Le Pacte du Dragon est une série fantasy captivante mêlant magie, trahison et destinée.
Samara, marquée par une mystérieuse tache de naissance et constamment éclipsée par sa sœur Sienna, vit dans l’ombre et la manipulation.
Mais tout change lorsqu’elle conclut un pacte avec Alaric — un dragon puissant.
Ce lien interdit ne guérit pas seulement sa malédiction…
il révèle sa véritable force.
À mesure qu’elle gagne en puissance, Samara découvre les mensonges qui l’entourent et commence à reprendre ce qui lui appartient.
🐉 Pacte magique
🔥 Transformation & puissance
💔 Trahison familiale
👑 Ascension d’une héroïne
Dans ce monde…
les faibles disparaissent, et les élus s’élèvent.
#LePacteDuDragon #Fantasy #Dragon #Pouvoir #Destin #Transformation #Vengeance #SérieFantastique #HéroïneForte #Magie
Samara, marquée par une mystérieuse tache de naissance et constamment éclipsée par sa sœur Sienna, vit dans l’ombre et la manipulation.
Mais tout change lorsqu’elle conclut un pacte avec Alaric — un dragon puissant.
Ce lien interdit ne guérit pas seulement sa malédiction…
il révèle sa véritable force.
À mesure qu’elle gagne en puissance, Samara découvre les mensonges qui l’entourent et commence à reprendre ce qui lui appartient.
🐉 Pacte magique
🔥 Transformation & puissance
💔 Trahison familiale
👑 Ascension d’une héroïne
Dans ce monde…
les faibles disparaissent, et les élus s’élèvent.
#LePacteDuDragon #Fantasy #Dragon #Pouvoir #Destin #Transformation #Vengeance #SérieFantastique #HéroïneForte #Magie
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KurzfilmeTranskript
00:00For my meeting ceremony,
00:01my twin sister climbed into the bed of my beast mate, Finn.
00:05Now she can marry that monster in my place.
00:10As long as you're safe, my queen.
00:12I didn't know their swapping plan.
00:14In a world where spiritual beasts are gods,
00:17I am the lowest thing breathing.
00:19It's simple, really.
00:20Beastmen are drawn to beauty.
00:22but I was born with a black birthmark on my left cheek.
00:25I thought by the time I turned 18,
00:27my body will explode for not finding a mate.
00:30But then Finn, the phoenix,
00:33rarest creature alive, thing me.
00:36I actually believed I was special to him.
00:39I wasn't.
00:40I only knew that until my sister Sienna's bonded dragon
00:44went rogue and lost control.
00:46Finn shoved me to bind with that monster without blinking.
00:51Here's the thing.
00:52Sienna and I are identical twins.
00:55Identical.
00:56Except for the mark on my face.
00:58I wasn't chosen.
00:59I was kept as a spare.
01:01In the spiritual beast world,
01:03every human must complete a bond before their 18th birthday,
01:06or their body tears themselves apart from the inside.
01:09Sienna and I came into this world together.
01:12I was born with the mark.
01:13She was born a masterpiece.
01:15Every beast man in the territory fought to bond with it.
01:18And she chose the most dangerous one alive.
01:21Alaric, the dragon.
01:23The most powerful being in our realm.
01:26Beast men carry a sickness called the Feral Curse.
01:29When it takes hold,
01:30they hunt their bonded by memory alone,
01:33drag them into a shared nightmare,
01:35and torture them to death.
01:36I always knew Sienna would pick Alaric.
01:39Power calls for power.
01:40What I never saw coming was Finn choosing me.
01:44The day he announced our bond in front of the whole territory,
01:47I felt like I was drowning in honey.
01:50The air tasted sweet.
01:51Even the people who had spent years spitting on me blurred into background noise.
01:57I stopped hearing the insults.
01:59I forgot every ruse they'd left.
02:02I thought everything I'd survived was just the universe clearing the path to him.
02:07Except he never touched me.
02:09He never showed me his true form.
02:11When a beast man reveals their animal form to their bonded,
02:15it means love, trust, everything.
02:18Finn never once shifted in my presence.
02:20I couldn't find a single feather in the entire house.
02:24I told myself it was just his nature.
02:27That he was private.
02:28Then one night, I stayed up until 3am collecting Morning Dew,
02:32his favorite
02:33and carried it to his room like an idiot with a smile on my face.
