"Next time she comes," I said, Dragon fire flickering at the edges of my form, "she won't be able to pull back. The connection is too strong now. She's tasted what she could be with us."
"And we've tasted what we could be with her," Flynn added, his amber eyes burning with possibility.
Through the crack in the seal, I felt the Citadel settling back into uneasy peace. The Order's attack had been repelled, but at a cost. Several Keepers were dead. The Gate's instability had worsened.
And Aria Pandoros, last of her line, stood before the wounded Gate with golden fire still flickering in her veins, knowing that everything she touched was built on lies but not yet ready to tear it all down.
Not yet.
But soon.
The crack in the Dragon's Ember seal pulsed with each beat of her heart, counting down to inevitability.
I settled back into the chains that held me, but for the first time in a thousand years, they felt temporary. Like something I was choosing to endure rather than being forced to suffer.
Because she'd chosen. Even in rejection, even in pulling back, she'd made a choice that wasn't dictated by duty or doctrine.
And that choice, that tiny crack in her perfect control, would eventually shatter every seal that held us.
I could wait. I'd waited a thousand years.
But now I waited with purpose. With anticipation.
With the absolute certainty that Aria Pandoros would choose us, choose herself, choose truth over comfortable lies.
The dragon in me recognized its mate, even if she didn't recognize herself yet.
And dragons, even chained ones, always claimed what was theirs.
TWELVE
Aria
The morning training grounds lay shrouded in mist, grey stone slick with pre-dawn moisture that made each footstep treacherous. I moved through the sword forms with mechanical precision, trying to lose myself in the familiar rhythm of thrust, parry, retreat. The weighted practice blade felt heavier than usual, or maybe my arms were just exhausted from another sleepless night spent fighting the golden fire that pulsed through my veins.
Three days since the Dragon's Ember seal shattered. Three days of Natalia watching me like a hawk observing a mouse. Three days of other Keepers crossing corridors and going in to rooms that made absolutely no sense to avoid me, their fear thick enough to taste with my enhanced senses.
The attack came without warning.
One moment I stood alone in the mist, the next a figure erupted from the shadows, crude iron blade aimed at my throat. No finesse, no technique, just raw violence powered by fanatical certainty. I twisted aside on instinct, the blade whistling past close enough to stir my hair.
My attacker wore rough-spun robes, the fabric stained with substances I didn't want to identify. His face bore scarification in patterns that hurt to look at, symbols carved into flesh that reeked of corrupted magic. The kind that burned through practitioners from the inside out, trading years of life for moments of power.
A Khaos cultist.
Two more materialized from the mist, moving with the disjointed gait of those whose minds had been broken and rebuilt around a single purpose. Their magic crawled across my skin like insects, wrong in ways that made my enhanced senses scream. It wasn't clean power drawn from natural sources or even the structured magic the Keepers used. This was something else, magic torn from reality's fabric, leaving wounds that wouldn't heal.
The second cultist lunged, and I brought my practice sword up to block. His blade shattered mine like it was made of glass, shards spinning through the morning air. The third one laughed, the sound wet and bubbling, like drowning in reverse.
"The Gate's pet," he wheezed through scarred lips. "The princes' whore."
Rage flared, hot and sudden.
Not mine.
Theirs.
Kaelen's fury roared through our connection, Flynn's savage need to tear, Thane's protective anger, Elias's cold calculation. Their power surged toward me, offering itself, begging to be used.
