Thankfully, I made it the rest of the way to The Slumbering Drake with little trouble. Once in the safety of my room, I turned my attention back to the System messages I'd been mulling over before.

  

  New Quest Detected: Fast Friends or New Enemies?

  Quest Objective: Get to know Will and discover more about his plight. Can you convince him that not all dragons are sightless fools, or will he be one of the first to turn on you?

  Accept?

  The words still hovered before me, emblazoned in gold. The prospect of taking on a man like Will—who had more than proven himself capable in a fight—was not something I could approach lightly. But could I truly hope to turn his opinion of dragons entirely? Past me would have jumped at the opportunity immediately, without a second thought.

  Of course I could convince him. I am the [Empress of Dragons], I can convince anyone of anything. I could convince an astronomer that the stars were not real and that the sky was actually purple—on some planets it was. But I also knew that was just posturing. I might have believed before that I had that kind of sway, but ultimately, people only believed what I said because I was the strongest in the room.

  If I truly wanted to convince someone like Will, I'd need to be more cunning.

  "I accept," I told the message and it blinked and vanished. I stared into the dimness of the room, the walls darker now that the golden light from the window had ceased to exist. The oil lamp on the table flickered unevenly as I watched it.

  My life was like that flame now.

  Flickering. Wavering. Unsteady. Was it possible that I was not cut out for whatever this was? The System had given me a second chance, but standing there, in that moment, I wasn't wholly sure I was up for the task.

  A knock at my door pulled me from my thoughts, forcing me to table them once more. I wasn't sure why I was struggling so much with what I had to do. Before my reawakening, I would have reveled at the opportunity of this challenge. So why did I keep questioning my abilities so much?

  I pulled out the heavy coin purse that Will had given me and pressed it under the mattress of the bed, beneath my pillow so that any bulge would be hidden.

  I opened the door to find Irinda waiting outside. With a quick motion of my hand, I pulled her in, closing the door and locking it. I crumbled onto the bed.

  "Oh, Irinda…" Seeing her sent a wave of relief washing over me. I still hadn't locked down why her companionship meant so much to me. "I met your cousin."

  "You did?" Her face brightened. "Is he well?"

  I nodded in response. "He is, yes. Thriving, you might say."

  Irinda's mouth tugged into a full-on smile. "That sounds like Will. He works hard at what he does. It might not be the most honest work, but he has always taken care of our family."

  "I get the impression that means a great deal to him."

  She nestled onto the bed beside me. "Are you okay, Miss Aria? You look like you've seen a ghost."

  "Do I?" I barked out a laugh. "Of course I do. I just…" I broke then, looking into her eyes. "I had to kill again tonight."

  Her face darkened. "Did they deserve it?"

  I started to nod but then shook my head. "I don't know. I… It was them or me. Them or us."

  The darkness faded and Irinda's features grew soft. Understanding.

  "I see. You and Will?"

  I nodded, trying to hold back the cracking in my voice. "We had no choice. We couldn't be captured."

  "Then it was for the best. You have goals… I might not know what those are, but I can imagine they are bigger than a few men's lives."

  I met her eyes again. How could she be so understanding? But it made sense, didn't it? Her cousin lived on the edge of what society considered wrong, the man she worked for did too, in his own right. The things he…

  Anger flushed through me, overtaking the grief, the feeling of inadequacy. I let it stoke the ember in my heart closer to a blaze.

  "Brin," I said, the word coming out like a furious hiss of steam. "Has he touched you since I came here?"

  The softness in Irinda's face turned to horror. "I…" Her cheeks flushed, red quickly filling them. A commentary of its own. She nodded slowly.

  "He has." She said, the words broken by a soft gasp.

  I pressed my hand to her cheek, my eyes still staring into hers. "I can fix that." The promise, the threat, painted my words. My intentions on full display. She knew what I meant and yet she nodded. Her head moved slowly at first, and then it grew more apparent.

  She wanted her freedom, and I could give it to her.

  "Before the end of the week," I promised. She only nodded.

  I rubbed a finger against her cheek once more, wiping the tears that ran freely down her face away. "And when I'm finished, this place will be yours."

  I had questions about what I was doing here, about how I was going to truly make a difference in the grand scheme. It was impossible not to look at the bigger picture. It was what I had focused on for so many thousands of years. But this… this issue was smaller. And from this perspective—the perspective of a human—it was just as massive as winning the war to save my people.

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  I would save one person. More, to be honest, because I knew there were others like Irinda who fell under Brin's treatment. It would be a small change for most, but a world of change for the ones that mattered.

  Pushing the feelings back down inside, I kissed Irinda's forehead with a light touch, and then stood. "I need to meet with the others, but you may stay here as long as you need." I withdrew one of my extra keys and handed it to her.

  Irinda's eyes met mine, tears still swelling up at the corners. "I trust you," I told her. "Please do not make me regret it."

  She nodded and I left her there, still sobbing, as I made my way toward the warehouse where Aurelion and the others were waiting.

  I pulled my hood up as I walked through the streets once more. I was slowly becoming more confident in going out at night, I could feel it in how my feet carried me forward. I couldn't say for sure it was my own confidence, or just the fact that I finally felt like I had a direction to move.

  The first few days hadn't exactly been directionless. Now… Now I had goals that could be accomplished sooner rather than later. Growing a hoard, stopping the [Hero], those were all good goals.

  But they were distant. Too far in the future.

  Breaking into the palace, figuring out who the hells was masquerading as me, and even taking out the trash at The Slumbering Drake was something I could do now. That didn't change how big of accomplishments they would be, or how difficult they might be. But their impact would be felt more immediately.

