The cold was not something that afflicted Azara, but she could still feel the fading warmth of the sun as it slipped beyond the horizon, leaving nothing but a fading orange sky. The stars began to twinkle in the growing darkness as she followed Kasper out of the cabin and through the field outside of it. Eventually, he turned down toward the small creek that ran alongside the cabin and stopped at its bank.

  Azara walked up behind him but refrained kept her self from coming too close. He was still scared, and she knew that. He didn't know that she was scared too, and she also knew that. Azara had purposefully told a small number of people her secret in the past, less than she could count on one hand. A couple of these she thought of as mistakes, like Konrad. However, this was the first time to her knowledge that anyone had accidentally discovered her secret.

  It was a situation that had to be treated with care, and she wasn't sure exactly how she was going to handle it. She had run many different scenarios through her head for this circumstance throughout her life, but none had been quite like this one. She considered lying or trying to convince him that what the Dragon's Eye had told him was wrong, or that he hadn't used the artifact correctly, but that option was thrown off the table when he turned and broke the silence that had been hanging over them. He spoke above the sound of the creek bubbling behind him. It almost sounded like he was yelling in the still of the night, though his voice was not raised.

  "Don't even try to tell me otherwise," he said. "I won't hear it. You can negotiate, we can talk, or you can kill me - but that is it."

  "Kasper, I don't know what that gem told you or what you saw through it but-"

  "-its what I'm seeing now, Aza- A..." he looked away from her, and his body shook in fright. He revealed the one hand that had remained concealed from view in his pocket. The dragon's eye was clutched in his fingers, glowing just a little in the low light. "Is that even your real name? Who are you?"

  Azara frowned, then sat down, hoping it would make her seem less threatening. It did not work, and Kasper did not relax at all. "My name is Azara Elefthera. I haven't lied to you."

  He glared, his eyes reflecting the light of the glowing gem in his hand. "I told you not to tell me otherwise, you monster."

  She winced. It took everything in her power not to either snap or cry at the comment. Instead, she returned his glare. "I am not a monster Kasper."

  The young man cowed as if he had seen something terrible, and then took a step backward. He breathed out in short breaths, shocked, before he fell to his rear into the creek. Azara stood up and walked toward him in surprise.

  "Kasper you-"

  "Getaway! Get away from me!" he shouted, splashing water up at her as he scrambled further back into the creek.

  She gritted her teeth and kept walked forward as the water harmlessly slapped against her. She stepped into the creek and then overtook him as he began to crawl up the other bank. She grabbed him by the collar and forcefully pulled him over to the other side. Luckily, he went completely limp when she did this and did not struggle anymore. The hefted him up onto the ground there covered in smooth stone, sand, and patches of grass.

  "Are you going to kill me?" he asked, pitifully, from where he lay. He was still clutching the stone in one hand as if his life depended on it.

  "No you idiot, I'm keeping you from running off into the cold night soaking wet. That would kill you," she said, before sighing and sitting down beside him. She then grabbed a couple of the largest smooth stones from the creek bank and began stacking them on top of one another. Kasper's adrenaline started to wear off and she could tell he was feeling the effects of getting soaked in the water as the night's cold set in. However, he didn't seem inclined to go back inside and did not even make a comment to Azara about his discomfort as he started to shiver. He curled up into the fetal position, clutching the Dragon's Eye to his chest, silent and waiting to see what she would do.

  After Azara had stacked the smooth round stones, she used her index finger to trace runes onto them, burning the markings into the stone using fire magic from her fingertip. When she was done, she focused presence into the letters, and a fire roared up around the stones. It wasn't exactly enchanting like how she had taught Irinia, but it had a similar effect. She had channeled presence into the stones, with a specific task assigned to it. Once that presence burned out, the rocks would stop burning as well, and they would crumble to dust.

  As the fire started to provide some warmth, Azara looked over at Kasper, who refused to meet her gaze.

  "What do I look like, Kasper? What is that thing showing you?"

  His answer surprised her, and she felt her heart skip a beat when he spoke. "Nothing, you look no different."

  "Then why are you so frightened? What is wrong?"

  "It is telling me what you are. I know, Azara. I can feel it, and it is powerful. When you glared at me, I thought I was going to die. But it isn't just you, it is all of the others too. The dragons, so few, yet so many more than I imagined." he said. "Some are fainter than others, but you're right here, and you're a dragon."

  "Yes," she said, letting the weight off her chest as she told him the truth. It didn't seem like there was any other option.

  He looked disconcerted by the fact that she had admitted the truth, and mulled it over for a few moments before speaking again. "So what do you want with us?"

  The question struck Azara oddly. At this point, she had almost forgotten. She had joined them to help get her way with the king, and to satisfy her curiosity about another one of her kind being spotted in the north. Then, when Valerius' plan had been revealed, her focus had shifted to helping them achieve the justice they desired and to keep them alive. And now? Even she wasn't so sure about any of that. What none of them knew, not even Irinia, was that she had been presented with yet another challenge throughout the journey, that had just come to the forefront of her mind. It was something she had always known was a possibility, but now it was confirmed and it was tormenting her.