02:37And I saw the flash of Scarlet.
02:39His true form.
02:41He was showing someone his true form.
02:43I stumbled through the door.
02:45That someone was my sister.
02:49The moment he saw me,
02:51Finn pulled his form back in.
02:53like a fist closing around a secret.
02:56Sienna smiled.
02:57Soft, unbothered.
02:59Like a cat who knows she owns the room.
03:01Samara, you know Finn and I grew up together.
03:04Revealing his true form animal side to me,
03:06It's not a big deal.
03:07My chest felt like concrete poured inside it.
03:10I kept my face very, very still.
03:13Right, I just came to...
03:15The dew I'd carried all night had already tipped and soaked the floor.
03:19I stood there, hands empty, useless.
03:22Finn looked at me once, cold, brief.
03:25Nothing urgent?
03:26Then go.
03:27I walked out with my head down.
03:29Sienna's voice followed me down the hall like smoke.
03:33Finn and I grew up together.
03:35But I met him first.
03:37I put him first, and nobody cares.
03:40That winter, I found Finn half dead in the forest while I was out cutting wood.
03:46Red light pulsed off every inch of him.
03:48The feral curse.
03:50He was losing control.
03:52Every survival instinct I had screamed at me to run.
03:55His eyes stopped me.
03:57There was something in them I recognized.
03:59The desperate, clawing will live.
04:01I had been looking at that same thing in mirrors for 17 years.
04:06I brought him home.
04:07I didn't sleep for weeks.
04:08I watched over him, learned his fever patterns, held him down through the worst nights.
04:13His body healed.
04:14The curse didn't lift.
04:16Then one day, Sienna visited.
04:18She told me to leave him to die.
04:20That accursed beast wasn't worth the risk.
04:22I refused.
04:23Sienna left.
04:24The moment she walked out the door, Finn's curse vanished.
04:27Just like that.
04:28Like smoke in the wind.
04:30He came back to himself.
04:32Powerful.
04:33Radiant.
04:33Healed.
04:34After that, he started showing up.
04:36At my place.
04:37At Sienna's.
04:38I thought he was paying a debt.
04:40He was.
04:40Just not for me.
04:42Ugh.
04:42I was so absorbed in the past memory that I forgot to see the forehead.
04:47When I looked up, I put on the deathly gaze of Alaric.
04:51You do look exactly the same as your sister.
04:55Except.
04:57His fingers slowly traced my face.
05:00And he lowered closer to my face.
05:03Sorry.
05:03Overcome with fear, I ran fast past him.
05:06Without realizing, he stood there and watched my back for a long time.
05:11Finn got busier by the day.
05:13Busier arranging Sienna's bond ceremony with Alaric.
05:16I knew I should be grateful.
05:18I knew a bond at all was more than I deserved by this world's standards.
05:22But hearing about Sienna's ceremony?
05:24The flowers?
05:26The guests?
05:27The show?
05:28Something pathetic inside me started imagining my own.
05:31I thought, fine.
05:33I'll plan it myself.
05:34I spent everything I had.
05:36Literally everything.
05:37I bought a young firebird nest tree.
05:39The rare thing Finn could want as a bond token.
05:42And gathered armfuls of his favorite blooms.
05:45I showed up on the appointed day.
05:47I stood at the bond altar from sunrise.
05:50He never came.
05:51The crowd that gathered grew larger the longer I waited.
05:54Not to support me, but to watch.
05:57The flowers in my arms had died.
05:59I kept my chin down and my eyes on the ground.
06:02How could the phoenix ever want someone that ugly?
06:05He was obviously playing her.
06:07She's the only one who didn't know.
06:09Any other day, I would have put my fist through the face of whoever said that.
06:13Today, I just pushed through the crowd.
06:15Silence.
06:16Trying not to drown.
06:17Someone shoved me from behind.
06:19I hit the ground hard, but I caught the nest tree sapling before it could break.
06:23Cradled it like it mattered.
06:25Then someone stomped on the pot.
06:27The clay exploded.
06:29The sapling went gray and died in seconds.
06:32Shattered, I walked home.
06:33And heard Sienna's voice floating out of Finn's room.
06:37Bright, delighted.
06:38Finn, this dress is beautiful.
06:41You actually made this with your own hands?
06:43Sienna, as long as you like it.
