"I don't understand. What prophecy?" I whisper, my voice smaller than intended. "What power? What did you mean, 'Fire first, the Sovereign Flame'?”
“Fire. Earth. Air. Water. Dormant gifts that once flowed freely through our kind." Her gaze shifts to Varok, something like reverence softening her ancient features. "The Threadborn's arrival awakens what has slumbered for far too long. He is the first. Fire rises in him already—you have felt it when he helped to heal you, as well as through your bond."
I swallow hard. The memory comes unbidden: his hands holding mine, a lambent shimmer beneath his scales like moonlight through stained glass. Heat had coursed between us; not the feverish burn of infection but something ancient and knowing, a river of light that found each fractured place inside me and sealed it with gold. My bones had knit themselves together under his touch, my broken body began to mend, weeks of healing compressed into heartbeats, and I had dismissed it as delirium.
"But why me? I wasn't even supposed to be here. My sister?—"
"Choice and destiny are not enemies," Eira echoes Zara's words. "Your choice to take your sister's place was the thread aligning with the pattern of fate."
My heart pounds against my ribs, each beat a pulse of disbelief. When I stepped forward in the council chamber volunteering to take Serin's place, I thought only of sparing her from a diplomatic marriage, from being bound to a species she feared. I imagined myself an offering for peace, a signature on a treaty. Not this. Never this.
"Four shall wake when one is crowned," Eira continues, her voice taking on the rhythmic cadence of prophecy. "Their powers stirred, their fates unbound." Her claw-tipped fingers brush Emberyn at my throat. "But only love shall fully ignite their might. Bonding heart and soul, flame and light.”
Love.
The word hangs in the air between us, impossible and terrifying. I glance at Varok, now deep in conversation with Sareth. Our bond is real, yes. I feel him constantly at the edges of my awareness, a presence I'm beginning to rely on more than I should. But love? The very suggestion makes heat climb my neck.
"I never asked for any of this," I say, my voice barely audible over the formal chanting that has begun somewhere in the chamber.
"Few who change the world ever do," Eira replies simply.
I close my eyes briefly, trying to steady myself. Two weeks ago I felt the palace shake with violence. Now I sit beside an ancient throne, beside a naga I'm supposedly destined to...what? Love? Ignite his magical powers? To change the world with?
When I open my eyes, the ceremony continues around me, dreamlike in its ancient precision. Serpents weave through the room, bodies twist in patterns, their scales refracting light into prismatic shivers across stone walls. Varok sits immobile upon his throne, spine rigid as a spear, jaw clenched tight enough to crack crystal. Through our bond pulses something jagged and raw, the silent scream of a male who has placed his neck willingly into a noose and called it duty.
He feels as adrift as I do, as stunned by the swift current carrying us both toward some unknown shore. Sovereign Flame. Threadborn. These titles wrap around us like chains disguised as honor.
Every part of me wants to flee, from the throne room, from the prophecy, from the expectant gazes that follow my every movement. I took my sister's place to protect her. I crossed Vessan-Kar's threshold to secure peace. I gave my blood in the bonding ceremony to seal a treaty.
I never meant to become part of a prophecy that makes kings and awakens ancient powers. I never meant to matter quite so much.
When the ceremony concludes, Varok shifts from the throne, his great coils unspooling with measured grace. He turns and offers me his clawed hand, the gesture oddly gentle for one so formidable. I place my fingers in his, and the world steadies; Emberyn stirs with warmth at my throat, pulsing in quiet rhythm to his touch. He guides me forward through the watchful silence of the room, and only when I’m settled beside him at the high table does he take his own place, scales gliding like a river of shadow and strength.
Seated to Varok's right, I hold the place of honor as his bloodmate. The stone beneath us is elevated, allowing a view of the entire room where dozens of naga coil around tables in strict hierarchical arrangements. I try to steady my breath, reminding myself that ceremony demands composure. My eyes wander from the elevated dais to the throne room itself, searching for distraction in the splendor spread before us.
The roomglimmers like the inside of a geode, its walls embedded with crystalline formations that catch and transform the light. Long tables curve in serpentine formations throughout the space, their surfaces polished stone veined with luminescent minerals. At the center of each table, platters hold fruits that pulse with gentle inner light: blue-fleshed orbs that smell of honey and rain, spiral roots that glow amber when sliced, fungi caps that shimmer with constellations of pinpoint radiance. Crystal decanters hold liquid tinted with subtle hues that shift as they're poured, blues deepening to purples that catch the light like fluid jewels. It should be magical. It should be wondrous. Instead, I can barely keep my hands from trembling as I reach for my drinking vessel.
The liquid tastes faintly of minerals and something sweeter, like nectar distilled from flowers that have never seen sunlight. I force myself to sip slowly, to appear composed while my insides twist with the memory of fire and falling stone. The last time I was in the palace, explosions tore through the air. Naryth died. I nearly followed. Who's to say the TrueCoil won't strike again tonight? My gaze darts to the entrance, to the Talons standing guard, to the shadows between crystal formations.
"You must try the lumen fruit," says a female to my right. Her scales gleam with a weathered, russet-and-ember warmth, like burnished metal left to drink centuries of sunlight. "It is a delicacy even among our kind." She gestures to a pulsing blue orb on a nearby platter.
I smile thinly and reach for the fruit though my appetite fled hours ago. The lumen fruit yields beneath my fingers, its flesh surprisingly warm. When I bite into it, sweetness floods my mouth, followed by a subtle heat that spreads across my tongue. It's exquisite, but I taste it through a veil of fear, flavor dulled by the vigilance that has become my constant companion.
Behind the smile I manage, memories press in, sharp and unrelenting. The roar of the blast, the flash of fire licking across my skin, the suffocating crush of stone trapping my leg. They flicker at the edges of my vision like ghosts born of light and shadow, overlaying the feast until every crystal flare feels like the warning of another catastrophe waiting to strike.
Zara's warning surfaces in my thoughts, clear as the day she spoke it in the Flame room when we first met."Peace will not come easy. 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."
How right she was. The TrueCoil's bomb proved their willingness to destroy everything, even their own sovereign, rather than accept change. How many in this very hall weartheir loyalty to that faction beneath their scales, branded with a serpentine loop in places no one can see? How many smile and feast while plotting the next attack?
My gaze sweeps across the room, cataloging reactions, searching for signs. Near the entrance, a group of elder naga observe the proceedings with obvious approval, their ancient scales gleaming with oils applied for the celebration. Their eyes track Varok with something like reverence. Supporters, maybe.
On the far side, younger warriors coil in tight formations, their postures rigid even in celebration. When they look toward the high table, their gazes linger on me more than their new sovereign, pupils contracting to thin slits of assessment. Not enemies, perhaps, but not allies either.
Most concerning are those who keep their expressions carefully neutral, who participate in the rituals of feasting without revealing anything of their thoughts. They are the ones I watch most closely, wondering which might carry the TrueCoil's mark beneath their ceremonial adornments.
"Do humans celebrate the appointment of new leaders with feasts as well?" Her pale green vertical pupils widen with curiosity rather than contracting in suspicion. A loose bun of pale yellow hair rests at the nape of her neck, framing a face that appears surprisingly youthful. Perhaps late twenties by human standards.
"Yes," I reply, grateful for the simple exchange. "Though our food doesn't glow quite so impressively. And our leaders are chosen by council vote rather than succession or..." I pause, uncertain how to classify what I learned today. "...prophecy."
