Thorne's gaze slides to Leira, cold as winter. "Am I?” His eyes flick back to me. "She cries for her twin in her sleep. Zara, I believe, is her siblings name.”
Sareth glides closer, his massive form shifting silently until his head is near my shoulder. "Sovereign," he whispers, voice pitched so low only I can hear it, "Naryth's worms could have supplied Zara's name. They had access to the temple, and they would know of her gift, her uniqueness."
Sareth must be right. Yet hearing Zara's name from Thorne's lips feels like a violation, like venom injected directly into my heart. My scales contract against my flesh as I struggle for composure. He's fishing, casting words like hooks, waiting to see what catches. I refuse to let him witness how deeply his barb has struck.
"Zara has no twin,” I say, my voice deliberately cool despite the fire building in my chest. "Your information is as flawed as your understanding of the prophecy."
My scales tighten against my body as I picture Balek's stoic face, the Temple Guardian who I ended in the tunnels. And Miria, the temple's herb-keeper, with her gentle hands that tended the medicinal gardens and mixed healing salves for hatchlings. The thought of them betraying not just me but every naga within my realm makes my inner flame flicker with a cold dread no fire can warm.
"You seem troubled, Sovereign," Thorne observes, his thin lips curving into something too calculated to be a smile. "Perhaps you should ask Zara about her sibling.”
I straighten to my full height, allowing my coils to spread in a display of dominance that makes several human soldiers shift uneasily behind their general. "Your attempt to provoke me is noted, General. And it failed. This encampment," I continue, gesturing to the sprawl of tents and weaponry that stretches across the human side of the border, "it violates the spirit of our agreement, if not the treaty."
Thorne's eyes narrow slightly. "I am well within my rights to defend our borders."
"Then defend them," I reply coldly. "But you will disband these encampments around the Ashlands immediately. Your soldiers will withdraw to the agreed upon perimeter."
A small laugh escapes Thorne, dry as the wasteland around us. "Or what exactly?"
I feel the heat building within me, a slow burn that starts in my core and spreads outward. This is not the wild, uncontrolled rage that erupted in the tunnels when I discovered Leira's cage, but something colder, more deliberate. The fire elemental stirs in my blood, answering my call with eager precision.
"Or burn," I say simply.
I release my hold on the power that thrums beneath my scales. Fire ignites along my arms, not in scattered patches but in deliberate, controlled streams that curl around my torso like living vines of flame. The scorched earth beneath me darkens further as heat radiates outward in visible waves, sand fusing to glass where my tail touches ground.
Human soldiers step back instinctively, eyes wide with primitive fear as their primal brains register the presence of something more elemental than mere flesh. Several reach for weapons only to halt at a sharp gesture from Thorne.
Through our bond, I feel Leira's heart race, not with fear but with a strange, fierce pride. Her fingers twitch at her side as ifin echo of my flame, and I sense the serpent stone at her throat growing warm in response to my display.
"Impressive theater," Thorne says, though the tightness around his eyes betrays his unease. "But ultimately meaningless."
"Is it?" I raise one flaming hand, letting fire curl between my fingers like a living thing. "Your wooden structures would ignite beautifully. Your canvas tents would burn like paper. Your soldiers..." I let my gaze drift across the ranks behind him, "reduced to ash.”
"You might be a wielder of flame,” Thorne counters, recovering his composure with remarkable speed. "But you're not immortal. I have weapons that will kill any naga, Sovereign Flame, fire elemental, or not."
To my surprise, I feel laughter bubbling up from deep in my chest. Not forced, not strategic, but genuine amusement at his arrogance. "Are you certain about that?" The flames ripple higher along my scales, their crimson-gold light casting long shadows across the scorched earth between us. "Your species has always overestimated its understanding of ours."
Thorne's confidence does not waver, but a flash of uncertainty crosses his features, quickly masked. Before he can respond, a human soldier approaches from behind, leaning close to whisper urgently in his ear. I catch fragments only,"...missing from the eastern cache..." and "...no trace of..." but the effect on Thorne is immediate. His face hardens, the controlled mask slipping to reveal genuine anger burning beneath.
"You dare," he snarls, stepping forward until he stands mere inches from the invisible line that divides our territories. "You've crossed the border. Stolen our arc launchers."
“What proof do you have?” I reply, voice hardening. "Though I cannot say the same for you, who took my bloodmate and attempted to take my seer."
Thorne's jaw tightens, a muscle twitching beneath the skin.
"The Sundering was never truly set aside," I counter, my voice dropping to a dangerous register that makes several human soldiers reach instinctively for weapons. "Not while you used my own people to spy on us in the form of Naryth's worms. Not while you plotted assassination and kidnapping under the guise of peace."
Thorne's gaze burns with cold calculation as he stares at me across the divide. "Peace," he says, as if testing the word for poison. "There was never going to be peace, Sovereign Flame. Not true peace. Just a delay until one side gained enough advantage to finish what the Sundering started.”
"What do you want?" I ask, the question burning my throat like acid.
"Want?" Thorne pretends to consider, though his eyes gleam with the satisfaction of a predator who has cornered prey. "Immediate evacuation of Vessan-Kar and the Ashlands. Take your serpents and slither back to the Isle of Archipelago where you belong. Those barren volcanic islands should suit your kind and far enough across the Midnight Sea that humans need never look upon scales again."
Something flickers in Thorne's expression. His gaze shifting ever so slightly over my shoulder, a micro-expression of anticipation quickly masked. Before my instincts can fully register the warning, Leira's head snaps around. She has seen it too, reading Thorne's face with uncanny precision.
"Varok!" she gasps, her hand suddenly grasping my arm with bruising force.
Through our bond, I feel her alarm spike into terror then crystallize into deadly purpose. The ground beneath me thrums as she draws on our connection through the serpent stone with startling intensity, pulling power through the bond in a rush that leaves me momentarily breathless.
