23 East

Dumai lies awake in the palace, ill with the earth sickness and distrustful of her new attendants, relying only on Osipa. In the night she feels a sharp, ominous change and is summoned to the East Courtyard by a messenger. Emperor Jorodu, accompanied only by Epabo, brings Dumai out of the palace in secrecy.

They travel to Nirai’s Hills, a sacred imperial preserve hiding a sundrop grove and a black, luminescent lake that Unora had taught marked a sleeping dragon. As they walk, Emperor Jorodu confesses his remorse, explains the fading bond between the imperial line and dragons, and admits he brought Dumai because the gods will not intervene in human strife, including the Kuposa threat. He intends to seek a dragon’s judgment of his true heir.

On an island reached by an old boardwalk, Jorodu reveals a bronze bell and the secret that the Queen Bell could rouse all dragons in dire need. He recounts how the lake’s last-hatched dragon, Furtia Stormcaller, once deemed the Crown Prince’s light “faded.” At Jorodu’s signal, Epabo strikes the bell; the water erupts as Furtia rises from the depths.

Furtia addresses Jorodu, asking if she is woken to hold back fire, and warns of flames rising from the restless deep beneath the broken mantle. When Jorodu presents Dumai—his firstborn, newly acknowledged—Furtia speaks within Dumai’s mind, then proclaims that Dumai’s light is clear and that she “holds a woken star,” effectively naming her a worthy heir to the Rainbow Throne.