Lavender rushed through the evening meal not because she was hungry, but because she wanted it to end before the room crumbled under the weight of all the silence. Reibella eventually set her cup down and clapped her hands once. “That’s enough reality for one evening, go to bed. If you dream, try not to invent new forms of suffering. I’m busy.”

  “That’s an absurd request,” Lavender muttered, pushing her bowl away. Reibella beamed, delighted. “See? You’re already adapting.”

  Zemmal had inclined his head, a silent confirmation that he would remain within striking distance of Lavender. Brute had risen without prompting, circling once as if checking for threats that could manifest out of stone.

  Reibella had waved them off with extravagant impatience. “Shoo. I’ll still be here in the morning. Unfortunately.” She had said it like a joke.

  Lavender wasn’t sure it was.

  The chamber assigned to Lavender was still too quiet.

  It had everything she could have asked for if she’d been the kind of person who asked for comfort: a bed layered in dark fabric that swallowed the shape of her body, a lap that gave off a steady warmth instead of flickering like a nervous animal, walls curved as though the mountain had been hollowed out gently.

  And yet Lavender lay awake. Her scars pulsed softly beneath her skin like a second heartbeat she couldn’t ignore.

  Brute had followed her in without question and curled against her hip as if he’d been designed to fit there. Zemmal had lingered at the door long enough to make sure she was breathing evenly then retreated. When is presence finally settled farther away, Lavender stared at the ceiling where faint patterns drifted like slow constellations, rearranging themselves when she tried too hard to focus on them.

  Death. Reibella. Mother, Zemmal had called her. A castle inside a mountain. A life that had gone from barrens hunger to cosmic bargains in seemingly less time than it took her to clean a kill. Lavender turned her head and met Brute’s eyes in the dark.

  He was awake, too. Of course he was. “You’re staring,” she whispered.

  Brute’s tail thumped once, slow and unapologetic. “You’re vibrating again.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are,” his voice held concern. “Like a trapped insect.”

  Lavender exhaled through her nose. “What an inspiring image. Thank you.” Brute shifted, his shoulder pressing into her side firm and anchoring. “You’re not sleeping, Lav.” He waited. She waited back, stubborn.

  Finally, she said, “You’re not sleeping, either.”

  “I don’t sleep,” Brute replied. Lavender’s fingers tightened in the blanket at his blatant lie. “You do. I’ve watched you, twitching and snoring.”

  He made a sound halfway between a huff and a reluctant admission. “Okay, Lav, you got me. I rest. Sometimes. It’s… inconvenient.”

  “Inconvenient,” Lavender echoed. “Is that what we’re calling your entire existence now?” Brute’s ears flicked. “It’s a broad category, and a long story.” Her throat felt dry. She hadn’t planned to ask. She hadn’t planned to do anything but lie here and pretend her life hadn’t been rearranged into something unrecognizable. But the words came anyway, raw and immediate. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Brute didn’t move. The silence stretched until Lavender could hear the soft, rhythmic shift of the castle itself; stone settling like a sleeping animal adjusting its weight. “Tell you what,” he said at last, voice too careful.

  Lavender’s laugh came out brittle. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Brute’s gaze stayed on her. In the dim light, his eyes looked almost the same as they always had. Dark, steady, too aware for something that was supposed to be just a dog. “That you’re more than you’ve been pretending. That you were sent. That you’ve been… lying to me.”

  Brute’s jaw flexed slightly, as if he may try to physically speak. She would not have been surprised if he had. “I am sorry you feel lied to, Lav. It wasn’t my intention…”

  She turned on her side, facing him fully. “You could talk. For years. It would feel like you gave me advice… told me when I was being stupid. You let me talk to you, about everything. Share my deepest and most intimate feelings and experiences. You acted like you were just …mine.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Brute’s ears angled back, but his eyes shone in the dim light with regret. “I was yours,” he said quietly. “You wish to know more? Once I was like you. Young, the world at my feet. Except I was also in love. Desperately, with someone I should not have been. Let’s just say Death was more insulted than inclined to help.”

  Lavender clenched her jaw hard enough her teeth ached. She struggled to comprehend all she had heard, as it did not paint their host in a favorable light. “Did Reibella make you? Did she tell you to find me and stay? Was I… “ her throat tightened again, anger trying to cover something softer. “Was I just an assignment?”

  Brute didn’t flinch. “I was told to watch,” he admitted. “To guide when I could, to keep you alive long enough for the door to open.”

