"It is mine. I kept it safe, I brought it from the pit, I saved it. What happens to this egg is for me to choose, not you. You have no right to make any demand of me, no right to command me to do anything." He is not her father, not that she ever had one to make a sure comparison. He is a friend, an ally, but she will not wilt under the pressure of his word, even if it makes her uncomfortable to be against him rather than with him.

She trusted him. She trusted a kinsman, and the quiet voice in her mind - her own, not Rav'ahm's, who shifts awkwardly in the trees - reminds her what a terrible mistake such trust is. First Aramas and now Alucard; she had made too many mistakes. Her instinct is to flee, immediately, to find a new place, another forest, not the one he had guided her to. Anything to protect herself.

"Do you know what it was like to be held a prisoner by people just as guilty of envy and greed?" She hisses it, teeth bared, wolflike, animalistic. "I was killed by people, not dragons. They have done nothing to me, and this being has not been born yet. It is mine, and I would sooner die than let you take it from me."