“He’ll be desperate,” Vaelrik finished, pulling on his trousers with predatory efficiency. “Desperate creatures make mistakes.”
They dressed quickly, the urgency of the moment sharpening their movements. Serenya’s full mate mark glowed faintly through the thin fabric of her shirt, and Vaelrik couldn’t resist the possessive satisfaction that sight brought him.
She was his. Marked. Claimed. And powerful enough to stand beside him in whatever came next.
“Where are Kyr and Tamsin?” Serenya asked, braiding her dark red hair with practiced speed.
“His quarters, I’m sure of it. Let’s go.”
They soon found Kyr sitting at his small table with little Tamsin perched on his knee, the child’s flaxen hair catching the lamplight as she traced patterns on a piece of parchment. The girl looked up when they entered, her gray-blue eyes bright and knowing in a way that caused Vaelrik’s chest to tighten.
“You fixed him,” Tamsin said simply, looking at Serenya with complete certainty. “The cold fire doesn’t hurt him anymore.”
Kyr’s slate-gray eyes flicked between them, taking in their changed appearance—the way they moved in sync now.
His scarred mouth quirked slightly. “I take it the mating went well?”
“The curse is finally balanced,” Vaelrik said without preamble, settling into the chair across from his second.
Kyr went very still. “Impossible.”
“The completed mate bond rewrote his dragonfire,” Serenya explained, moving to stand behind Vaelrik’s chair, her hand finding his shoulder in an unconscious gesture of connection. “His dragon accepted my light and used it to burn out the corruption.”
“Which means,” Vaelrik continued, his voice taking on the tone of command Kyr knew well, “the Shadowbinder’s lost his primary weapon. He can’t use me against the realm anymore.”
Kyr’s eyes sharpened with understanding. “So we strike now. Before he regroups.”
“Exactly.” Vaelrik leaned forward, every inch the warlord he’d been born to be. “We return to the Gloam today. Before the Shadow Sovereign can rebuild his foothold.”
Tamsin’s small voice cut through their planning. “I have to come too.”
The three adults went silent. The child’s expression was serene, but there was steel underneath—the kind of quiet determination that reminded Vaelrik uncomfortably of Serenya.
“Absolutely not,” Kyr said immediately. “You’re a child?—”
“I’m the song,” Tamsin interrupted, her voice carrying an odd resonance that made the air shimmer slightly. “The one that makes the shadows stop. You need me.”
Serenya crouched beside the girl, her expression gentle but serious. “Tamsin, it’s going to be very dangerous?—”
“More dangerous if I stay here,” the child said with eerie calm. “The bad man knows about me now. He’ll come back for me.”
Vaelrik felt the truth of that settle in his bones. The Shadowbinder had seen what the girl’s corrected lullaby could do to his creatures. He would indeed come for her, and the Citadel couldn’t protect her from something that could tear holes in reality itself.
“She comes,” he decided, ignoring Kyr’s sharp intake of breath. “But she stays with you at all times.”
Kyr’s jaw worked for a moment before he nodded grimly. “Understood.”
Within the hour, they stood outside the Citadel walls under a sky that still bore traces of the morning’s unnatural darkness. The air tasted of ash and possibility, and Vaelrik felt his dragon stirring beneath his skin—not with hunger or desperation, but with purpose.
“Dragon forms,” he said simply. “It’s faster.”
The shift came easier than it had in decades, his bones reshaping without the usual resistance, and his scales erupting in a flood of obsidian brilliance. When he rose on his hind legs, wings spread wide, he felt the difference immediately. No fighting for control. No wrestling with competing instincts.
Just power. Clean and absolute.
Kyr shifted beside him—smoky-black scales edged with cobalt, storm-fire crackling along his smaller but more agile frame. He gathered Tamsin carefully in his claws, the child showing no fear as she settled against his scaled chest.
Serenya approached Vaelrik’s lowered neck with easy confidence, swinging up to settle behind his neck ridges. Her hands found purchase on his scales, and the sensation of her touch threaded through his veins like liquid fire.