  It struck her that this problem, that had previously just been a possibility, might make the most sense to Kasper of all the things she could say. It was a hard call, but she settled on it, even if it was hard to speak on. The subject of family.

  "You're an orphan, right Kasper? Just like Irinia?"

  He nodded but looked wary of the topic.

  "When Konrad used his sword against us, did you see the family you could have had? What could have been?"

  The thief let his knees fall away from his chest, and dropped his hands to his side - though one hand still held the Dragon's Eye in it. His mouth dropped in shock. "How did you know?"

  She shrugged. "Just a guess. No matter how much you love your adopted family, or how much you think you're over the idea that you never got what you were supposed to, its always in the back of your mind at the end of the day. Even if it is just a quiet curiosity and nothing more, it still nags at you, doesn't it? What would have happened if you'd lived out your life with your original parents, and been happy with them?"

  "Yes," he said, and his tone was bitter. He crisscrossed his legs and wrapped his arms around himself. he moved just a bit closer to the fire to help stave off the cold. "But what does that have to do with anything."

  "Well, in the vision I saw, I saw what it would have been like to grow up with my original parents in peace, with my sister," she said.

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  Kasper straightened up and looked lost for a moment. Then he stared at Azara as if dumbfounded. "I thought- I thought that was a lie too."

  "What?"

  "Your sister. But she is out there too. Another one, like you." he said, awed. "I can sense her, far to the south."

  Azara smirked. "Of course, why would I lie about that?"

  He shrugged. "Well, I just assumed everything you've said has been a lie."

  "I haven't lied to you Kasper. I am Azara Elefthera. Ezmeralda Elefthera is my mother. Astra Elefthera is my sister. Andreas Elefthera is my brother. I am a member of the Ignis Evigan. I do own a company that deals in rare gems and jewelry."

  Rattling off these truths seemed to relax Kasper, but he finished off the list with his own truth. "And you're a dragon, in disguise. Hiding from the world."

  "And I've lived as a human." she countered. "It is called shying or shapeshifting. An illusion made into reality. I am human in a very real sense, but with a dragon's soul, a soul fo fire. I've also been alone in this world and my predicament, aside from my sister."

  She saw Kasper's eyes light up as she realized what she was saying. His mouth formed an 'O' as the thought dawned upon him.

  "You're looking for others, aren't you?"

  "Yes, that is part of it. I wanted to know what dragon it was that was causing trouble up here in the north. I did want to achieve my goals in this country as well though, and I did want to help Valerius in his goals for this country. Those were part of my motivations for doing this. However, I wanted to know what another of my kind was doing up here, purportedly destroying villages for some reason."

  "So you never intended to kill a dragon with us, did you?" Kasper asked.

  She looked sideways, away from his gaze, and sighed. "That was a bit of a lie. I knew it was a possibility that it would come to that, but I had hoped that I could just negotiate with whatever dragon it was - if there was another dragon at all."

  He shook his head. "If it weren't for this stone, I'd still be in disbelief at this conversation. This is insane."

  Azara nodded, and was grateful that he had not asked further questions, like who exactly the dragon had turned out to be - or who they had claimed to be.

  "Irinia had a hard time believing this too, though I got to show her the truth. You're having to receive it through that artifact."

  Kasper nodded. "This is a hard way to learn something like this. I was going to ask if she knew or not. You know, she's the craziest of all of us, even if it doesn't look like it. Even more so than Valerius, because she encourages him in his stupid plans and helps him. When we were kids he'd be the schemer, she'd encourage it, and then I'd join in - even though I wasn't supposed to associate with them at all."

  "On that subject, I've been meaning to ask, how did all of that get started anyway? You're a peasant, so how did you end up playing with a prince and a noble's daughter?" Azara asked.

  He smiled. "Well, it all started when I was tasked by the Hawks, at a very young age, to pretend to be a steward for the estate of Irinia's parents. It was a daring plan that could have -"

  "-actually," she interrupted, cutting him off form starting another one of his bragging tales ", maybe that is a story best saved for another time. I'm sure it was as amazing like all your other adventures."

  His face fell, but not in a sad way. Rather, he seemed shocked when she interrupted him and did not reply to her comment.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "I just - I realized I was about to start talking normally again. Even though..." he sighed, and looked into the fire that she had built, contemplative. Azara let him, remaining quiet as he sorted out his thoughts.

  Then, he reached out with the Dragon's Eye toward her, as if to let her take it. She hesitated, though. It wasn't right for him to just give it to her, she knew that.

  "Why would you want to give me that?" she said.

  He shrugged. "I just realized, that without this, it doesn't matter. You go back to being this strange but beautiful woman I admire, nothing else. Just frightening in that way, and nothing more. Nothing has to change. We can just go back to being adventuring friends, and nothing more."

  "You know that won't happen," she said ", you can't just refuse to accept the fact that -"

  "I'm saying that I trust you Azara. At least, in a way, alright?" he said.

