“Jax?” I ask, unable to mask the tremor in my voice, unwilling to pull away from her warmth.
“It's been slow, too slow, but he's healing,” she says. “He’ll get there.” I exhale a breath. She pulls up a seat between Brynn and me. As if that will help shield us from what comes next.
Dayn meets my mother’s stare across the room, his gleaming eyes locking with her darker ones. The air between them feels volatile, like a single word could set it off. Her fingers tighten around mine under the table, her knuckles going white, but her face remains a perfect mask—only the slight flare of her nostrils betraying decades of darkblood training. Dayn's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, a muscle working beneath the skin as he inclines his head in the barest acknowledgment. Neither breaks the gaze; neither speaks. The silent confrontation stretches for three heartbeats before my mother finally turns away, her exhale controlled.
There was my round of meet the parents.
The last to arrive is my aunt Maelis and uncle Edwin with their two older children, our cousins Ridge and Nyv, flanking them like twin shadows. Nyv’s the first to see me. Her facebreaks open in pure relief as she mouths,you’re okay,like she needs to say it to believe it. Ridge, never one for subtlety, gives me two thumbs-up behind his father's back, a gesture so achingly normal it almost breaks me.
Corvin clears his throat, and a heavy silence falls over the chamber. “We are here because we face an existential threat.” His voice echoes off the stone. He looks at me, then at Dayn. “Explain what you saw.”
I clear my throat and begin before Dayn can start, laying out the nightmare piece by piece, in the fullest detail memory allows. With every word, the air in the room seems to grow colder, heavier. I see the dawning horror on my mother’s face, the grim understanding in my aunt and uncle’s eyes. This isn’t a border skirmish or a clearblood power play. This is more like an apocalypse gathering on our doorstep.
When I finish, Director Reinhardt speaks, his voice parchment-dry. “When Esme was… away, we had begun preparations to initiate the trials with a circle of our most promising. But with her return, that is no longer necessary.” He looks directly at me. “Your connection to Esther is a direct conduit to the heart of our spiritual grid. Your power, amplified by your… bond…” he gestures vaguely at Dayn, “makes you the only candidate we need.”
And the only one who might survive it?
He doesn’t voice the thought but I sense it. The Ide Trials don’t take prisoners. That kind of magic doesn’t. You either succeed or you don’t. Then again, that’s been the story of most of my life.
I feel my mother tense beside me, but she already knew this was coming. It’s arguably no more dangerous than my mission at Heathborne, where I faced a guy who could shoot literal aura-destroying energy from his fingers. At least here I facea darkblood, ultimately, one of our own kind, even if it’s in a form we don’t fully understand…
As I sit there, the weight of their expectation settles on my shoulders. It’s a crushing burden… but not an unfamiliar one. I’ve been in this seat before, assigned a task that could get me killed or worse.
My eyes drift involuntarily to Dayn, even as I lift my chin.
“As I already informed Corvin, I’ll complete the Ide Trials.”
“No.” Dayn’s voice cuts through the room, sudden, sharp, and absolute. He rises, his presence seeming to suck every chill from the air. “It’s a fool’s errand. You’re asking her to channel a power that might shatter her mind or burn her out from the inside. There is another way.”
“And what way is that, dragon?” Warden Blythe scoffs. “You’ll ask your brother nicely to call off his war?”
“I will give him no other choice,” Dayn says, his golden eyes sweeping across the council. “Anees’s power relies on a united front. I will break that front. There are dragons in Draethys, high-ranking officers like Colonel Rogon, who do not support this invasion. They revered my father. They will not follow a traitor and a kinslayer if the truth is laid bare. But I need time to reach them, to turn them.” He pauses, his gaze landing on Corvin. “And for that, I need a ceasefire on the surface.”
A collective, disbelieving silence greets his words.
“A ceasefire?” Uncle Edwin finally says, his voice rough with incredulity. “With the clearbloods? They’re kidnapping our children, experimenting on our people. You want us to sit down and talk with Heathborne?”
“I want you to form a temporary, strategic alliance,” Dayn clarifies, his patience clearly wearing thin. “Present a united front. Show my people that the world above is not fractured and weak, but organized and ready. The display of unity will lend thedissenters in my court the leverage they need to pose a challenge to Anees.”
It’s a good plan, I’ll admit. A logical, intelligent, political strategy. And it is utterly, hopelessly doomed. The hatred between darkbloods and clearbloods is a chasm too wide to bridge with a few pretty—or even desperate—words, and especially not now. But I see the conviction in his eyes, the stubborn need to believe there is a path that doesn’t end in slaughter. He needs to try—I know him well enough by now, to know that. He needs to be proven wrong before he’ll accept the bloody reality we’re facing.
“There might be another way,” Brynn says suddenly, her voice small but clear in the heavy silence. All eyes turn to her. She looks at me, her expression pleading. “Helena said… that you and Dayn need to complete your union.”
The words drop into the silence of the chamber like stones in a frozen lake. Around the table faces go still, breathing taut. My own breath catches in my throat, a knot of pure mortification. I want the stone floor to crack open and swallow me whole. I want to strangle my sister. I want to find Helena’s spirit and drag her back to whatever afterlife she?—
“Complete your… union?” my mother murmurs. Her hand tightens on mine until my bones ache.
Across the room, something twitches in Dayn’s jaw. He inclines his head, the light catching the pale gold of his eyes so they flash like embers. He leans in, the movement small but deliberate, and the room seems to shrink around him. “Helena?” His voice is quiet, but it cuts through the hush. “What did your ancestor say?”
“It was ancestral gibberish,” I say. I glare at Brynn, who has the decency to look slightly ashamed. “It means nothing. Just some metaphor. We’re not here to discuss riddles. We’re discussing strategy.”
I shoot Brynn a look that I hope conveys the full depth of my warning:Drop it. Not here. Not now.
“Esme is right,” Blythe cuts through. “We are here to discuss facts, not spectral musings. Or even wishful thinking.” She shoots Dayn a sharp look, and proceeds to call for comments related to the Ide Trials.
I lower my eyes to the table, suddenly feeling the need to keep them anywhere except on Dayn.
10
