"The First Sealing." Zephyron's voice carried recognition. His eyes widened. "I was there. We . . . destroyed him."
"Valdris." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "His name was Valdris. And he's not a god at all. He's just broken. Ancient and powerful and completely, utterly broken." The tears came faster now. "The cult worships a rejected dragon who's spent three thousand years festering in his own corruption, planning revenge against every Dragon Lord who successfully bonded when he failed."
"And now he's taught Solmar how to harvest bonding magic to fuel his transformation." Zephyron stood, pacing to the glass wall. "Using the very bonds he hates to remake himself into something greater than a dragon."
"Yes." I stared at my scarified palms. "I spent two days after that ritual memorizing everything in the Archive. Ritual specifications. Magical formulas. The location of the Sunken Palace. The exact configuration of the sealing wards. I carved it all into my own back because I couldn't carry documents without magical detection."
He turned to look at me. Through the bond, I felt his assessment. His rapid calculation of what I'd sacrificed, what I'd risked, what it had cost me.
"Then I stole a blessed blade and ran." My voice cracked completely. "I chose your territory because you were closest. I thought—I thought if I could warn you, give you the ritual details, maybe you could stop him. Stop all of it. Before the equinox."
"You came here to warn me." He said it slowly, like tasting the words. "Knowing the cult would hunt you. Knowing I might kill you for your crimes. You ran toward potential execution to deliver intelligence."
"Yes."
"Why?"
The question hung in the air between us. I stared at my hands—scarified, shaking, wrapped around a cup of tea I couldn't drink.
"Because he’s not a savior. He’s not loving. He doesn’t have a great plan. He is hatred, pure and simple. And I will not be a part of bringing that into the world."
The silence stretched. Through the bond, I felt Zephyron processing. His mind worked through implications, possibilities, tactical considerations. But underneath all of that, I felt something else. Something warm and fierce and protective.
He crossed the space between us. Knelt in front of my chair again, bringing himself to eye level.
"You're analytical," he said quietly. "Clinical. You can recite magical formulas and ritual specifications without emotional interference. You observe systems and identify patterns."
"I'm a murderer." The words came out broken. "I held the blade twenty-seven times. Spoke the words. Watched them die."
"Yes." He didn't soften it. Didn't lie. "You did terrible things. And then you chose differently. That's what matters."
"How can you—" My voice cracked. "How can you look at me and not see—"
"I see exactly what you are." His hand came up, wiping tears from my cheek with surprising gentleness. "A survivor who broke her own conditioning. An intelligence asset who carved classified information into her spine. A woman who gave her last coins to a starving child even though she was starving herself." Through the bond, his certainty wrapped around me. "And my fated mate, whether either of us planned for that or not."
The acceptance in his voice—the complete lack of judgment, the matter-of-fact delivery—shattered something in my chest.
I started crying. Not the controlled tears I'd been fighting. Real sobs. Heaving, ugly, desperate sounds that I'd suppressed for six years.
He didn't try to stop me. Just let me break.
When I could breathe again, he handed me a clean cloth. "Better? Okay?"
"No. Not exactly." Honest. "But closer to okay than I've been in six years."
"Good enough." He stood, offering his hand. "Come on. I need to show you something."
Heledmedowna corridor made entirely of glass and steel, my bare feet silent on polished floors that reflected the morning light in ways that made my depth perception fail. Every step took me further from the main quarters, deeper into what I assumed was a private wing. My stomach clenched. This was where the cells would be. Where he'd lock me up while he decided what to do with a cult priestess who'd murdered twenty-seven innocent women.
I'd earned a cell. Expected it. Almost welcomed it. Concrete punishment for concrete crimes. Something my mind could categorize and accept.
Zephyron stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others—seamless steel with a touchpad lock that glowed soft blue. He pressed his palm against it. The mechanism clicked.
"I need to show you something," he said quietly. Through the bond, I felt his uncertainty. His hope. His fear that I'd reject what he was offering. "This has been ready for centuries. I've been preparing it for as long as I can remember. Centuries."
Centuries. The word made my chest tight.
He pushed the door open.
