Interesting.
The other Council members shifted in their carved seats like spooked cattle, ancient instincts recognizing what she represented. Witches had been nearly extinct since the Wars of Ash, their enclaves reduced to ash and memory by dragonfire that had burned too hot and too long. Seeing one standing defiant in their inner sanctum was like watching a ghost demand satisfaction.
But Vaelrik found himself studying her not with the wariness that rippled through the chamber, but with something approaching... admiration. This mouthy little sorceress was putting up a fight that impressed him even as his analytical mind noticed every detail about her—the way she held her shoulders, the protective placement of her hands near concealed weapons, and the slight forward lean that suggested she was one insult away from attempting something gloriously stupid.
His lips twitched in what might have been a smile if he’d allowed it to fully form.
“Serenya Vex,” Serect announced, his molten voice cutting through the tension. “Curse scholar and ward specialist. She’s here to provide... assistance.”
If the Council was desperate enough to drag a witch into their inner sanctum, then the shadow-plague situation had escalated beyond what they’d been telling him. Border towns weren’t just being threatened—they were being consumed. Living shadows slipped through wardlines like water through cracks, turning civilians into echo-things that wore familiar faces but moved with cosmic wrongness.
And if they needed this particular witch to stabilize his curse, it meant they suspected something they weren’t saying aloud yet. The shadowfire reacted to the plague. The plague reacted to him. The connection might not be coincidence.
“Commander Kyr failed to mention I had a choice in the matter,” Serenya said sharply.
“You don’t,” Thyren replied flatly. “Approach the Warlord. Touch his arm. We need to confirm compatibility.”
Serenya’s sigils flared brighter, pale-gold light that made the shadows cast by his curse seem to lean away from her like living things avoiding predator. “I’m not a battery you can plug into your pet monster.”
The curse stirred at those words, responding to the insult with a hunger that tasted like molten copper. But beneath the familiar burn of shadowfire, something else shifted. His dragon stirred restlessly.
“Approach him,” Serect commanded, his bronze skin crackling with barely contained heat. “Now.”
Serenya’s jaw tightened, but she moved forward with the fluid grace of someone who’d spent years fighting things that wanted to kill her. Each step brought her closer to where he knelt in ceremonial chains, and Vaelrik found his enhanced senses cataloging details without permission—the way her leatherboots whispered against stone, the scent of parchment and lightning that clung to her clothes, and the defiant lift of her chin as she stopped just within arm’s reach.
“This is idiotic,” she muttered, but extended her hand toward his forearm where the shackle left bronze skin exposed.
The moment her fingers brushed his skin, the world tilted sideways.
Her lumen sigils didn’t generate power—they forced light into structured form, and that structure pressed back against the chaos inside him with shocking precision—lumen magic being one of the only forces shadowfire recognized instead of devoured. The shadowfire that had been a constant scream in his skull for a century suddenly... quieted. Not silenced, but contained.
But beneath that miraculous relief, something else exploded through his consciousness like wildfire—a pulse of heat that punched through his ribs sharp enough to steal breath. Recognition flared bright as pain, primal and undeniable.
Mate.
His dragon roared the truth inside his skull, ancient instincts that predated civilization declaring what his rational mind refused to accept. The scent of her, the feel of her magic against his, the way her light bent around his darkness without breaking—every cell in his body screamedminewith a ferocity that made the curse seem tame by comparison.
He crushed the thought down with brutal efficiency. Fate didn’t offer mates to men already marked for death. And even if it did, no witch—especially not this brilliant, defiant creature—deserved to be shackled to a weapon the Council considered disposable.
But she’d felt it too. Her green eyes widened slightly, her hand jerking back from his arm as if his skin had burned her.Which, given the way heat was radiating through his bones, it might have.
“Well?” Serect’s voice cut through the charged silence. “Did the stabilization work?”
Vaelrik stared at the witch—at Serenya—and watched her process what had just happened between them. The curse had settled for the very first time in decades, yes. But the mate bond had blazed to life simultaneously.
He nodded once, not trusting his voice.
Serect’s smile was wide. “Excellent. The binding ritual can proceed immediately.”
“The what now?” Serenya’s voice cracked like a whip. “I didn’t agree to be tied to your Council lapdog.”
“Reluctant leash,” Vaelrik said, finding his voice at last. “I’m sure working with a mouthy witch who considers me a pet monster will be delightfully productive.”
But beneath their shared hostility, both of them understood what had happened. Her magic pushed back on his curse without collapsing. His darkness pressed against her light without devouring it. A dangerous equilibrium that neither of them fully grasped.
“Your new role, Miss Vex, is to stabilize the Warlord indefinitely,” Serect announced. “He will escort you into the plague lands. Together, you will resolve this crisis.”
Vaelrik heard the subtext clearly enough. If he died in the attempt, they’d call it martyrdom. If she died, they’d call it collateral damage. If both died, the Council would call it strategic necessity.