06:46Finn's voice was as flat as always.
06:48But the upward curl at the end, that small, involuntary warmth, exposed him completely.
06:54The door swung open, and Sienna walked out in a red dress.
06:59Red feathers lined the hem.
07:01Finn's tail feathers.
07:02The feathers a phoenix only plucks for someone they love.
07:06So that was why he'd rushed me out of the house last week.
07:10He didn't want me seeing him make her a dress.
07:13He'd pulled his own feathers, the most sacred part of a phoenix's body, just to get the color right for
07:19her.
07:20He didn't come to my ceremony because of Sienna.
07:23All those years.
07:25Every glance Finn ever threw across a room always landed on her.
07:29Even agreeing to bond with me.
07:31I finally understood that too.
07:34It was just a reflex.
07:35A moment of wounded pride after she chose the dragon instead of him.
07:40Samara, they were right.
07:41Every bit of this was you lying to yourself.
07:44I made up my mind.
07:45I would dissolve the bond before it was complete.
07:48I wasn't going to wait around to be discarded with an audience.
07:52I started looking for an available beast man.
07:54Anyone willing to bond with me before my birthday.
07:57I finally tracked down Riven, a low-rank lizard in the Outer Territory.
08:01And he agreed.
08:02I ran home.
08:04Told Finn.
08:04He didn't look relieved.
08:06He looked furious.
08:09Samara.
08:10Are you serious?
08:12You'd bond with that low-rank lizard instead of me?
08:17I didn't show up that day, but I had a reason.
08:20You saw-
08:21I stopped listening.
08:22I already knew the reason.
08:23Sienna's ceremony was approaching.
08:25He was busy.
08:26Too busy for me.
08:28Never too busy for her.
08:29Because of my face.
08:31Because I was the ugly one.
08:32Because apparently being born with a birthmark
08:35means I deserve to be stood up,
08:38mocked in public
08:39and made to feel grateful for scraps.
08:41I closed my eyes.
08:43Yes, Finn.
08:45I'm bonding with Riven.
08:48Fine, Samara.
08:49Don't come crawling back.
08:50He said it like I was the one abandoning him.
08:53I genuinely could not locate his logic.
08:56I had no time to figure it out.
08:59My birthday was three days away.
09:01The next morning, I went to find Riven.
09:03Somehow, he'd changed his mind overnight.
09:05Apparently, someone had introduced him to a girl last night,
09:09and they'd already scheduled their ceremony for that afternoon.
09:12You think I would take someone else's reject?
09:16Then closed his door in my face.
09:18I stood there, lifted my hand to knock again, let it fall.
09:22People like me aren't meant to survive in a world like this.
09:25If I had maybe three days left alive, fine.
09:28I was going to spend them eating well.
09:30I walked to Mayfair Garden Cafe,
09:32the expensive coffee house I'd never dared enter before,
09:35and ordered everything that looked good.
09:37I was halfway through a plate of honey cake
09:39when I caught the conversation behind me.
09:41I heard the phoenix is giving Sienna the thousand-year heartwood,
09:44the one with healing properties.
09:46Healing?
09:47If it can heal,
09:48why didn't Finn use it years ago on Samara's face?
09:51Oh, wait.
09:52Obviously, because Sienna matters.
09:55Samara never did.
09:56He had a cure.
09:57He had a cure for my birthmark.
09:59He watched me get beaten.
10:02ridiculed
10:03spat on my entire life.
10:05And he had the antidote in his pocket.
10:07He chose to give it to Sienna as a backup plan,
10:10instead of giving it to me.
10:12Tears ran down my face.
10:13and I bit my lip until it bled,
10:16to keep from making a sound.
10:17Tomorrow was my birthday.
10:19I was going to die.
10:20They would laugh at the way my body destroyed itself,
10:23so I would not cry.
10:24Not tonight.
10:25Not where anyone could see.
10:27I went home,
10:28nowhere else to go in this world.
10:30The house was blazing with light.
10:32A crowd had packed the main hall,
10:33shouting over each other.
10:35Alaric,
10:35Sienna's dragon,
10:37then had a hole in him.
10:38The feral curse had taken hold.
10:40Without a completed bond to tether him,
10:42Alaric wouldn't just hurt Sienna.
10:45He'd tear through the entire city.
10:47Dragons in rogue state always did.
