”
I nearly dropped it.
Mother.
Drakon’s head snapped toward me.
“Don’t answer.”
“Aren, please.”
Tears filled my eyes.
It sounded exactly like her.
The slight rasp.
The way she shortened the first syllable.
Everything.
I whispered:
“If you’re my mother, tell me what you called me when I couldn’t sleep.”
Drakon didn’t stop me.
The pendant remained silent.
Then:
“Little wolf.”
I closed my eyes.
Wrong.
Mother called me Small Thunder.
“It’s learning,” Drakon said.
“How?”
“Every question teaches it.”
I stopped.
Of course.
Testing the voice could verify identity—
but every answer I supplied could also reveal what a correct answer should resemble.
We needed independent evidence.
“Where is my mother’s body?”
Drakon’s expression changed.
“I never said she was dead.”
I stared at him.
“You said she never returned.”
“She didn’t.”
“From where?”
“The temple.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
I was six.
The year Mother gave me the pendant.
“What happened?”
“She brought you here again.”
“Why?”
“The pendant was weakening.”
Mother entered the temple alone.
Drakon waited outside with me.
Hours passed.
Then one day.
Then two.
On the third night, the temple doors opened.
A woman walked out.
“She looked like your mother.”
I felt sick.
“But?”
“She didn’t know your old name.”
Aren.
Mother had been the one who chose it.
The woman who emerged called me Adrian.
Drakon refused to let her approach.
She retreated into the temple.
“What happened to me?”
“You were asleep.”
“Then how did I leave?”
“I carried you down the mountain.”
My entire childhood story was collapsing sentence by sentence.
“You carried me?”
“To a village where your mother’s instructions said a woman named Elena would find you.”
Elena.
My mother’s oldest friend.
The woman who had raised me for six months while Mother was supposedly “recovering from an illness.”
Except Mother hadn’t been recovering.
She had been missing.
Six months later, a woman came for me.
The woman I remembered as Mother.
I stared at Drakon.
“No.”
His expression told me he understood.
“You’re saying the woman who raised me after six…”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I know the woman who exited this temple on the third night was not Thalia.”
My mother’s name.
Thalia.
“But I never saw the woman who later came to Elena’s village.”
“So it could have been my real mother.”
“Yes.”
Important.
We weren’t turning uncertainty into a conclusion.
“Did Elena know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then we ask her.”
A tremendous crash came from inside.
The temple doors bulged outward.
Drakon wrapped another coil around the mountain.
The entire summit tightened.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping the doors closed.”
“I thought you couldn’t stop them.”
“I can delay them.”
“For how long?”
“Not long.”
The broken pendant began glowing.
A symbol appeared inside the crack.
I had never seen it before.
Drakon had.
He recoiled.
“The oath.”
“What?”
“It isn’t inside the pendant anymore.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then where is it?”
Drakon looked at me.
I looked at myself.
“No.”
“It returned when the pendant broke.”
“I would have felt something.”
“You did.”
The dreams.
The voices.
The mountain calling me.
The strange doors.
I touched my chest.
“Can we remove it again?”
“Possibly.”
“Using Lyra?”
Drakon looked toward the temple.
“If she’s alive.”
Another secret.
“Lyra disappeared too?”
“Before your mother.”
“How long?”
“Seventeen years.”
My age.
I stared at him.
“Exactly seventeen?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not a coincidence.”
“No.”
“Was Lyra there when Mother first brought me?”
Drakon hesitated.
“Yes.”
“And then she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night after she removed the oath from you.”
I stepped away.
“You left that part out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother asked me to.”
Of course she did.
“What happened to Lyra?”
“We found blood.”
“Body?”
“No.”
“Evidence she died?”
“No.”
“Then stop talking about her like she’s dead.”
Drakon lowered his head.
“You sound like Thalia.”
“I’ll decide later whether that’s a compliment.”
For the first time, the enormous dragon almost smiled.
Then the temple doors opened.
Not violently.
Quietly.
Drakon moved in front of me.
A woman stood inside.
My mother.
Older than I remembered.
Hair streaked with silver.
Thin.
Exhausted.
She looked at Drakon.
“Still dramatic.”
The dragon froze.
She looked at me.
My entire body wanted to run toward her.
