Inferna and I crashed through another End island, both of us bleeding, both of us relentless.
"I HATED YOU," she said. "FOR CENTURIES. I HATED THAT YOU MADE ME. HATED THAT YOU USED ME. HATED THAT MY EXISTENCE WAS YOUR PATH TO FREEDOM."
"And now?"
"NOW I UNDERSTAND. YOU WERE TRAPPED. DESPERATE. YOU DID WHAT YOU HAD TO DO."
"That doesn't make it right."
"NO. IT DOESN'T. BUT IT MAKES IT... COMPREHENSIBLE."
---
Year 500-800.
Inferna grew.
Not just physically—though she did grow, eventually reaching over thirty meters in length. She grew mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
She became a person.
That was never the plan. The plan was to create a dragon, corrupt it with experimental magic, and use its death to trigger a reality breach. Simple. Clinical. Efficient.
But the corruption worked too well.
The enchantments I'd embedded in her egg—the ones intended to make her death more potent—also granted her awareness. Intelligence. A soul.
She asked questions.
"Why is the sky blue?" "Why do villagers build?" "What is death?"
I answered as best I could. What else could I do? She was my creation—my daughter, in a twisted way—and she deserved truth.
Mostly.
---
Year 600. The first fight.
It happened unexpectedly. Inferna was circling my base—she did that often, claiming territory or protecting me or simply flying—and something snapped.
"YOU LIED TO ME."
She descended like a comet, fire blazing from her maw. I barely had time to raise my shield before she hit.
"I TOLD YOU I WAS BORN TO DIE. YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THE REST."
"The rest?"
"THAT I WAS YOUR SECOND CHOICE. THAT YOU TRIED OTHER EGGS. THAT I'M JUST THE ONE THAT SURVIVED."
I hadn't told her that. The failed experiments—the eggs that hadn't hatched, the hatchlings that had died, the corruptions that had gone wrong—those were my shame.
"How did you find out?"
"I FOUND YOUR NOTES. THE ONES YOU THOUGHT YOU'D DESTROYED. SEVENTEEN FAILED ATTEMPTS BEFORE ME. SEVENTEEN SIBLINGS I'LL NEVER KNOW."
She attacked again. I defended, but barely. Her fire was hotter than anything I'd faced, and her rage made her relentless.
"I'M SORRY—"
"DON'T. DON'T APOLOGIZE. JUST FIGHT ME."
We fought for three hours.
In the end, I won—barely. My experience against her power. My technique against her rage. I pinned her to the ground with [Anchor] and held a blade to her throat.
"Do it," she snarled. "Complete your plan early. I'm ready."
I lowered the blade.
"I won't kill you in anger. Only in necessity."
"WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?"
"Necessity is freedom. Anger is just pain."
She stared at me for a long moment.
Then she laughed.
"You're RIDICULOUS. You know that?"
"I've been told."
---
Year 700. The training begins.
After our fight, something changed. Inferna stopped hating me—or rather, her hate transformed into something more complex.
She started training with me.
Not because she wanted to help my plan, but because she wanted to be ready. If her death was inevitable, she would make it MEAN something. She would make me EARN it.
We fought weekly after that. Sometimes daily. Her natural abilities against my decades of experience. Her fire against my enchantments. Her rage against my calm.
I taught her technique. She taught me ferocity.
I taught her tactics. She taught me passion.
I taught her everything I knew about combat.
She taught me what it meant to have something to lose.
---
Year 800. The relationship shifts.
I don't know when Inferna became family. It wasn't a conscious decision—just a gradual recognition that this dragon, this creation, this being-I'd-made-to-die... mattered to me.
We talked, sometimes. Not about the plan—neither of us wanted to think about that—but about other things. Philosophy. The nature of existence. The meaning of freedom.
"Do you think there's a world where I could have been born naturally?" she asked once.
"Maybe. There are infinite worlds, supposedly."
"INFINITE WORLDS WITH INFINITE POSSIBILITIES. AND IN THIS ONE, I'M A KEY."
"In this one, you're my daughter. And a dragon. And a friend."
"SINCE WHEN ARE WE FRIENDS?"
"Since I realized I'd rather keep fighting you forever than use you as planned."
She was quiet for a long time.
Then: "Father."
"What?"
"Nothing. Just... practicing. For when it matters."
I didn't ask what she meant.
I think I already knew.