  "I don't understand, how is that trusting me? You're asking me to pretend this didn't happen. That I don't even have this other part of me." she said.

  "It is not that, it is just that I'd rather think of you as you are now than anything else."

  She scoffed. "That's silly. You've probably just attracted to me like every other nobleman or prince in Aethera. It ruins that, to find out that I'm not just a beautiful woman."

  "Of course I'm attracted to you. You're a beautiful woman, a beautiful human," he said nonchalantly. ", but its also I realize that is what you want to be too, isn't it? At least in part? You've got two natures, and you want to take them both, but that's a hard call to make, isn't it? People like you, or rather beings like you, are like that."

  "What do you mean?" Azara said. "As if you've met-"

  "You aren't the first," Kasper replied.

  Azara blinked, dumbfounded. What had he just said?

  "What do you mean, I'm not the first?" Azara asked in disbelief. "You've not met any other dragons befor-"

  "No, but there are other beings like you in the world," Kasper said, his tone was dead serious and his eyes looked directly into hers. He held out the stone again to her. "And I've met them. I've known some of them, talked with them too. I met a vampire once, believe it or not. I think this would work best. So please, take this back."

  Her mind raced with the possibilities of what Kasper was talking about. She could see his soul clearly as he looked her in the eye, and she could tell he wasn't lying. He had met others like her before. It was also clear though, that he would not say anything more about the topic. He had set up mental walls around it, and she realized that no more questioning from her would get an answer about it.

  So she made her decision and decided to take his word. Tentatively, she reached out to take the stone.

  It was a beautiful thing, there was probably no other gem like this one in the world. she thought. Then she withdrew her hand again.

  "No, that wouldn't be right," she said, quietly.

  He chuckled. "You really are a dragon, aren't you. That was one of the greediest gazes I've ever seen, and I've seen some greedy eyes before."

  This comment was met with a glare, and then Azara reached up to her ears and removed the jeweled earings there. She held them out in one hand.

  "A trade, instead," she said. ", that way I owe you nothing."

  He smiled, then shook his head. "I'm a thief, not a merchant, I won't be stolen from like that. There is no way those gems are worth an artifact like this."

  "Don't tell me you're going to ask for a kiss?" she said, rolling her eyes.

  The smile faded from his face when she said that, and he shook his head. "Maybe I would have once, but...no, not now. I want a promise instead."

  Azara could not help but feel a bit hurt by the comment, even if she had been sarcastic. "Alright, what sort of promise?"

  "That when this is over, you will find me something, if you can," he said. "I want you to get your mother to help you if you can't do it yourself."

  "What is that?" she asked.

  "I want you to look into whatever hoard you have, whatever magic you can do, and I want you to help me find the remainders of my family. Relatives, siblings, anyone. If there is a magic that can make my mind imagine them to exist, then I want to know if there is a magic that can find them. I was very, very young when my parents stared thanks to the king. I don't' remember them." Kasper explained. "But I'd like to know if there is anyone else out there that does. that is related to me, that knows who I am or who they were. Anyone at all."

  "And if that isn't possible?" Azara said.

  He shrugged. "A very expensive magical gem or artifact would suffice. Maybe something that makes me super lucky. That would be nice."

  She smiled and suppressed a laugh at the suggestion. I'm not sure you understand how magic works at all, but I promise that I will do my best."

  "Good. Then it is a deal." Kasper said, and then put the glowing gem into her hand.

  As he did so, it looked like he relaxed a bit. His shoulders slumped a little more and his body seemed less rigid. He let out a tiny sigh of relief as well. Azara peered into his eyes for a moment and noted that his soul did seem more at ease than it had before. No matter what he had said on the outside, holding the stone and having the knowledge that he was talking to a dragon rammed into his mind had been stressful.

  Holding the stone, she realized, was also stressful. As it fell into her palm and she focused upon it, the world seemed to come into her senses. She could feel exactly what Kasper had said. She could sense every dragon, every being like herself throughout the world.

  It took a moment for her to understand it all, but the stone was not made to be difficult to use, and the rush of information felt more like a system of requests. If she thought about what dragon she wanted to sense, she would sense it, and its general location would be fed back to her. The nearest dragons were quite evident.

  She soon picked up the dragon they had just faced down, and noted that he was moving, probably flying, south towards the capital of Ursulam.

  She stood up and began walking back to the cabin. "We have to go talk to Valerius and the others. We'll have to leave here as soon as possible, by morning at the latest. We will tell Valerius and Joakim that you just had a misunderstanding about how the Dragon's Eye was used, and got scared of me because of it. Not too far from the truth, should be a story that you should be able to keep, with all the disguises and stories you've kept in life, right?"

  "I mean, I guess, why the hurry though?" Kasper asked, standing up to follow her.

  "He's moving, flying south for the capital," she explained. ", he may be intent on attacking it. If it comes down to it, I can try and fly to meet him, but I'd rather not."

  "Who is he?" Kasper asked, bringing up a question the question that he had not asked earlier.

  "Well, he claimed to be my brother."