First Chosen by the Dragon (Evelyn) novel Chapter 38

[Draven’s POV]

Five days before the summit, and I make the decision that will either save us or end everything.

The logic is clean. Riven already suspects a bond—told Evelyn as much to her face, laid his observations out with the precision of a man who doesn’t like the sum he’s reached. I talked myself out of confronting him once, on her counsel, and she was right.

But circumstances have shifted. The delegation arrives in five days, and a brother who suspects is a fissure waiting for pressure. An ally who knows—brought inside the wall on my terms—is a foundation stone. Not Evelyn’s identity. That secret isn’t mine to spend. But the dragon—yes.

I find her at dawn in the eastern corridor, arms full of folios, shadows beneath her eyes. “I need you at the sea caves tonight. Riven’s coming.”

She stops walking. The folios press against her chest like armor. “You said we’d wait. Watch. You said we’d trust that knowing was enough for him.”

“I said we’d trust his intelligence. This is trusting his intelligence with better information.” I hold her gaze.

“He already knows something is wrong.” I see understanding in her eyes. “The summit closes every gap we’ve been hiding in. If he pieces it together while the delegation observers are cataloguing every reaction in this compound, we lose the ability to manage what he does with it.”

“And if he doesn’t react the way you expect?” She challenges me. “If the knowing breaks something in him that suspicion left intact—what then, Draven?”

“Then I’ll handle that too.” The words come out steadier than the thought behind them. “But it’s your dragon. Your risk. You deserve to be there when the circle widens. I won’t do this behind your back.”

Something crosses her face—not gratitude, something rawer. She nods, and the corridor swallows the sound of her boots as she walks away.

I spend the day in tactical meetings I can barely concentrate on, Khaira a low hum of amusement in my skull.

“You’re nervous,” she observes. “You’re never nervous. Not before councils, not before combat, and certainly not before conversations with your own brother.”

“I’m calculating.”

“You’re calculating nervously. There’s a difference, and I’ve known you long enough to identify it with some precision.”

Instead of answering, I find Riven after evening drill, pulling him aside in the armory where stone swallows sound. “Walk with me tonight. After the compound settles. There’s something beneath these cliffs you need to see.”

He reads my face the way he’s read it since childhood—quickly, accurately. “This about the woman? Because if you’re finally going to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me, I’d appreciate not having to pretend I haven’t been holding my tongue for weeks.”

“This is about something I should have told you weeks ago. Meet me at the eastern passage. Midnight.” I pause. “And Riven—whatever you see, remember whose house you serve.” His jaw tightens, but he nods.

Midnight finds the three of us descending the cliff path in silence—Evelyn ahead with a lantern that carves her shadow long against wet stone, Riven behind me.

The hidden passage opens where the rock face splits, and we move a single file through salt-damp stone. Riven hasn’t spoken since we entered.

The passage widens. The cave exhales—vast stone ceiling overhead, black water stretching across the subterranean lake, the natural arch in the far wall framing stars and sea.

Aspis lifts her head. She’s the size of a young deer now—dense, muscled, white scales catching the lantern light and throwing it back in fractured brilliance. Eyes pale gold, ancient, fixed on us with predatory stillness. Wings folded, talons curled against stone, she is unmistakably real.

Riven stops dead. His hand goes to the cave wall. “A white dragon.” His voice echoes off stone and water. “A white dragon. In our compound.”

I can read him as an open book, and what I can see now is terror. The realization morphing into morbid understanding, and then dread, because he knows what it means. We had the same teachers, after all, I was just a more disobedient student. “Riven, listen to me—”

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