  Her stomach dropped, even though she’d known in its pit. She’d known the moment Reibella called him hers. The moment Brute’s silence had confirmed what didn’t need to be said. Lavender sat up, blanket sliding down to her waist. The room felt colder without it. “So you used me,” she said flatly.

  He lifted his head, his eyes sharpening. “No.”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “I said I was told to watch,” Brute corrected, voice with an edge of anger now. “I didn’t say I obeyed for the reasons she wanted.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Brute shifted, the scar across his chest catching the lamplight like a seam that never quite healed. “It means the first day I found you, you were on your knees in front of your father’s grave, and you were making a sound I have heard echo through galaxies.”

  Lavender’s throat constricted, sudden and involuntary. She hated that her father still lived in her like that; sharp, immediate, a wound that never scarred over properly.

  His voice softened. “You were alone. You were small. You were burning from the inside and trying not to show it. And you put your hand on my head like I was something worth touching.”

  Her eyes stung. “I didn’t know what you were.”

  “I did,” Brute said, “If I told you what I was then, you would have run. And you would have died.”

  The noise that came from within her was akin to a short cackle. “That’s your excuse?”

  “It’s the truth.” Brute’s voice was sharp again. “You survived because you learned to trust what you couldn’t explain. I wasn’t going to hand you an explanation big enough to crush you.”

  Lavender pressed her palm to her forehead, trying to steady the chaos behind her eyes. “So you waited until Death herself decided to show up in my life like an uninvited houseguest?” He made that almost-laugh sound again. “She does that.” Her gaze snapped back to him. “She said you betrayed her.”

  Brute went still. The air felt heavier for a moment. Lavender’s voice lowered, “did you?”

  His eyes drifted to the far wall, not looking at anything. “Yes.”

  Lavender’s stomach twisted. “How do you even betray Death? Why would you do something so… dangerous?”

  “Oh, you know; you love something you were not meant to love,” Brute said, and the bluntness of it hit like a slap. “You try to keep it. You try to change an ending.” Lavender’s breath caught. Brute’s body stiffened as he continued, “I was not meant for attachment. I was made to carry what cannot be carried by most minds without breaking. To move between seams. To keep things… stable.” She stared back at him. “So, you’re like Zemmal? A guardian?”

  Brute’s mouth pulled into something close to a grimace. “Less like defense, more like chaos. Dragons are not immortal. I am technically older, worse.”

  Lavender swallowed. “And you loved someone.”

  Brute didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was quieter than Lavender had ever heard it, holding no tone of positivity. “She was human.” Lavender’s heart lurched. “A human?”

  “Yes,” Brute’s eyes returned to hers, steady but dark with something she didn’t have a name for. “Brief. Furious. Impossible. She laughed like she had stolen joy from the universe and dared it to take it back. I tried to save her from her ending. I could not.” His voice softened unexpectedly. “It wasn’t just punishment though. I was coming apart. When you try to keep what is meant to pass through you, you tear. I tore.” His gaze dropped briefly to his scar. “This is not from claws.”

  “So she put you in a dog. Seems cruel to me.” His mouth twitched before he continued. “Contained. Forced into a shape that could love without breaking the world or itself.” Lavender stared at him. The pieces shifted in her mind, rearranging like those symbols on the black stone walls. She wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, furious at herself for crying. “And you stayed with me. Because Reibella told you to. And because… you wanted to.”

  Brute’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

  Lavender stared at him for a long moment, the silence thick with everything she didn’t know how to lay before her feet. Finally, she asked, barely above a whisper, “Do you regret it?”

  “Not a bit.” Brute shifted closer, pressing his forehead lightly against her knee. The gesture was simple. Familiar. Human in the way it didn’t have to be. “You are not her, and I am not the same thing I was then.” Lavender’s fingers moved on their own, threading into his fur. Grounding herself in the weight of him. “You should have told me,” she whispered.

  Brute exhaled. “Yes.”

  Lavender blinked at him. “That’s it? No argument?”

  He made a sound like a sigh. “I’m tired, Lav. Not of you. Of hiding. And you’re too sharp now. You’d have dug it out of me eventually. You may be a problem, but you are my problem. As I am yours.”

  “I’m still angry”

  “I know.”

  Lavender’s hand tightened in his fur. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  “Thank you for being mine. Now, it’s time we got some rest. The world isn’t going to save itself, as Reibella made so helpfully clear.”

  Lavender let out a gentle laugh as she settled herself back into the bed. It was only moments between the closing of her eyes and her restful peace, holding her companion close. Their heartbeats thrumming in time together.

  Thank you for reading my story. I spent a long time working on it and am glad I get to share it with others. Not your speed though? Check out another cool author below to give a try!