“Just do me one favor then,” Kyr whispered, his voice rough with emotion he rarely showed. “Come back alive.”
Vaelrik led him to the door, their brotherhood a weight he would carry into whatever darkness awaited. “I will.”
The words tasted like an oath sealed in dragonfire.
Dusk finally bled down the Citadel walls as Vaelrik entered the armory, finding it empty except for the faint smell of oil and steel. The volcanic heat that perpetually warmed Cinderhollow seemed muted here, replaced by the cool touch of weaponry and the metallic tang of sharpened blades.
He was cleaned, armed, but restless—his shadowfire pacing under his skin like a caged storm. The curse had been unusually quiet since their kiss attempt the night before, as if his dragon’s protective instincts had finally found something worth subduing the darkness for. But that only made him more on edge.Quiet shadowfire meant it was gathering strength, coiling like a serpent preparing to strike.
He sharpened blades he didn’t need to sharpen, testing the edge of his obsidian dagger against his thumb until a thin line of blood welled up. The pain helped focus his scattered thoughts. He tested armor he already trusted, checking and rechecking buckles and straps with the methodical precision of a man trying to control what he could when everything else felt like chaos.
Because waiting meant thinking and thinking meant remembering how Serenya had broken in his quarters earlier. How her tears had made something primal in his chest roar with the need to destroy whatever had hurt her. But then—how strong she’d stood minutes later in the Council chamber, chin lifted in defiance, fire dancing behind her green eyes as she faced down dragons who could incinerate her with a thought.
She was contradiction incarnate—vulnerable and fierce, breakable and unbreakable, human and somehow more than human. And his dragon had decided, with the absolute certainty that only ancient magic possessed, that she wastheirs.
The thought sent heat spiraling through his veins, and he fought it back with gritted teeth. Not now. Not when they were about to march straight into the Gloam, the place all dragons avoided for good reason. The wound in the earth that had swallowed armies and spit back nightmares. The source of whatever corruption was teaching shadows to think and hunt with purpose.
He couldn’t afford to be distracted.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, and his senses sharpened instantly. Not the heavy tread of guards or the measured pace of Kyr—lighter, more fluid. Familiar.
Serenya stepped through the doorway wearing travel leathers reinforced with luminous ward-stitching that pulsed faintly in the armory’s dim light. She must have spent theafternoon in her quarters preparing for this mission, weaving protection into every seam and buckle. Her dark red hair was braided tight with runic thread that caught the light like spun gold, and her silver runed necklace rested against the hollow of her throat where her pulse beat steady and strong.
Her skin was pale but determined, exhaustion etched in the fine lines around her eyes, but her spine was steel-straight. She looked like a warrior preparing for battle, and the sight of her made his chest tighten.
Their shackles pulsed simultaneously—a warm, electric greeting that traveled up his arm and settled in his ribs like a second heartbeat. The mate bond answered with its own thrumming recognition, his dragon instincts stirring as his magic reached instinctively for hers.
For a moment, neither spoke. The air between them was thick with everything they didn’t say earlier—every emotion they’d buried beneath necessity and duty. Every almost-touch they’d pretended not to want. Every fear and every hope denied in light of this impossible expedition to face whatever lurked in the Gloam’s depths.
Finally she exhaled, the sound soft but resolute. “You’re early.”
His mouth curved into a half-smile. “You’re five minutes late.”
It was the closest either came to admitting they needed to do this—just the two of them against the Council’s judgment, against Kyr’s fears, against every instinct that screamed this was madness.
As they packed weapons, rope, and rations, their movements synced unconsciously. He reached for a leather pack just as she reached to hand it to him, their fingers brushing for the span of a heartbeat before they both pulled back. She tested a blade’s angle exactly the way he would—checking balance and weightdistribution. He sensed her magic balancing his shadowfire like breath to heartbeat, light pressing against darkness in perfect, dangerous harmony.
It was instinctive. Effortless. Dangerously intimate in a way that had nothing to do with the shackles binding their wrists and everything to do with the bond singing between their souls.
She finally lifted her gaze, meeting his eyes with that steady green fire. “Let’s go before the Council changes their minds and stops us.”
He almost said,I don’t want to lose you to this.The words burned in his throat, honest and terrifying. Instead he simply nodded, shouldering his pack with practiced efficiency.
Crossing the Citadel courtyard at dusk, they gathered attention like a storm front building on the horizon. Witches whispered behind raised hands, their eyes tracking Serenya with mixtures of awe and fear. Humans cowered against walls. Guards stiffened to attention as Vaelrik passed, but their gazes lingered on the space between him and the witch at his side.
A dragon and a witch, walking side by side with matching shackles toward the Gloam, looked like prophecy in motion—or a complete disaster waiting to unfold.
Serenya kept her chin high. She didn’t flinch from the stares or whispers, and Vaelrik felt a surge of fierce pride that she was his. Vaelrik scanned for threats out of centuries-old habit, his senses stretched wide for any sign of ambush or pursuit.
They did not touch. But the space between them was alive with tension, with magic, with unspoken promises and fears that pulsed through their bond like shared breath.
By the time they were miles beyond Cinderhollow’s lava fields, the sky had deepened to full indigo, stars beginning to pierce the volcanic haze. The outskirts felt wrong—too still, as if the shadows themselves were holding their breath and observing from a distance in anticipation.
Serenya studied the ground as they walked, noting faint old battle sigils scorched into the basalt and dragon scorch marks that had turned stone to glass centuries ago. Vaelrik recognized the terrain with a flicker of old grief—he’d fought here during the Stormborn Rebellion, had lost good soldiers to rebel magic and his own inexperience.
Neither spoke of the past weighing heavy in this place, but both felt its presence like a ghost walking alongside them.
Before long, they built a small fire in a hollow carved into black stone, the flames casting dancing shadows that seemed almost alive in the strange, expectant stillness. Not enough light to draw unwanted attention from whatever might be watching from the darkness. Just enough to warm their tired bodies and keep the creeping cold at bay.
