“Not fire. The Flame is older than fire. Older than naga.” She reaches toward it, not touching but close enough that the light shimmers over her scaled fingers. “It recognized you yesterday.”
The ceremonial cut on my palm, now a pale crescent scar, tingles at her words. “Why is that?”
Zara’s words fall like a secret. “When you peered into the Flame, it took notice of something long held, long awaited. The blood bond that now binds you to Prithas Varok… it is older, deeper, stronger than any ceremony could ever hope to forge.”
I blink, trying to absorb her words. They feel weighty, mysterious, and impossible to fully grasp. Perhaps it’s her youth, the fragments she can catch from the Flame, the glimpses ofsomething larger than herself. Still, a strange recognition curls in my chest of a faint echo of what I’ve sensed since the ceremony. I shake my head, telling myself it’s just a child’s impression. And yet I cannot ignore the pull, the whisper of truth threaded through her words.
The awareness lingers, a quiet hum beneath my skin. “What does that mean for the peace between humans and naga?”
Zara's eyes meet mine, their violet depths ancient and knowing…mesmerizing. "You are Threadborn, Leira Valen. You are the thread meant to mend a rift centuries wide."
That term again, the same one Eira the Elder used during the ceremony. "Threadborn," I repeat, the word heavy on my tongue. "What does that mean?"
“It means your coming was written in the prophecy long before you were born.” She gestures to the spiraling script on the walls. “As the Threadborn, you awaken fire in another, stirring what has lain dormant. The Flame hums with inevitability, waiting for the thread to ignite what has slumbered since the First Seers foretold.”
The Infinity Flame flares brighter as she speaks, its blue-gold light reaching toward us both in tendrils that dissipate before making contact.
"But I'm just a diplomat's daughter. A human, not naga," I whisper, falling deeper into the expanding slits of Zara’s pupils.
“The Threadborn is believed to be chosen by ancient forces, Leira, preordained not by diplomacy or desire but by something older and unshakable.” The warmth in Zara’s expression dims, replaced by quiet gravity. “Your thread is said to be spun by the First Seers, who could glimpse the shape of what was to come and inscribe the pattern of fate itself weaving the Loom of Legacy.”
“My thread?”
“Yes,” Zara says softly. “A thread is the invisible connection that binds two beings to each other and to their destinies. It is woven into the Loom of Legacy and guides what is yet to come. The Flame recognizes threads, marking their presence. Your thread touches his, even before the blood was shared. It marks you as the Threadborn, the one meant to awaken what has lain dormant.”
"That doesn't make sense," I whisper, my voice distant even to my own ears as I sink deeper into those endless violet pools, where concentric rings of amethyst and lavender swirl like cosmic nebulae drawing me inexorably inward. "It was my sister who was meant to come, not me. I volunteered to take her place.”
"Choice and destiny are not enemies," Zara says, her voice gentle. "Your choice to take your sister's place was the thread aligning with the pattern of fate. The bond with Prithas Varok was always meant to be yours, not hers."
The weight of her words settles in my chest, a quiet burden I can’t ignore. I am no longer merely a token in a fragile treaty, no longer just the sacrifice meant to seal peace. If what she says holds true, then my role is far more complex, and far more real than I ever imagined.
"Peace will not come easy," Zara continues. I lean into her hypnotic drag, hanging onto her every word. "There are those among both our kind who prefer the comfort of old hatreds to the uncertainty of new beginnings. They will resist what you represent."
Mesmerized, I startle to my feet when Varok suddenly fills the doorway, his massive form blotting out the glow from the tunnel beyond. His molten honey gaze narrowing as it sweeps the chamber to land on me, then Zara, then back to me. His jaw is tight, his throat scales drawn close, but his expression gives nothing away.
Emberyn flares hot against my chest, responding to his proximity with unmistakable intensity as he rushes forward. I fight the urge to touch it, to touch him, to confirm the connection I can already feel pulsing between us.
“You are here. Unharmed.” His voice is low, measured with relief or suspicion; I’m not sure which.
I straighten, bracing for the scolding I’m sure will come. “I just came for my satchel. I didn’t mean to?—”
He lifts a hand, silencing me without a word, then circles me in a tight ring, his gaze sharp as it rakes me from head to toe. “Severa sent word you left the den unescorted. When I could not find you…” His voice trails off, unfinished, leaving me to wonder what conclusion he drew.
“I’m alright,” I say quickly, sharper than intended. “I remembered the way from yesterday.”
His eyes flicker, unreadable. “Your sense of direction was never in question,” he says at last, a faint curve to his mouth. “You watched every curve of stone as if committing it to memory. Lost was not my concern.”
“The Flame showed me her coming." Zara rises to her full height, which is no higher than my waist.
Varok’s gaze shifts to the tiny serpent, his expression softening in a way I haven't witnessed before. The hard lines around his mouth ease, the tension in his shoulders releases. "Little seer. You have been communing with the Flame again."
“Always.” Zara smiles up at him, genuine warmth in her violet gaze. "The Flame wanted to meet your bloodmate properly, Ry’Varok.”
"Did it now?" Varok's tail constricts, lowering him more to her level. "And what else did it show you?"
“Threads woven tighter than before,” Zara says softly, her eyes flicking between us. “The Flame hums with new bonds, bright, untested, yet already pulling against the old weave.” Hertone sharpens, reverent and grave. “Tell the Serpent Crown he is right to fear the TrueCoil. They are most displeased with the blood bond.”
I watch their interaction with growing curiosity. Varok's voice softens when he addresses her aslittle seer, his usual rigid posture relaxing. When she calls himRy'Varok, the syllables roll off her tongue with the familiarity of a title I've never heard before, yet she uses it as naturally as breathing.
