The corridor ahead branched toward towering doors carved with the intertwined symbols of the four Dragon Houses. Whatever—or whoever—waited beyond those doors had been deemed dangerous enough to chain, yet necessary enough to pair with her.
Her throat went dry as understanding crystallized. This wasn’t consultation. This was sacrifice dressed in political necessity.
TWO
VAELRIK
Vaelrik knelt beneath the soaring basalt pillars of the Council chambers, ceremonial shackles binding his wrists with enough dragonforged steel to anchor a warship. The metal bit into his bronzed skin, though he felt nothing beyond the constant burn of the shadowfire curse that had claimed him at Vornak’s breach a century ago. Heat from the lava canals pulsed through the stone beneath his knees, a rhythm that matched the restless hum of corruption magic threading through his veins like molten poison.
He could rise. Could shift into his obsidian-scaled dragon form and tear through this chamber in seconds, reducing Council members to ash and memory before their ancient reflexes could summon flame. The shackles were theater—political necessity dressed as precaution. But he remained still, letting them maintain their illusion of control.
For now.
The shadowfire curse beneath his skin smoldered like a caged wildfire, darker and hungrier than it had been in weeks. Where other dragons breathed clean and bright fire—red-gold flames that spoke of nobility and ancient bloodlines—his fire had been branded wrong at Vornak. Black with violet edgesthat devoured light instead of creating it. A fragment of the Shadow Sovereign had fused with his soul when he’d gone into that cursed rift, and he’d carried that cosmic poison ever since. Only he carried shadowfire now—the mark of the Sovereign’s corruption.
House Obsidian shifters whispered that he was forever cursed. The Dragon Council called him useful.
Both were right.
“Comfortable, Warlord?” Archon Serect’s voice carried the polished courtesy that never quite concealed the blade beneath. The House Ember councilor stood beside an obsidian mirror that reflected his crimson-black robes in fractured angles, his molten golden-brown eyes too bright to meet directly.
“Immensely.” Vaelrik’s voice held the dry precision that had unnerved enemies and allies alike for two centuries. “Though I have to admit curiosity about today’s agenda. My biweekly evaluation isn’t scheduled until next week.”
Serect’s smile could have cut glass. “Recent developments require... immediate assessment.”
The curse stirred at those words, shadows writhing beneath Vaelrik’s skin like serpents testing the boundaries of their cage. He’d maintained supreme control over the corruption for decades, channeling its hunger into precise violence that served the Council’s ends. But lately, the control had been slipping. The shadowfire demanded more than he could safely feed it, and the mental strain of constant suppression was beginning to fracture something essential in his psyche.
“Developments.” Vaelrik let his smoky gray eyes flicker with violet light, just enough to remind the assembled Council members what knelt before them in chains. “How refreshingly vague. Are we discussing the shadow-plague that’s testing our outer defenses, or something more... personal?”
The other Council members shifted in their carved stone seats, ancient instincts recognizing predator despite the ceremonial restraints. Dragons had ruled the Ashen Realms for millennia through displays of overwhelming force, but Vaelrik’s power felt different—wrong in a way that set teeth on edge and made lesser shifters want to either flee or submit.
“Your condition requires more monitoring,” Councilor Thyren of House Storm interjected, static electricity crackling around her silver-streaked hair. “The shadow corruption magic has been... extremely active lately.”
Vaelrik’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. They weren’t wrong. For weeks now, the curse had been pushing against his mental barriers with increasing violence, demanding release in ways that would turn him into the very monster they feared he already was. The fragment of the Shadow Sovereign that lived in his chest whispered constantly now—promises of power, threats of consumption, memories of cosmic darkness that predated dragon civilization.
He’d been the Council’s enforcer for two centuries, their weapon to deploy when diplomacy failed and brutality became necessary. A position that chafed against every instinct he’d been born with. Once, he’d commanded armies and shaped the fate of territories. Now he took orders from politicians who viewed him as a useful liability—too dangerous to trust, too valuable to destroy.
“My condition remains stable,” he said, though they both knew that was becoming less true with each passing day. “I assume this impromptu evaluation serves some larger purpose than simple concern for my wellbeing.”
Serect moved closer, his footsteps echoing off the chamber’s vaulted ceiling. Faint lines of light crackled under his bronze skin—House Ember’s signature when anger simmered beneath political composure. “Your curse makes you uniquely...compatible with certain magical affinities. We’ve identified a potential stabilizing influence.”
The shadowfire reacted to those words like acid thrown on open flame, surging against Vaelrik’s control with enough force to make his vision flicker at the edges. A stabilizing influence. Someone whose magic might counter the corruption that had been devouring him from within for a century.
“Let me guess,” Vaelrik said, his deep voice carrying the deadly quiet that made seasoned warriors reconsider their life choices. “This stabilizing influence didn’t volunteer for the position.”
“Cooperation serves the greater good,” Serect replied smoothly. “The shadow-plague threatens all our territories. Personal preferences become irrelevant when faced with extinction.”
The curse writhed beneath Vaelrik’s skin, responding to the political maneuvering with hunger that bordered on anticipation. Something was coming—someone who might either save him or damn him completely. And given the Council’s track record with strategic sacrifice, he suspected he knew which outcome they preferred.
His restraints clinked softly as he shifted his weight, testing the ceremonial chains that could barely contain what he’d become. The chamber held its breath, waiting to see if their weapon would remain leashed or finally break free.
The heavy basalt doors groaned open with the weight of destiny, and Vaelrik’s enhanced senses caught the scent before his eyes confirmed what walked through them—witch magic, sharp and clean as lightning, threaded with defiance that blazed brighter than her actual power.
Kyr strode in first, his face set in lines that suggested this particular escort duty had tested even his legendary patience. Behind him, two Obsidian soldiers flanked a woman who movedlike a caged wildcat—all coiled energy and barely restrained violence. Her dark red hair caught the chamber’s light, and pale-gold sigils flared reflexively along her forearms as she took in the assembled Council with undisguised contempt.
“—told you three times already, I really need to finish the ward reconstruction at the library,” she was saying. “The outer perimeter sigils won’t hold past tomorrow morning if someone doesn’t?—”
She stopped mid-sentence as her luminous green eyes found him kneeling in ceremonial chains, and Vaelrik watched calculation flicker across her features. Not fear—which would have been the expected response to finding herself face-to-face with the Council’s leashed weapon—but assessment. As if she were cataloging his threat level and finding it... manageable.