10:49Everyone was screaming at Sienna
10:51to go through with the bond immediately.
10:53Only Finn was standing in her way,
10:55blocking her,
10:55keeping her back.
10:56But Finn couldn't hold the crowd forever.
10:59I looked at him one last time,
11:00but Sienna sheltered behind his back
11:03like she was made of glass
11:04then walked to my room.
11:05His footsteps came fast.
11:07He threw open my door.
11:08Why was he here?
11:09His priority was right down the hall.
11:11Samara,
11:12you're the only one who can save her.
11:14Me?
11:15The dragon bound with Sienna,
11:17Not me.
11:17You and Sienna are identical.
11:19except for the mark.
11:20No one will know the difference.
11:21I opened my mouth to ask
11:23how I was supposed to remove a birthmark
11:25on three seconds' notice.
11:26And then I remembered the conversation
11:28at Mayfair Garden.
11:29He already knew.
11:31Finn raised his hand.
11:32His expression showed something
11:34I might have called it regret,
11:35but his arm was completely stable
11:37as it swung towards my throat.
11:39Samara, I'm sorry.
11:43But Sienna once saved my life.
11:45I can't let her-
11:46Those were the last words I heard
11:48before the darkness took me.
11:50Finn, even now,
11:52Not one word about me.
11:53I came back to consciousness
11:55in a moving carriage,
11:57dressed in red.
11:57Finn's dress.
11:58The one he made for Sienna.
12:03I almost laughed.
12:04He worked so hard on it.
12:06And it ended up on the wrong twin after all.
12:09Outside, drums and horns.
12:12The city celebrating.
12:13They weren't celebrating the bonds anymore.
12:16They were celebrating trading my life
12:18for their safety.
12:19The altar was already in sight.
12:21I didn't struggle.
12:22I walked up the steps,
12:23heard the crowd's murmur shift.
12:25A single, sharp inhale of surprise.
12:28The kind of sound people make
12:30when they see something unexpected.
12:32How funny.
12:33I had heard people gasp at my face
12:35my whole life.
12:36Always in revulsion.
12:37The one time they wasted in something else,
12:40I was walking toward my own death.
12:42My gaze found Finn at the base of the steps.
12:45He stood very still.
12:46staring up at me with an expression
12:48I couldn't read.
12:49This is what you wanted, Finn.
12:50Isn't it?
12:51I looked away.
12:52Alaric stood at the center of the altar,
12:54radiating red light,
12:55barely controlled.
12:57His muscles looked like
12:58they were about to rip his clothes off.
13:00His eyes were burning.
13:02All animals.
13:03No human.
13:03But as soon as our eyes are locked,
13:05a flicker of blue light
13:07flashed in his eyes.
13:08He got closer to me
13:09and cupped my face.
13:11You are different.
13:13The ceremony
13:14will now begin!
13:17We exchanged the bond tokens.
13:19Blood on both sides.
13:21The bond snapped into place.
13:23The nightmare dimension opened instantly.
13:25It swallowed us both.
13:27I closed my eyes
13:28and waited to die.
13:29When I opened my eyes again,
13:31I was overtaken by the blue.
13:35Not darkness.
13:36Not pain.
13:37Trees.
13:38Dense.
13:39Ancient.
13:40Green.
13:41A stream so clear
13:43I could count the stones at the bottom.
13:45A spotted deer drinking at the bank.
13:47This wasn't what the nightmare dimension
13:49was supposed to look like.
13:51And Alaric was gone.
13:53I turned into a slow circle.
13:55No dragon.
13:56No hulking rogue state predator.
13:59Something cool brushed my ankle.
14:01I looked down.
14:02A tiny white snake.
14:05Transparent scales.
14:07Two small delicate horns catching the light.
14:11Everyone who'd ever studied beast man biology
14:13could recognize those horns.
14:16Alaric.
14:16Reduced to his infant form.
14:18Small enough to fit in my palm.
14:21As long as there was breath,
14:22There was a way out.
14:23I carried baby Alaric through the valley.
14:28Trying every technique I knew.
14:31Healing herbs.
14:32Binding chance.
14:33Energy redirection.
14:35Nothing worked.
14:36He stayed small.
14:37His red light pulsed faintly,
14:38but never faded.
14:40I gave up for the night
14:41and went foraging instead.
