"You're manipulating me."
"I'm seeing you," I corrected. "Really seeing you, not the performance of the perfect Keeper you've been maintaining for years. And you're terrified because for the first time in your life, someone sees through your masks to what's beneath."
"And what's beneath?"
I smiled then, not the cruel expression I'd worn for centuries but something softer, more dangerous.
"A woman who's been dying by degrees since the day she first bled for the Gate. A soul too vast for the cage they've forced you into. A heart that beats for connection, for passion, for something more than cold stone and colder duty." I leaned close enough that our breaths mingled. "A queen waiting to claim her throne."
The Threshold shuddered around us, responding to the weight of prophecy in those words. Through our connection, I felt her fear spike, but beneath it, something else. Recognition. As if some part of her had always known this was coming.
"I'm not a queen. I'm barely holding myself together."
"Queens aren't born, they're forged. Usually in fire." I let my power flare slightly, dragon fire dancing along my skin in patterns that matched her golden veins. "And you, little Keeper, have been walking through flames since the day you were born. You just didn't know it was tempering rather than consuming you."
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw the moment her last wall cracked. Not breaking, not yet, but fracturing like the Gate itself.
"If I let you teach me," she said slowly, each word carefully measured, "I'm not agreeing to anything else. Not to freeing you, not to destroying the Gate, not to whatever prophecy you think I'm part of."
"Of course not," I agreed easily, though we both knew she was lying to herself. Every lesson would bind us closer. Every touch of power would make the chains harder to maintain. Every moment spent together would make the inevitable more certain.
"When?" she asked, and I knew I'd won this battle, even if the war was far from over.
"Every night when you dream as I said for the combat training. this will just be one more thing for us to practice. Plue, the connection is strongest then, when your conscious mind isn't fighting what your heart wants." I stepped back, giving her space to breathe, to process. "We'll start with control. Teaching you to channel power without burning yourself out."
She nodded slowly, exhaustion making her sway slightly on her feet. The Threshold was already beginning to release its hold on her, reality calling her back.
But before she could fully fade, I caught her hand. The touch sent dragon fire racing through both of us, our connection flaring so bright it painted the Threshold gold.
"One more thing," I said, pulling her closer with gentle insistence. "The mortals you saved today. You did the right thing, even if it had the wrong consequences. Never doubt that protecting the innocent is worth any price."
Surprise flickered across her features. She'd expected manipulation, seduction, anything but validation.
"Even if they end up imprisoned?"
"Even then. Because you gave them life, even if it's caged. And life can always find freedom, given time and opportunity."
Something shifted in her expression, walls I hadn't even realized were there beginning to lower.
"You're not what I expected," she admitted.
"Neither are you." I released her hand reluctantly. "Now go. Rest. Tomorrow the real work begins."
She faded from the Threshold, but our connection remained, humming with new possibility. I stood in the space she'd left, feeling the echo of her presence like warmth on my skin.
My brothers materialized around me, drawn by the intensity of what had just happened.
"You're playing a dangerous game," Thane rumbled, concern heavy in his voice.
"She could destroy us all if she turns against us," Flynn added, though his grin suggested he found the danger appealing.
"She won't," Elias said with the certainty of prophecy. "She can't. The threads are already woven. The pattern is set."
I looked at where she'd stood, still feeling the phantom pressure of her hand in mine.
"She's going to free us," I said with absolute certainty. "Not because we manipulate her into it, not because prophecy demands it, but because she's going to choose us. Choose herself. Choose truth over comfortable lies."
"And if you're wrong?" Thane asked.
