First Chosen by the Dragon (Evelyn) novel Chapter 43

[Evelyn’s POV]

The routine becomes a second skin within three days.

Archives at dawn under Corwin’s supervision—shelving census records, transcribing border treaties, filing correspondence untouched for decades. The old archivist values silence over conversation and competence over charm.

I give him both, and he rewards me with indifference so thorough it borders on kindness. Inner wall patrols after dusk—quiet circuits along corridors the delegation has no reason to walk. Between both, the visits underground.

Aspis is the size of a pony now. The growth happened in four days, her body absorbing my stress through the bond like fuel poured on a forge.

The chamber that once held her comfortably has become a cage she can barely turn inside. Her wings press against opposite walls when she stretches, white scales scraping stone. When she lifts her head, her horns graze the ceiling.

“I can feel the rock above me,” she says through the bond as I crouch beside her on the third night, pressing my hands against her flank. “Every hour, it gets closer. Or I get bigger. The result is the same.”

“We’ll move you to the sea caves again.” I promise her. I just need to coordinate with Draven—the delegation’s patrol patterns overlap with the eastern tunnels, and we can’t risk the passage until their sentries rotate off the cliffside watch.”

I stroke the ridge above her eye, feeling muscle bunch beneath scales that radiate heat like sun-warmed stone. “Two more days. Can you hold?”

“I can hold. But the holding is becoming its own kind of breaking.” Her amber eyes find mine, enormous now, flecked with gold. “You’re afraid. I taste it constantly—copper and cold water. Your fear feeds my growth, and my growth feeds your fear. We are a circle eating itself.”

“That’s a charming image.” I lean my forehead against her snout, and her breath washes over me—warm, steady, smelling of stone dust and something sweeter. “I’m managing the fear. It’s everything around the fear that’s harder.”

“The man helps. When you’re near him, the copper taste fades.” She nudges me gently, nearly knocking me sideways with a head now larger than my torso. “Go to him more often. For my sake, if not yours.”

“Your sake. Right. How selfless of you.” I chuckle. And I can’t prove it, but I think Aspis smiles.

“I am a paragon of generosity.” I leave her with a promise to return at dawn and climb back through the passage with stone dust on my knees.

On the fourth day, everything nearly ends in the archives. I’m shelving census records—routine work, the kind that lets my hands move while my mind maps escape routes—when Cassandra’s voice reaches me through the corridor outside.

My body recognizes her before my brain does. Every muscle locks rigid, fingers frozen on a leather-bound ledger, breath stopping mid-draw.

I drop behind the nearest shelf. My hip catches a filing crate, and I bite down hard enough to taste blood. I press myself flat against the wood with my hands shaking so badly I have to grip my own wrists.

“Evelyn.” Aspis surges through the bond like a wave breaking against rock. “Your heart—what’s happening?”

“She’s here. The archives. She’s coming into the archives.” The door groans open. Two sets of footsteps—the guide’s heavy boots and something lighter, more deliberate. Through the gap between shelves, I watch my sister walk into the archive chamber.

Cassandra wears a blue traveling coat trimmed with silver, golden hair caught in a braid over one shoulder. She moves through the stacks with mild curiosity—eyes sweeping book spines, fingers trailing along shelf edges.

The performance is flawless, casual enough to fool anyone who hasn’t spent eighteen years learning the difference between Cassandra browsing and Cassandra hunting. When she browses, her gaze drifts. When she hunts, it lands—sharp, deliberate—on every doorway, every shadow that might contain what she’s looking for.

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