14:44In the morning, I woke up with something heavy on my chest.
14:48Baby Alaric had coiled himself on top of me at some point in the night
14:52and was fast asleep, rising and falling with my breathing.
14:57I picked him up by the scruff.
15:00I don't know what you heard about mate binding,
15:03but sleeping on top of people is generally considered a personal boundary violation.
15:08He stared at me, completely unapologetic.
15:11His tail, however, slowly turned red.
15:21His tiny horns flushed darker as I kept holding them.
15:24I raised an eyebrow.
15:25I spent the next ten minutes poking his horns until he'd turned fully pink.
15:29Only then did I put him down, satisfied.
15:33I went back to trying to fix him.
15:35Nothing worked.
15:36I pulled some leaves off a low branch
15:38and shredded them while I thought.
15:39One leaf caught my skin.
15:41Blood welled from a clean slice across my fingertip.
15:44Before I could move, Alaric flicked his tongue and licked the wound.
15:48The bleeding stopped.
15:49The cut started closing.
15:51Then he convulsed.
15:53I scrambled for medicine.
15:55Useless.
15:56Because he was already growing.
16:00The feral curse, gone.
16:03He was healed.
16:05We could go home.
16:06But he was also the most famous, coldest, most untouchable alpha in the territory.
16:13And I had spent the last two days poking him and calling him a personal boundary violator.
16:19I didn't get to figure out this.
16:21He'd already shifted back to human form and landed in front of me.
16:25He was exactly as described.
16:27Sharp jaw, cold eyes.
16:29The kind of face that made people get out of his way before they knew why.
16:35Samara, are you familiar with a prophecy passed down through dragon bloodlines?
16:40Can't say I am.
16:41Only the goddess can break the curse.
16:45That he knew my real name, or what he was calling me.
16:48I've examined the surrounding space.
16:50This isn't the nightmare dimension.
16:52It's a separate realm.
16:54One that appears to belong to you.
16:57I had a private dimension.
16:59I, Samara, the uglier twin, the spare.
17:02The girl who couldn't get a lizard beast man to bond with her, had a private dimension.
17:07We returned to the city.
17:09The streets stopped when they saw us.
17:13I went straight to Finn's estate.
17:16Alaric walked in beside me.
17:19I looked at my sister.
17:22Finn and Sienna were in the morning hall, performing grievance in front of the assembled guests.
17:27Sienna, the name on that banner is wrong.
17:30The one who bound with the dragon was me.
17:32Samara, not you.
17:34Prove it!
17:35How do we know you're even Samara?
17:37I smiled.
17:38I raised my hand.
17:41Sienna's birthmark.
17:42The one she'd painted on her face to impersonate me?
17:46Dissolved.
17:47I already knew she wouldn't have actually damaged herself.
17:51She feels her own sister to die in her place.
17:53What is Samara's face like?
17:58The heartwood.
17:59Finn had it the whole time.
18:05The feral curse.
18:06Is it lifted?
18:07You can't possibly be walking around if it's not.
18:10You'd tear this city apart.
18:13The curse is gone, Finn.
18:16Samara cured it.
18:18The entire room pivoted to look at me like a single organism.
18:22Finn looked like he'd been hit.
18:25Alaric, you don't have to protect her.
18:27I know my sister.
18:31I'm not protecting her.
18:33Samara is the goddess our bloodline's prophecy describes.
18:36Her blood neutralizes the feral curse.
18:39Finn's hand tightened on Sienna's arm.
18:43Did you forget, Finn?
18:45Your feral curse broke the same way.
18:47Sienna who saved you that winter.
18:57I left that sentence in the middle of the room, like a lit match, and walked out with Alaric.
19:03The best revelations are the ones you don't finish.
19:06Life in Alaric's estate was the best 17 days of my entire existence.
19:11Food brought to me warm rooms.
19:13No one spitting on the ground where I walked.
19:16Then the requests started coming.
19:18Word had spread.
19:19A rogue beast man, a firefox, had been brought to the gates.
19:23People wanted proof.
19:24Alaric and I looked at each other.
19:26Perfect timing.
19:27The crowd outside was enormous.
19:28I walked to the firefox without hurrying, ignoring the way his curse form snarled at me, and drew a clean
19:35line across my palm.
19:36A few drops of blood, his throat.
19:38He screamed and convulsed.
