Present Day:

Deep red eyes blinked searchingly at me, trying to gage my reaction. Not that I even knew what to say, I was still trying to process this new wealth of information. It seemed like every time I thought I learnt more about my past, some secret would come out and shatter my already vague perception of my life. Suddenly, the dragon in front of me who had raised and cared for me since I was young felt as much a stranger as one of the vendors in Yavleth. I spoke with him every day, I argued with him sometimes, and I knew the general information about him, but that was it.

Small inconsistencies and strange decisions on Kazlar's part began to click together like a puzzle piece in my mind, all forming an image of the truth.

He seemed skittish the first, and also last time he took me to see his family, especially when his mother commented about how similar we looked. And then even just deciding to raise me in the first place; he had no reason to. Besides, it's impossible he just found me in a forest all alone, unless he knew where to search.

Everything seemed to add up, except...

"What about my stripes? Nytheri was a Lyzian, not a Farralyn, and Farralyn's are the only species with black stripes. That means one of my parents must have been a Farralyn."

"Normally that would be true, but hybrid features are known to be unpredictable. There have been similar, albeit rare, cases to your own before as well."

"And finding me in the forest? Was that part made up too?" I couldn't keep the venom out of my voice, and a small amount of guilt trickled into me after I spotted his hurt glance.

Nonetheless, he replied neutrally, "That part was true. Nytheri told me that if anything ever happened, she'd leave you both in the hidden chasm within Myrvath. When the dragons began hunting her down, I couldn't find you or your sister there, so I backtracked and searched for days. Eventually I found you in the forest, battered and bruised."

"What about my sister?" It felt weird to even say it, but I asked anyway. The idea that I had family had crossed my mind before, but finding out that they cared for me was unexpected.

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"I never found her. The only thing there was an elven lantern. Maybe Nytheri got Nemyra to the cavern, and the elves found her before I could." He paused before muttering, "That's what I hope for, anyway."

Spotting my look, he answered my next question before I could even ask him, saying, "Yes, the lantern I found is the same one that's in your room. I kept it in hopes of discovering who it may belong to, though I fear I'm not any closer than when I began. It took me months of research to positively confirm it was of elf design, but finding which elves it belongs to has been impossible."

He proceeded to walk to my chamber, ducking inside and coming out a moment later with the chain clinging on to the tip of his claw while the lantern spun in lazy circles below.

It was unlike anything either of us knew elves to craft, yet the elegance of its design could only be formed by them. Thick spikes of iron rose from the top of the lantern like a crown while the base was flat, decorated only with small, less dramatic spikes that rose from it to encircle the sides. Glass shielded the flame within, preventing it from being blown out by the wind. The flame itself was a bright shade of blue, with some edges being near black, though it danced as any normal flame does.

The flame had never gone out in the time it had been with us, further marking it as unnatural. Not even high elves' lanterns could remain lit for years.

"What if it's a dark elf's lantern?"

Kazlar gave me a strange look and scoffed. "The dark elves don't exist now, let alone nearly twenty years ago. It was just a made-up rumor. No elf, especially a high elf, would give up their status like that."

"But didn't you hear? An elf named Malkorr was exiled forty years ago, and apparently he's the one leading the dark elves. He's got an alliance with the rouge Elygran's as well. There's no way that's made up!" Kazlar still stared at me blankly — clearly unimpressed with my theory — so I defiantly asked, "And if this lantern doesn't belong to dark elves, as you claim, then who does it belong to?"

He hesitated a moment. "Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe it's not even an elf lantern. It could be dwarves, after all, we know very little about their crafts."

Astonished, I gaped at him in disbelief.

He just admitted he might be wrong. He never does that!

"You told me you researched elven creations for months and that it had to be one of their lanterns. Now you've suddenly changed your mind?"

He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his chest as if it were sore, his tail lightly flicking in annoyance. "Just drop it. Dark elves don't exist, and they most certainly didn't take Nemyra. It's been almost twenty years; she's likely dead now if she ever managed to escape in the first place. And this thing won't help us find her anyway."

"What? Of course it will help us! Are you insane?"

Glass shattered, iron clattered, and the heavy fragrance of smoke filled the chamber. The remains of the lantern came to a screeching halt at my talons, nearly impaling one of my digits on it. Blue flame grasped the moss carpeting, greedily consuming it and growing exponentially in size. Kazlar stared at me as if I was the one who had just chucked the lantern. His tail swished fully now, his teeth bared in rage, and he flung his wings open to display his full size. He didn't seem to notice the slight crunch as his wings smacked into the walls, nor did he acknowledge the blue flame swelling from the sudden increase in oxygen.

I cowered beneath his towering form, terror rooting my body to the stone and sinking my heart.

This is not Kazlar.