But something inside Eira had shifted.

She now knew—not guessed, not feared—that she was one of many.

Not the first. Maybe not the last.

The Dragon King had said so himself.

He didn’t want the pact. Never did.

And yet, every ten years, they gave him a girl.

Why?

Why did it continue if he rejected them? What power bound the pact to fate?

---

She wandered the quiet halls with those thoughts pressing heavy behind her ribs. As she rounded a corner, she noticed a door she’d never seen before. Half-hidden behind a tattered drape. Wooden, unlike the others, and worn soft from time.

She hesitated, then opened it.

Inside was a small chamber. Dusty. Shelves of old scrolls. A cracked painting hung crooked on one wall—its canvas faded, but a girl's face peered out from beneath peeling colors. Not her. Not exactly. But similar enough to make Eira's breath catch.

Drawn to one of the lower shelves, she knelt and pulled out a bundle of letters tied with silver thread. Most were illegible, written in an older tongue. But one fell loose.

Its paper was stiff, crinkled by time. A name at the top caught her eye.

"Lythe."

She didn’t recognize it. But her stomach twisted at the sight of it.

She brought the letter to the Dragon King that evening.

---

He sat by the great fire, the flames reflecting in the gold of his eyes. When she handed him the letter, his expression darkened—not with anger, but with something far more worn.

“I found it in the archives,” she said. “Do you know who she was?”

He took the letter but did not open it. His gaze remained distant. “One of the others. A girl sent before you. She asked too many questions… like you.”

Eira’s voice softened. “Did she die?”

A long pause.

“She disappeared.”

---

That night, the song came again.

Faint. Distant. But not sad this time—urgent.

Eira rose from her bed and followed it, heart racing. Down the curved corridors. Past the carved pillars. Deeper into the quiet bones of the mountain.

The song weaved between the walls like it was guiding her.

And she followed.

---

She reached a sealed archway—a door carved with unfamiliar markings. The music grew louder beyond it.

She pressed her hand to the stone.

It was warm.

Behind her, a sudden voice broke the stillness.

“I told you not to follow it.”

Eira turned. The Dragon King stood in shadow, cloaked in darkness.

“I had to know,” she said.