Chapter 16– Draven's POV
Prophecies burn fast. But it's the silence after that feels louder.
---
"I'll find it," the healer said finally, rising from where she'd been kneeling. "There's a scroll. A forgotten one. Not in the archives — buried beneath them. It was written during the early fractures, when the dragons were first sealed. It mentions her. Or something that became her."
Scarlet didn't react.
She just trembled in my arms, jaw clenched like it was the only thing holding her together.
"She'll need it," Dexter said.
"She'll need more than that," the healer replied. "Time. Teaching. And a place where the hierarchy can't reach her."
"We'll take her," I said.
Damian raised an eyebrow. "Where? The infirmary's useless if she glows again."
"The Den," Devon offered quietly. "She's already unraveled in front of us. Might as well let her unravel in comfort."
Scarlet stirred slightly, lips moving, but the sound was too soft to hear. Her hand twitched against my jacket.
"She stays with us," I said firmly.
No one argued.
---
It took longer than usual to get to the car.
Partly because Scarlet kept walking into things — slowly, gently, like someone feeling her way through a collapsing dream. And partly because none of us knew how to help her without making it worse.
"She's walking like a baby goat," Damian muttered under his breath as we crossed the courtyard.
"She's blind," Devon hissed. "And probably traumatized."
"She also keeps apologizing to the hedges," Dexter added with a smirk.
"They sound like people," Scarlet muttered. "I don't know what's plant and what's Alpha right now."
Dexter turned to me. "We're officially adopting her."
"Shut up and open the car," I said.
---
The Maybach was low to the ground and sleek — not exactly the kind of vehicle designed for gentle blind entry. I opened the back door. Devon guided Scarlet forward, explaining where to put her hands, how to lower herself in—
But before any of that could work, Scarlet veered left, missed the seat entirely, and collapsed directly onto Dexter's lap.
There was a full second of absolute silence.
Then:
"…Oh no," she whispered.
"Hey," Dexter said, smiling like he'd just been handed a gift box. "Warm. Unexpected. 10/10 seating choice."
Scarlet shot back upright, flailing slightly. "I thought that was—! I thought— I can't see!"
"I know," Dexter said. "I'm not complaining."
"You're awful."
"I'm memorable."
Devon coughed into his hand to cover a laugh. Damian muttered something about "new level of humiliation," and I was trying not to drive the car into a wall.
---
Once she was actually seated — this time between Devon and Dexter, with enough space to avoid future lap accidents — we finally pulled out of the garage.
Scarlet was quiet again, huddled beneath my jacket, hands tucked beneath her chin. She looked smaller than she had in the throne room. Quieter. Almost… afraid of existing.
"You okay?" I asked as we turned onto the main road.
She nodded slowly. "This car is too soft. Like it's judging me."
"That's the leather," Devon offered.
"And the ghosts of people who've sat in it before you," Dexter added.
"Why am I here again?"
"You nearly burned down a throne and spoke in dragon tongue," I said. "Now you're blind, possessed by something old, and possibly bonded to us."
"Oh," she muttered. "That clears it up."
---
The rest of the drive was a mess of tension, weird comfort, and quiet exhaustion.
Scarlet tried not to touch anything. Dexter kept narrating landmarks using food metaphors ("We just passed the peanut-shaped statue. Now turning left at the cinnamon-stick fountain."). Devon held a bottle of water against her palm, guiding her fingers around it like she might forget how to hold things.
Damian stayed mostly quiet, though he glanced back once and asked, "You always this clumsy?"
Scarlet shrugged. "Only when I'm blind and embarrassed."
"Fair."
---
By the time we reached the Den — our private shared suite tucked into a memory-warped wing of Crescent Hollow — she was half-asleep and still apologizing.
Devon helped her out gently, guiding her through the mirrored archway and into the soft-lit space that was more home than any dorm.
The Den was warm. Dark velvet curtains. Fire-glass windows. Four bedrooms, one enormous L-shaped couch, and memories pressed into every surface.
Scarlet froze at the threshold.
"I don't know where to go."
I stepped beside her. "Anywhere."
"But I'll break something."
"You already broke a seal," Damian muttered. "What's a lamp?"
"I hate all of you," she whispered.
Dexter grinned. "That's how you know it's working."
---
We gave her my room — not that she knew it — and Devon brought her tea while Dexter explained the layout of the kitchen using only spice names. Damian flipped all the pillows upside-down "to confuse her sense of direction" and got promptly smacked with one.
Scarlet eventually settled on the edge of the bed, hands clenched in her lap, chin tucked like she was waiting for someone to tell her it was okay to exist.
"You're safe," I said.
She nodded. "I don't feel like myself."
"That's because you're becoming someone else."
"I don't want to be anyone else."
"Then we'll help you stay you. Sight or not."
---
She lay down eventually, curled like a comma in the center of the blankets, and just before she drifted off, she whispered:
"Will I ever wake up?"
I watched her — the girl who had called fire, cracked prophecy, and sat on Dexter like a throne — and said:
"You're not asleep."
She didn't answer.
But the room felt warmer after that.
And for the first time since Scarlet Stormborne entered Crescent Hollow…
She looked like she belonged.