Reuploaded for editing

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The light of the moon slipped through the sheer curtains in Menah's room, light glinting off dozens of pieces of jewelry. To her blurred vision, she saw only stars, drifting in a cold, empty void. The aches returned to the dragoness swiftly as she woke, every joint and muscle protesting their continued existence, especially now as she shivered. Her covers were beneath her, stained with the waste of a dozen days of this illness, though the kobolds did their best to keep their mistress clean.
'Useless ash. Probably left me to die, the ungrateful brat.' Menah thought. She coughed, spattering sickly green fluids mixed with her own golden blood across the silver sheets and pillow, adding to the dried stains from days past. Once, weeks ago, when the disease first hit her, the sheets were changed daily, but she still had the strength to stand then. Now, even shifting her weight left her coughing and wheezing, and a few scrawny kobolds wouldn't be enough to lift her out of the bed without dropping her. All that was assuming her muscles would even deign to respond at all. 'How low I've fallen.'
'He needs to-' Menah's thoughts were interrupted by the groan of the door opening. Bright light shot across her sandy scales and onto the wall she was facing, a few pieces of opulent jewelry on an ornate bureau with gold etchings shining in the light. The shadow of another dragon returned the jewels to darkness. She rolled over with great difficulty, the effort bringing forth a mercifully brief coughing fit and a minimum of fluid. “Ahriman, there you are.”
Ahriman stepped into the room and closed the door, a lantern illuminating his abyssal blue scales and scarlet eyes. He held both the lantern and a tray holding a glass of murky brown liquid tinged with bright green in tendrils of black smoke, each tendril disappearing as he set the items down on an ornate table, similarly decorated to the bureau, next to the bed. “I was mixing your medicine,” he said in a smooth voice, expression neutral. “That's why I took so long.” He offered the glass to Menah.
“Never mind that.” Menah feebly pushed the glass away. “I wanted... to talk to you.” The dragoness wheezed as she inhaled. “I'm dying.”
“That's what the medicine is for.”
“It's... too late. I can feel my flame dimming. I can't believe I'm going to die... to some peasant disease. It-” Menah coughed. “Why... can those commoners live through this, but I can't? I am blood of the desert lords, and I have to wither in a bed covered in my own filth! I'm-” Another coughing fit took her.
Ahriman grimaced as he casually brought up a glowing blue field to catch the spatter. “Do you intend to have a rant as your final words to me?”
“Mind your tongue, ash.” Menah took a shaky breath. “Ash... and yet, even lacking flame, you are the last heir of our clan. I hope... you were paying attention to your father's lessons. You're going to be in charge from now on.”
Ahriman's eye twitched. “I know how to run this clan just fine, no thanks to that drunk.”
“He was your father, and you will-” Menah coughed again, then sighed. “The world robbed us. They... forced us to face the brunt of the Lich Queen's power, then pillaged our land and treasures... for themselves in the aftermath. Power... is everything in this world, Ahriman. Without power, others will abuse you. Abuse us.”
Ahriman's eye twitched again. “I 'know.'”
Menah felt as though she was being sat on by a dragon twice her size. “Swear... to me, then. Swear that you will make us powerful again.”
“I will.”
Menah smiled. Her eyes began to drift closed. “Good. Now-”
“But not for you,” Ahrima cut his mother's words off.
“What?”
A cruel smile crept across Ahriman's face. “You're right. Without power, we are nothing. For my entire life, I've been nothing to you or Father. 'Ash,' you call me, because I can't use pyromancy like all the other dragons. 'Useless, weak, brat, child...' Should I list all the insults you've thrown at me over the years, even when you thought I wasn't listening? I remember every beating Father gave me when he'd sampled too much of his 'precious' expensive foreign liquor and I had the nerve to stand up for myself, or call him out on his hypocrisy, or just be in the same room as him.” Ahriman stood. Tendrils of black smoke formed around him, and the very color seemed to creep out of the room, all save his scarlet eyes. Menah's eyes widened as Ahriman bared his teeth, still smiling. His tail swished excitedly. “I've spent years building my own power up so that one day, I can watch as the two of you suffer for what you dared to inflict on me. This sickness you have is my wrath.”
“No...” Menah tried to back away, but her muscles refused to respond. “You couldn't have...”
“Of course I could have! You never paid attention to what I did unless you wanted me to do something for you. That 'medicine' you've been taking is nothing more than a concentrated dose of my poison.” Ahriman loomed over his mother's withered form. “Didn't you think it was suspicious how this disease only seemed to affect you and Father so strongly, yet so many others got away with what amounted to the flu? I used the area's water supply as a testing ground. Though so much water diluted the poison, it served as a perfect cover for what I did to you two.”
“How... how could you? After everything... we did for you-”
“What you did?!” Ahriman's smile twisted into a snarl, and his tail slammed into the floor. His smoke tendrils reached towards Menah. “What you DID was concern yourselves with how I made you look to others! You said I was a disgrace, said I made you a laughing stock among the other clans! You, who sat there pissing away all our money on some new gemstone you saw on another dragoness, or some fancy sash! The only reason this clan is so damn poor is because you two couldn't think about anyone but yourselves! I should strangle you myself, you self-entitled bitch! I should rip you to pieces, mount your head on the gate and leave the rest of you for the crows! I should-” Ahriman stopped himself and inhaled through his nose. The tendrils disappeared, and color returned to the room. As he exhaled, a few wisps of black smoke followed his breath. “But none of that matters. What matters is that you're about to die, shamefully and painfully, and I got to watch.”
Menah could only stare, flashes of memory drifting through her dying mind, all the arguments and whining and broken antiques, all laid at his feet. “You... you deserved... all of it... brat...” Much as she tried, she couldn't find the strength to finish her sentence. 'He's become a monster... I- I couldn't... have...'
Ahriman leaned in close to his mother's ear as she took her final, weak breath. “Freeze in hell.”