For one terrible heartbeat, Vaelrik wanted to listen. The curse beneath his ribs purred with hunger, promising release from a century of supreme control, from the weight of responsibility, from the constant battle against his own darkness. How easy it would be to simply... let go.
Then another voice cut through the seductive whispers—warm, fierce, and absolutely certain.
Vaelrik. Stay with me. Don’t listen to him. I need you. I love you.
The words hit him like lightning. She loved him. Actually loved him—not just the passion of their claiming, but something deeper. His dragon roared with triumph, drowning out the Shadowbinder’s poison completely. The mate bond tightened around his chest like armor, and clarity flooded back in a rush of violet-edged flame.
He turned on the shadow dragon with predatory focus, his own shadowfire erupting in controlled arcs that reducedthe creature to screaming void. Around the square, other shadow creatures began dissolving as if their master’s hold had weakened.
Serenya’s hands pressed to the cracked stone again, and this time her wardlight exploded outward in a heat blast that made the air itself burn clean. Vaelrik circled her like a living shield, his wings creating a barrier while his shadowfire carved precise arcs to keep the remaining creatures at bay.
The Shadowbinder’s pale eyes met his across the chaos—cold fury burning in that translucent gaze. His plan to corrupt Vaelrik had failed. The mate bond was stronger than any curse, older than any corruption.
Vaelrik spread his wings to pursue, but the warlock simply... vanished. Dissolved into shadow like he’d never been there at all.
Coward,Vaelrik snarled mentally, but when he turned back to Serenya, the last of the shadow creatures were dissipating like smoke. The rift in the sky sealed with a sound like thunder, leaving only the acrid scent of burned stone and the moans of the wounded.
Then a small, pale shape stumbled from the ruins of a demolished market stall.
Tamsin. The servant girl who’d hugged his leg and seen protector instead of monster. Her flaxen hair was matted with dirt, her gray-blue eyes dazed with terror, but she was alive.
And she was humming—the same broken lullaby that had entranced him in the marsh, but different. Corrected. The pitch was impossibly pure, almost like a tuning fork striking the marrow of darkness itself. The shadows that still clung to the square’s edges recoiled from the sound like it tortured them.
Vaelrik’s blood ran cold with understanding. This innocent child carried something that could counter the corruption itself.
“You’re the cold fire,” Tamsin whispered as Serenya scooped her into protective arms. Not fear. Recognition.
Serenya’s green eyes met his over the girl’s head. “We need to go back to the Gloam,” she said quietly. “And end this.”
His dragon form nodded, but his mind was already calculating. Not yet. They needed to regroup, to understand what Tamsin represented, to prepare for whatever final trap the Shadowbinder was laying.
The air hung heavy with smoke and stunned relief. Cinderhollow had survived. Barely.
But the war was far from over.
NINETEEN
SERENYA
Serenya’s arms tightened around Tamsin as Vaelrik’s massive dragon form shimmered and contracted back into his human form, his scales dissolving into bronzed skin. The transformation left him naked and bloodied, his ribs painted crimson where the shadow dragon’s claws had raked furrows into his skin. He moved with predatory grace despite his wound, pulling on his tattered clothes with economical movements that spoke of decades doing exactly this after battle.
The child in her arms felt impossibly fragile after witnessing the carnage—all flaxen hair and wide gray-blue eyes that had seen too much for someone so young. But Tamsin’s humming had driven back the shadows. Whatever gift the girl carried, it was ancient and powerful. And terrifying in its implications.
Kyr’s boots crunched across the debris as he approached, his own armor cracked and bloodied, exhaustion carving lines around his eyes. Ash streaked his face like war paint, but his spine remained straight.
“Last pockets eliminated,” he reported, his voice gravelly with smoke and strain. “And we’ve secured all the citizens.”
His gaze softened—an expression Serenya had never seen on the stoic commander’s face—when it landed on Tamsinnestled against her shoulder. Something shifted in his gray eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Or simply the relief of a soldier who’d managed to protect the innocent.
“You two did what the Council couldn’t,” Kyr said quietly, meeting both their gazes with unflinching directness. “And what they wouldn’t. You protected the innocents.”
The words carried weight beyond mere observation. This was loyalty spoken openly, without political calculation or self-preservation. A declaration that would echo through the ranks of Obsidian soldiers and beyond.
As they moved through the wreckage toward the Citadel, Serenya felt the shift in the air. A witch with soot-blackened robes touched her arm as they passed—not grasping, just a brief contact that saidthank youwithout words. Dragon soldiers straightened and bowed their heads, their armor glinting in the ashen light. Even Citadel guards, who’d barely acknowledged her existence days before, stepped aside with something approaching reverence.
Unity. Fragile as spun glass, but undeniable.
The realm had never seen a pair like them—witch and dragon, light and shadow, fighting as one against the darkness. It terrified the Council’s political sensibilities. It inspired everyone else.
