I stood very still, trying to process the question. Come here? I hadn't come anywhere. I'd passed out after sealing the demons, and then I'd woken up in this place that was apparently...
Oh.
Oh.
I looked around again. At the impossible beauty. At the frost flowers that shouldn't bloom. At the perfect balance of cold and warmth. At a landscape that existed somewhere outside normal reality.
"I'm inside you," I said quietly. "This isn't paradise. This is... your realm. Your consciousness. The space you occupy when you're not manifesting in the physical world."
The dragon's rumble might have been approval. Or amusement. Hard to tell.
"YOU UNDERSTAND QUICKLY. GOOD. THE SEAL BREAKING CREATED A BRIDGE BETWEEN YOUR MIND AND MINE. WHEN YOU SLEEP NOW, VESSEL, YOU WALK IN MY DOMAIN."
I stared up at him, at the creature who'd been trapped inside me for eighteen years, who'd had every reason to hate me, to destroy me, to burn through my body the moment freedom was possible.
