"The others arrive tomorrow," he finally said. "The bonded Dragon Lords and their mates. They'll want to meet you, to understand what you learned." He paused, then added quietly, "They'll help us figure out what to do about The Unnamed."
The reminder of that looming threat should have terrified me. But standing there on that bridge, with Caelus beside me and his people treating me like I belonged, I felt something I hadn't experienced in so long I'd forgotten its name.
Hope.
WetooklunchinCaelus's private dining room, a circular space where the walls were more window than stone, giving the unsettling impression of eating while suspended in midair. The clouds pressed close against the glass, occasionally parting to reveal dizzying glimpses of the landscape thousands of feet below.
I was reaching for my third helping of bread—my body making up for three weeks of starvation with desperate enthusiasm—when the cold started.
Not the pleasant coolness of mountain air or the refreshing chill of stream water. This was wrong-cold, spreading between my shoulder blades like spilled ink. It started as a pinprick of ice and expanded outward in slow pulses, each one larger than the last.
"What's wrong?" Caelus set down his wine, already half-rising from his chair.
"I don't know." I tried to reach the spot, but it sat perfectly between my shoulders where my fingers couldn't find it. "It's cold, but not . . . not normal cold. It feels—"
Through the bond, his alarm spiked from concern to actual fear. "Turn around."
I did, and heard his sharp intake of breath. The cold pulsed again, stronger this time, spreading tendrils of wrongness down my spine.
"Get up." His voice had gone flat with forced calm. "Slowly. We're going to the east tower."
"Caelus, what—"
"Please." The word came out cracked. "Just come with me."
The urgency in his voice killed any questions. He led me through corridors I hadn't seen yet, his hand hovering near my back but not quite touching, as if afraid of what contact might do. Servants scattered from our path, reading something in his expression that made them press themselves against walls.
The east tower room was circular and flooded with natural light from a domed glass ceiling. Crystals hung at specific points, creating rainbow patterns that should have been beautiful but now felt ominous. Caelus guided me to the center of the room, his movements careful, controlled.
"I need to see your back properly," he said. "May I?"
I nodded, and his fingers found the hem of my tunic. He lifted it carefully, exposing my upper back to the afternoon light. The cold pulsed again, and this time I felt it spreading further—across my shoulders, down toward my lower back, seeking something.
Caelus made a sound I'd never heard from him before—part growl, part wounded cry.
"Don't move." He stepped back, and with a gesture, conjured a mirror of frozen mist that hung in the air like a window to another world. "Look, but don't touch it. Don't even reach for it."
I turned enough to see my reflection, and my knees nearly buckled.
There, between my shoulder blades, was a mark that hadn't been there yesterday. It looked like an eye—a vertical slit pupil surrounded by rings of black that seemed to drink in light rather than reflect it. But this was no tattoo, no simple brand. It pulsed with its own heartbeat, sending visible ripples of darkness under my skin with each throb. Tendrils of corruption spread outwardfrom it like a malignant web, following the lines of my nerves, seeking paths through my body.
The worst part was how it interacted with light. Where sunbeams from the domed ceiling touched it, they simply disappeared, consumed by whatever void the mark contained. It created a shadow that fell upward, defying physics in a way that made my stomach turn.
"What is that?" My voice came out very small.
"The Unnamed's designation." Caelus's hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white. "They marked you before you escaped. Made you a sacrifice vessel while you were unconscious, probably during one of the early rituals when they were preparing the others."
I remembered now—waking once to chanting, feeling hands on my back, cold spreading through me before darkness took me again. I'd thought it was a nightmare.
"It tracks you," he continued, voice carefully controlled. "The Unnamed knows exactly where you are at all times. But that's not the worst part." He met my eyes in the mirror, and his were the pale blue of glacial ice. "It's draining your life force. Slowly, carefully, feeding it back to The Unnamed. And eventually . . ."
"Eventually?"
"Eventually it will hollow you out completely. Turn you into a vessel for its consciousness. You'll still be alive, technically, but you won't be you. You'll be a puppet made of meat and memory, with The Unnamed looking out through your eyes."
My knees did buckle then. Caelus caught me before I hit the floor, pulling me against his chest with careful hands that avoided the mark. Through the bond, I felt his rage—not hot but cold, the kind of fury that could freeze oceans.
"How long?" I whispered into his shirt.