19:40The crowd turned on me instantly.
19:42She's a monster!
19:43That birthmark was a sign all along.
19:46She's poisoning him!
19:48I don't answer.
19:49I don't negotiate with panic.
19:50Alaric stepped in front of me.
19:52One look.
19:53That was all he did.
19:54One look at the crowd, and every voice stopped.
19:57I looked at his back, the width of his shoulders, the steadiness of his stance, and something warm cracked open in
20:03my chest.
20:0417 years.
20:05First time someone stepped in front of me.
20:07The firefox stopped convulsing.
20:09The red light faded.
20:10He blinked, calm, recognizably himself.
20:13The person who'd been loudest about poisoning him now looked like they might faint.
20:17Goodness!
20:18Started moving through the crowd like a wave.
20:20Within a week, my name was on every street in the city.
20:23Sienna, I heard, hadn't left Finn's estate in days.
20:27The neighborhood children had discovered she made an excellent moving target.
20:31I was not sorry.
20:32A servant announced a visitor one evening.
20:34I already knew who it was before I reached the hall.
20:37Sienna, on her knees.
20:39Samara, tell them you went willingly.
20:41Please, just issue a statement.
20:43She was pale, shaking, still managing to make it sound like a command.
20:47My voice came out very quietly.
20:49Give me one reason.
20:50You watched them torment me for 18 years, and said nothing.
20:54You knew I was the one who healed Finn, and you let him fawn over you anyway.
20:59And then you feel me to die in your place.
21:02Her mouth moved.
21:03No sound came out.
21:04She grabbed the hem of my sleeve and pulled like a child.
21:07Alaric had her escorted out.
21:09The moment he appeared in the doorway, something in me simply gave.
21:12The tears came without warning.
21:14I couldn't stop them.
21:16Didn't try.
21:17Alaric pulled me in without a word.
21:19I cried so hard I couldn't breathe.
21:2118 years of it.
21:22Finally out.
21:23I woke up in bed.
21:24Alaric was beside me, asleep.
21:26I remembered, distantly, grabbing his sleeve and refusing to let go as I passed out.
21:32My face was on fire.
21:33I had approximately 5 seconds to be mortified before a servant announced another visitor.
21:38Finn!
21:39He stood in the receiving room, looking wrecked, like he hadn't slept.
21:43His eyes found my face and stayed there, unblinking, full of something painful.
21:48Samara, I'm so glad you're alive.
21:50You have interesting timing, Finn.
21:51I'm only alive because you swapped me for Sienna.
21:54So technically, do I have you to thank?
21:56Samara, every word you say right now is a blade.
22:00Good.
22:00I turned to leave.
22:01He grabbed my wrist.
22:02Mara.
22:03My old name.
22:04The short version.
22:05The one he'd used before he stopped seeing me.
22:07I hadn't heard it in years.
22:08Finn, you didn't lose me.
22:10You put me down a long time ago.
22:12I'm the one who finally stopped waiting for you to pick me back up.
22:15Finn and Sienna stayed away after that.
22:17What they didn't stay away from was a scheme.
22:20Rumors spread.
22:22A second goddess had appeared.
22:24One more generous than me.
22:26No conditions.
22:27No questions about character.
22:30And apparently effective.
22:32I sat in Alaric's garden eating candied plums.
22:35And genuinely could not find it in me to care.
22:39But I noticed something.
22:41Dead animals kept appearing outside the city walls.
22:45Strange variety.
22:46Wrong season.
22:48Sienna, if you actually had this ability, you would have used it before tonight.
22:53Alaric's people quietly investigated.
22:55The count of dead animals matched the count of beastmen Sienna claimed to have healed.
23:00Exactly.
23:02She'd been extracting beastman essence.
23:05Killing animals to fake a cure.
23:07She was arrested within the week.
23:10I went to see her before sentencing.
23:13She was barely recognizable.
23:15Dirty.
23:16Small.
23:18The careful performance of herself completely gone.
23:23This is your fault, Samara.
23:25You sent Alaric after me.
23:27I didn't.
23:28But go on.
23:30You, you and your goddess title, you ruined everything.
23:34And Finn is throwing me out.
23:37Dissolving the bond.
23:40He's leaving me to die.
23:41I went still.
23:43Sienna, what you did to me, that only hurt me.