  It was a rush to think about slinking through the halls of the palace—halls I had once openly roamed—like a thief in the night. Because that is what I was now—a thief.

  A rogue.

  Someone who made their own rules and didn't ask permission before they acted.

  The warehouse was more active tonight. More of the gang were situated around the alleyway and at the tops of the buildings. They noticed me as I approached, and I pulled my hood down, holding up a hand in greeting.

  Felix stood at the mouth of the doorway, watching me.

  "You really like to keep people waiting," he noted, but I didn't sense any actual hostility in his voice.

  "I'm a busy woman," I responded, falling into step behind him as he turned and headed into the building.

  "Ophelia is already raring to go. I suggest not giving her any more reason to dislike you," he said over his shoulder.

  I didn't respond. Truth be told, I didn't much care what Ophelia wanted at the moment, or how much she disliked me. Having Aurelion as an ally would be helpful, but I'd just have to trust he could keep his pawns in line.

  Felix led me through the warehouse the same way the girl had the day before. This time, however, there were more people active. Boys and girls holding wooden clubs guarded every stairwell. They each eyed me as we passed, and I even flashed a toothy smile at one of them, causing him to stumble backwards.

  Felix let out a heavy sigh as we climbed the last few stairs to Ophelia's room, where she was already mid-conversation with Aurelion.

  "We have months, yes, but that doesn't mean we can sit on our asses doing nothing," she was saying.

  "We're not doing nothing, Ophelia," Aurelion responded, his voice perfectly calm as it always seemed to be. "We're waiting—ah, and speak of the devil and she will arrive."

  His words cut off any response from Ophelia, who huffed and leaned back in the chair she sat in.

  "Welcome back," Aurelion said, motioning toward an empty chair next to him. I circled the table they sat around and lowered myself into the chair beside him. The same maps from the night before were still laid out across the massive wooden surface, piles of reports and rolled parchments littered the rest of it.

  "Apologies for the wait. Had something come up that took a little more time than intended."

  "No worries," the [King of Lions] drawled.

  "Yes, worries," Ophelia cut in. "We've been waiting for two hours." She punctuated the word "two" with a bit of attitude.

  Felix rolled his eyes as he crumbled into the chair next to Ophelia. "Just let it go."

  The girl's head snapped to him. "Excuse me? You too? She waltzes in here late for the meeting and you're both just willing to let it go? If she was anyone else, we'd already be cutting her throat."

  "And?" I said, bringing a hand up to inspect it. I picked at one of my nails, as if to seem unphased by her outbreak. "I'm not just anyone else, though. I'm the person that can get you into the palace."

  "The palace?" Ophelia barked out an ugly laugh. "You think you can get into the palace? The only reason you were able to sneak into this place is because Aurelion wanted you here. If we'd been operating as we usually do, you'd have been dead before you stepped foot inside my warehouse."

  I raised an eyebrow at her and then glanced over at Aurelion, who still sat, leaned back and completely comfortable in his cushy chair.

  "You're more than welcome to continue with your original plan then, I suppose. What was it again? You were going to make a fake Imperial Seal? Be a bit difficult to pull off considering the magical properties tied to those."

  "Magical properties?" Felix asked, his eyes lighting up. It seemed that had drawn his interest particularly.

  "She's bluffing," Ophelia scoffed. "There are no magical properties in the seals. We would have detected them if there were."

  "Would you have?" I let the question linger over the room, like a bad smell. Ophelia's mouth worked, but she didn't speak again, not for several moments.

  "Are we done yet?" Aurelion finally asked, breaking the silence. From anyone else I would have expected annoyance to taint those words. Yet Aurelion's voice remained as perfectly neutral as it had since the moment I'd met him.

  "Of course," I conceded. "Are we?" I turned my attention back to Ophelia, who huffed out another heavy breath before nodding her head.

  "Yes, of course, Leo."

  "Thank you. Now, let's get to the matter at hand, then. We have four months until the Segrids move their supplies. That is if everything goes according to plan. Let’s assume they won’t, though, and that we have even less time to work with. We need to move quickly. Within the next few weeks, at the most." He leaned forward, hands closing together in a temple-like gesture.

  His eyes locked on each of us, one at a time. "I suggest we start acting like we're running out of time before we actually do. Now, Aria, you were saying about these magical seals?"

  "Right," I responded. Perhaps I had gotten a bit too carried away. "The Imperial Seals are laced with magical properties to make it difficult—perhaps impossible—to recreate them. Unless, of course, you have someone who helped create them in the first place. Since we don't have that, though, we could always get one of the real ones."

  I'd spent a good bit of the day thinking about how to word this next part. Because I needed them to believe I could do this without completely connecting me to who I really was. Aurelion knew, of course, but the others did not. That was my secret, for now, and I intended to keep it as long as I could.

  "I have a contact, someone I trust very much, who has worked within the Imperial Palace. After quite a bit of drinking and a loose tongue, I was able to pull from them that the empire keeps four Imperial Seals at all times. Two are in constant use, and the other two are kept locked in a vault, deep below the palace proper."

  "Even if that is true, how do we get in?" Felix asked, his eyes lighting up.

  "I know of a way in. A back way. One that not many others know of. I can use it to get inside and steal the seal. If… we're all okay with that?"

  I turned a questioning gaze toward the rest of the group. Nobody disagreed.

  

  Quest Complete: On the Run

  Reward: 400XP

  

  New Quest Detected: Break Into the Palace

  Quest Objective: Use one of the palace's many hidden entrances to break in and steal one of the treasured Imperial Seals from the Vault of Irindour.

  Optional Objective: Infiltrate the Empress's personal rooms and gather clues about her plans. Accept?

  The words blazed with golden light as I focused on them.

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