“It’s hunting him,” she whispered to the empty room.
The realization hit her with startling clarity: whatever controlled the shadow-plague knew about Vaelrik’s curse. It recognized the piece of the Shadow Sovereign burning inside him like a beacon in the dark. The attacks weren’t just destroying settlements—they were herding him, drawing him toward the Gloam like a spider pulling prey into its web.
But why?
What did an ancient evil want with a cursed dragon? And why did the thought of anything threatening Vaelrik make her chest tight with protective fury she had no right to feel?
She studied witness accounts until the words blurred together. Shadows that sang haunting lullabies, creatures with too many limbs, corruption that learned and adapted faster than natural Gloamrot should. Her eyes burned from strain, but she couldn’t stop reading.
Somewhere in these reports lay the key to understanding. Because she was certain now—through their shackle bond, through the way his curse had recognized the child-shadow’s song, through the spiral drawing them toward ancient darkness—whatever lived in the Gloam wasn’t just coming for Vaelrik.
It was coming for her too. It had to be.
Exhaustion finally claimed her, the papers slipping from her fingers as sleep dragged her under. Her dreams were filled with storm-gray eyes and that devastating almost-smile, with the memory of heat and danger and the forbidden thrill of wanting something she absolutely should not want.
But also in her dreams, the Gloam whispered her name.
Serenya jolted awake to sharp knocking echoing through her quarters. Her body ached from restless sleep filled with whispered names and storm-gray eyes that had haunted her dreams until dawn. The plague reports lay scattered across her bed where she’d fallen asleep studying them, parchment crinkled beneath her weight.
“Coming!” she called, her voice rough with exhaustion as she scrambled from the narrow bed.
The meager wardrobe Kyr had provided yesterday hung from iron hooks driven into the basalt wall—practical tunics and trousers in muted browns and grays, nothing remotely flattering. She grabbed the least wrinkled tunic and pulled it over her head, finger-combing her dark red hair into something resembling order. The ward-shackle pulsed warm against her wrist, a constant reminder of her captivity.
She expected Kyr’s granite expression when she opened the oak door. Instead, Vaelrik filled the doorframe, his broad shoulders nearly spanning the width.
“Good morning,” he said, and the rough velvet of his voice sent heat spiraling through her chest.
Then he smiled—not the careful, calculated expression she’d grown accustomed to, but something genuine and devastating that transformed his features completely. The full force of it hit her like physical impact, lighting up his smoky gray eyes until they burned like banked embers. That smile belonged on a man who hadn’t spent centuries being weaponized, who remembered what joy felt like before duty carved it away.
Her breath caught.
How was she supposed to maintain emotional distance when he looked at her like she was sunlight breaking through storm clouds?
“I haven’t received any urgent assignments yet today,” he continued, hands clasped behind his back in a stance that somehow managed to be both respectful and predatory. “Would you like to get breakfast at the market? I thought you might appreciate some fresh air after everything.”
The unexpected consideration in his offer made her chest tighten with something dangerous.
When was the last time anyone had simply asked what she wanted instead of commanding her compliance?
“That actually sounds wonderful,” she admitted, unable to hide her relief. “I definitely need to get out of here after the past two days.”
His smile deepened, revealing a glimpse of the man he might have been without a curse eating him alive from the inside. The sight of it made her pulse quicken in ways that had everything to do with the heat building between them despite every rational thought telling her this wouldn’t work out in the end.
EIGHT
VAELRIK
Dawn burned low over Cinderhollow’s volcanic skyline, painting the black basalt towers in shades of amber and crimson. The heat rising from the lava canals below should have been suffocating, but it was nothing compared to the fire Vaelrik had been fighting since last night—a different kind of heat altogether, one that had everything to do with the woman walking beside him.
He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t have knocked on Serenya’s door this morning with some half-conceived excuse about breakfast and fresh air. Shouldn’t have let his supreme control slip sideways because of how close she’d leaned toward him in his quarters, her scent filling his senses until rational thought became impossible.
He definitely shouldn’t still want her this badly.
The worst part wasn’t the wanting itself—though that was dangerous enough for a man carrying a curse that fed on emotion. No, the worst part was the ghost memory of her breath against his mouth, warm and inviting, right before the ward-shackle erupted in violent sparks and burned her delicate wrist. All because he’d lost focus, lost the iron control that had kept him functional for a century.
Before her, his focus had been singular: suppress the curse, contain the shadowfire, and maintain the discipline that kept everyone around him alive. Every breath, every heartbeat, every waking moment was dedicated to the careful balance between his dragon’s nature and the corrupted darkness that wanted to consume everything in its path.
But when she’d touched him, when her lumen sigils had pressed against his chest during that damned stabilization ritual, something fundamental had shifted. His focus had fractured, scattered like light through a prism, and suddenly all that careful attention was aimed atherinstead of the monster inside him.