I didn’t.
“Prove it.”
Her face broke.
But she nodded.
“Good.”
She reached into her coat.
Drakon growled.
She stopped.
“May I?”
I nodded.
She removed a small wooden horse.
One leg missing.
I recognized it.
I’d carved it at five.
But an object could be stolen.
“Not enough.”
“I know.”
“What was my name?”
“Aren.”
“What did you call me when I couldn’t sleep?”
“Small Thunder.”
My eyes burned.
Still not enough.
“What happened the night before you gave me the pendant?”
She smiled through tears.
“You stole six honey cakes from Elena’s kitchen.”
“Five.”
“Six. You blamed one on me.”
I almost laughed.
Then Drakon asked:
“What did you say when I refused to enter the temple with you?”
Mother looked up at him.
“That if I didn’t return by sunrise, you were to take Aren to Elena and never trust anyone who came out wearing my face.”
Drakon went completely still.
That was stronger.
But still not absolute proof.
I approached slowly.
Mother didn’t move toward me.
That helped too.
Finally I stopped an arm’s length away.
“Where have you been?”
Her smile vanished.
“Below.”
“Eleven years?”
“Yes.”
“Then who raised me?”
Her face went white.
“What?”
“You came back.”
“No.”
“Six months after Drakon took me to Elena, you came back.”
Mother looked at the dragon.
“I never left this mountain.”
Silence.
I heard my heartbeat.
“Elena let someone take me.”
Mother whispered:
“Apparently.”
“Someone wearing your face.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at the pendant.
“To keep you close.”
“Who?”
Mother shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
A voice behind her answered:
“I do.”
She spun around.
Another woman stepped from the darkness.
Same height.
Same silver-streaked hair.
Same face.
My mother.
Two Thalias stood in the doorway.
Drakon roared.
The second woman raised both hands.
“Easy.”
I backed away from both.
“Which one raised me?”
The second Thalia looked at me.
“I did.”
The first whispered:
“No.”
The second continued:
“And before you ask, I am not pretending to be your mother.”
Her face changed.
Not dramatically.
Like an illusion being released.
The silver hair became black.
Her eyes turned pale gold.
The features remained similar enough that I finally understood how she’d done it.
Not shapeshifting.
Glamour.
“Lyra,” Drakon whispered.
The missing woman.
The woman who had removed the oath from me as a newborn.
I stared at her.
“You raised me?”
“For eleven years.”
“Why?”
“Because Thalia asked me to protect you.”
Mother shouted:
“I never asked you to replace me!”
“No.”
Lyra looked ashamed.
“You asked me to protect him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“I know.”
The betrayal between them was real.
But before I could demand answers, the temple shook.
My mark burned.
Drakon looked toward the floor.
“The First Door.”
Mother grabbed my arm.
“We’re out of time.”
“What is behind it?”
She looked at Lyra.
Lyra looked at Drakon.
Nobody wanted to answer.
So I shouted:
“What is behind the First Door?”
The mountain answered.
Not them.
A man’s voice rose from beneath the stone.
“Aren.”
My old name.
The temple floor split.
Golden light poured through.
The oath inside my chest responded.
Then the voice said:
“You’ve grown.”
Mother stepped in front of me.
Lyra drew a blade.
Drakon wrapped himself tighter around the mountain.
I stared into the opening.
“Who are you?”
For several seconds, nothing answered.
Then:
“The reason Thalia took you.”
Mother whispered:
“No.”
The voice continued.
“The reason Lyra changed her face.”
Lyra went pale.
“The reason Olympus wanted the oath inside you.”
I looked at both women.
“What is he talking about?”
The floor opened wider.
An enormous circular chamber appeared beneath us.
At its center stood a man chained to thirteen pillars.
Not a Titan.
Not a god I recognized.
Human-looking.
Except for the golden symbols covering his skin.
The same symbols now appearing across mine.
He looked up.
Directly at me.
Then smiled.
“Ask them your real question, Aren.”
I swallowed.
“What question?”
His chains tightened.
He never stopped smiling.
“Not who you were before Adrian.”
The mountain trembled.
“Ask who you were before Aren.”
Neither Mother nor Lyra looked at me.
And suddenly I understood.
Aren wasn’t my original name either.