23:47What you did to those beastmen, to this city, that was bigger than both of us.
23:51The reason you're here isn't me.
23:53It's every choice you made when you thought nobody was watching.
23:56She was still screaming when I left.
23:58She died three days later.
24:00I had her remains collected.
24:03Whatever she was to me at the end, she was still the person I grew up beside.
24:08Then Finn appeared at the gate, and every inch of him was glowing.
24:12The feral curse taking hold.
24:15He didn't ask for my blood.
24:24Before I lose myself completely, let this feather find the person it belongs to.
24:28I recognized it immediately.
24:31Finn, do you know what the last thing Sienna ever said to me was?
24:35The lizard who rejected me?
24:37You arranged that.
24:39You sent someone to him the night before.
24:41You made sure I had no options left so I'd have to stay within reach.
24:46That night, Alaric came to my room and set a dragon scale on my desk without a word.
24:51I pushed it back three times.
24:53His face went darker with each refusal.
24:57I took the scale.
25:01Alaric's estate was enormous.
25:03I spent two weeks learning the layout and still opened the wrong door half the time.
25:06One wrong door led me to a room full of dried flowers.
25:10Thousands of them, every variety, pressed, labeled, arranged in careful rows.
25:14After my mother died, I'd go out before dawn and pick whatever was blooming,
25:19then spend the hot part of the day hawking them in the market.
25:22Until one morning, a house steward appeared and said his employer was very pleased with my work
25:27and wanted ten full baskets delivered daily.
25:29I had never seen the employer's face.
25:31It was Alaric.
25:33I summoned him to the main hall that evening.
25:36He stood in the center of them, unsure what to do with his hands.
25:39I didn't realize dragons had so many quirks.
25:43Sleeping on people's chests.
25:45Collecting flowers.
25:46Truly a complex inner life.
25:48Alaric, when we were little, you used to follow me around and call me Big Sis.
25:53I know I told you to stop once we were grown.
25:55I lied.
25:57I liked it.
25:59I looked at him.
26:01Waiting.
26:03He didn't move for a long, agonizing moment.
26:08Big Sis.
26:09We'd met before Finn.
26:10Before any of this.
26:11Him for being born without dragon horns.
26:13Me for the mark on my face.
26:15Left in the mountains to survive or die.
26:16He arrived after me.
26:17So obviously, I adopted him immediately.
26:20We lived like that for years.
26:22Looking out for each other.
26:23Then his horns grew in.
26:25His family came to collect him.
26:27He didn't want to go.
26:28They tied him up.
26:29They told him if he fought it, they'd come back and kill me.
26:33He left to protect him.
26:35He found me again years later in the market.
26:39He was too afraid to approach.
26:41Afraid his presence would put me in danger.
26:45So he bought all my flowers instead.
26:48Every single day.
26:49At triple the market rate.
26:51He agreed to bond with Sienna because he knew what Finn was planning.
26:55He'd seen Finn watching Sienna.
26:57He knew the swap was coming.
26:59He let himself be exposed to the feral curse of my family to give me a way out.
27:03His own family found out and took it for him.
27:05An investment in keeping the dragon estate's power centralized in the younger side.
27:09He nearly died.
27:10So did I.
27:11And we both came out the other side.
27:14I turned the dragon scale over in my hands.
27:17A reverse scale I'd found out.
27:19The most sensitive point on a dragon's body.
27:21The thing they guard most carefully.
27:23He'd given it to me in a panic.
27:25Terrified, I'd changed my mind.
27:27I pressed up on my toes and kissed his horn.
27:31You absolute idiot, I said smiling.
27:35Why didn't you just tell me?
27:37He picked me up without any further discussion and carried me inside.
27:41I learned that night, thoroughly and at length,
27:45that dragon horns are not, in fact, for casual affectionate kissing.
27:52Life after that was sweet.
27:54Genuinely, embarrassingly sweet.
27:57Except for the bird.
27:58The phoenix had started appearing in the tree outside my window.
28:02Wherever I went, it followed.
28:03Said nothing.
28:04Just watched.
28:07Finn had disappeared.
28:09Some said dead.
28:09Some said he'd left the territory entirely.
28:12Today was my bond ceremony with Alaric.
28:15Some stories end with a bang.
28:17Mine ended with a bird being firmly escorted off the property.
28:22Works for me.
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