The Dragons exchanged glances. I felt their assessment through the bond—not their thoughts, but Zephyron's awareness of their scrutiny. They were looking at the lightning patterns tracing across my temple and down my neck. At the way electricity sparked faintly between Zephyron's hand and my shoulder. At the subtle changes in my body that three days of bond-accelerated healing had created.
Sereis spoke next, his voice quiet but carrying weight. "A genuine bond doesn't erase past actions. It doesn't absolve her of murder."
"No," Zephyron agreed. "It doesn't. But it means she's mine to judge. And I've chosen to listen. I suggest you do the same."
Garruk rumbled from his position near the window. "The intelligence better be worth this theater."
"It is." I found my voice, surprising myself. It came out steady. Clinical. High Priestess mode sliding into place like armor. "The unnamed isn’t a God. Isn’t a monster. He’s one of you. The first.”
“Valdris,” whispered Davoren.
This was it. The revelation that had shattered my faith and sent me running.
"The Unnamed spoke through my final victim," I said quietly. The clinical detachment was cracking. I couldn't deliver this part without emotion bleeding through. "During the harvest. As she died, something else looked out through her eyes and spoke directly to me."
The room held its breath.
"He showed me what he really is. Not some abstract corrupted entity." My hands shook. I pressed them flat against the table. "His name is Valdris. He's the First Dragon. At the birth of humanity, he bonded with the first human woman. Evara. The bond was genuine—his mark manifested, the transformation began, everything proceeded normally."
Through the bond, I felt Zephyron's sudden, sharp attention. Felt recognition rippling through the other Dragons like ice water.
"But Evara rejected him," I continued. "She was already in love with someone else—the first human man. She tried to break the bond, couldn't, so she chose death instead. Threw herself from a cliff rather than complete the mating with Valdris."
Davoren's eyes had gone pure fire-red. "No."
"Yes." My voice was shaking now. "The rejection drove him insane. He corrupted himself with forbidden magic, trying to break all bonds, trying to prove the system was flawed. He experimented on humans and created you—the dragon lords—trying to understand why Evara chose death over him. Whenthat failed—when he couldn't break the fundamental nature of bonds—he decided to destroy all Dragon Lords. To ensure no one else got the happiness that was denied to him."
"The First War," Garruk said, his stone-carved features cracking with horror. "The one that nearly destroyed both species. That was Valdris going mad."
"You stopped him," I said. "All of you—the Dragon Lords of that era—fought him together. You couldn't kill him—he was too powerful, too ancient, too deeply connected to the fundamental magic that created dragons. So you sealed him away instead. Bound him in a prison between planes where he couldn't affect the physical world."
The Dragons were all staring at me now with expressions ranging from horror to rage to something that looked like grief.
"We thought the seals would hold forever," Davoren whispered. "We thought—we made them permanent. Reinforced them every century. How is he even capable of communication?"
"The seals have been weakening for the last five hundred years," I said. "Slowly. Almost imperceptibly. But enough that he could reach out through the ethereal plane, could speak to those who knew how to listen. He found Solmar—or Solmar found him, I'm not sure which came first. He taught Solmar the harvest ritual. The obsidian blade construction. The binding words. He's been orchestrating his own escape for two decades, using the bonding magic he hates to fuel his transformation."
"He's going to break free on the autumn equinox," Sereis said. His pale eyes had gone distant, like he was looking at futures only he could see. "Using the stolen essence of one hundred twenty-seven potential mates to remake himself into something with a dragon's power and a monster's purpose."
"Yes." I met his eyes. "And he'll come for all of you. For your bonds. For the mates you successfully claimed when he couldn'tkeep his. He's spent an eternity festering in corruption and hatred, planning his revenge."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then Davoren exploded. Flames erupted from his hands, scorching the edge of the tactical table before he got them under control. "Valdris. We're not fighting some corrupted entity. We're fighting one of us. The First Dragon. The most powerful of our kind."
The room erupted into overlapping voices.
"We thought we killed him." Davoren's voice carried centuries of guilt. "After the First War, after we finally stopped his rampage, we thought the sealing was permanent. We reinforced it every century. Checked it. Made sure it held."
"Seals are never permanent." Sereis's voice was frost and shadow. "Not against something that powerful. We should have known. Should have been more vigilant."
"We were vigilant," Garruk rumbled. "We just underestimated him. Again."
Zephyron moved away from me, joining the pacing Dragons. "This changes everything. We're not defending against an unknown threat. We're fighting someone who knows everything about dragon magic. Our weaknesses. Our bond vulnerabilities. He was there when the bonds were first established. He understands the system better than any of us."
"He'll target the mates first." Davoren's eyes flashed toward Kara, then to the other bonded women. "That's what I'd do. Break our bonds, remove our anchors. Make us vulnerable."
The temperature in the room dropped as the mates absorbed that.
