My heartbeat thudded in my ears, echoing through the pain in my limbs. My skin felt tight, stretched thin over a storm trying to break free.
And I couldn’t keep it in.
I looked up at Seraveth, chest heaving. The dirt pressed against my knees, damp with moss and shame, but my voice didn’t shake when I said it.
“Go ahead and kill me.”
Her face didn’t change. Not even a flicker of emotion passed through her eyes.
But the air between us stilled.
I lifted my chin. “If you’re so sure I’ll turn, if I’m meant to follow him, then end it now. Better to dieas methan live ashis.”
Seraveth tilted her head, just slightly. “You say that now,” she whispered. “But pain makes prophets of us all.”
“I willneverhurt her,” I hissed, dragging each word through the fire of my lungs. “I’ll die to protect Kaelith.”
Seraveth tilted her head back andlaughed.
The sound was too light for the forest, too delicate for the weight of her words, like poison slipped into honey.
“She doesn’t evenwantyou,” she said, stepping closer, her boots silent against the moss as her magic still pulsed under my skin. “If she had truly bonded you, I wouldn’t have been able toincapacitateyou this easily.”
The words hit harder than her magic ever could.
I wanted to scream. To deny it.
But it was true.
Kaelith hadn’t come.
Not when I fell. Not when I was dragged from the sky. Not when Seraveth’s spell locked me in place like a broken thing.
Pain twisted through me, cruel and deep, not just from the magic holding me down, but from the emptiness inside me where her voiceshouldhave been.
Where her fire once lived.
But it didn’tchangeanything.
“No,” I whispered, voice rough and cracked.
Seraveth crouched in front of me now, eye level, her face softer than it had any right to be.
“You don’t understand yet,” she said gently. “Your blood… itchangeseverything. It’s not just a tie to Veralin. It’s a key. Your blood allows fully grown dragons to bond with the fae again.Truebonding, not the fractured, temporary things the royals have built with pendants and magic chains.”
She smiled like she was offering a gift, not a curse.
“You could be the bridge between blood and flame. We couldreshapethis world.”
I forced myself to lift my head, to meet her eyes even as tears threatened behind mine.
“You’re offering me power,” I said bitterly.
“No,” she replied. “I’m offering youfamily.Belonging. A place where no one looks at your blood like a death sentence. All you have to do…”
She reached out, brushing a hand lightly against my cheek, cold and terrifyingly tender.
“…is say yes.”
