I smiled, dragon fire dancing in my eyes.
"Then at least I'll burn knowing I was consumed by something worthwhile."
Through our connection, I felt her settling into sleep, exhaustion finally claiming her. Soon, she'd dream. And when she did, I'd be waiting.
Not to seduce or manipulate or control.
But to teach her what she truly was.
What we could be together.
A dragon prince and the woman who might be his salvation. Or his destruction.
Either way, it would be glorious.
NINETEEN
Aria
The Council chamber lay three levels below the main Citadel, carved from living rock deep within the mountain's heart. It was a place where secrets were meant to stay buried.
I'd discovered the maintenance shaft by accident years ago, during one of my mandated inspections of the Citadel's hidden infrastructure. It was a narrow passage meant for servants and repair workers, a forgotten vein in the fortress's stone body that ran parallel to the main chamber. Through carefully engineered gaps in the ancient stonework, deliberate architectural features meant to prevent dangerous gas buildup, voices carried with crystalline clarity.
I shouldn't be here. The very act of my presence in this shaft was a violation of the sacred trust between Keeper and Council. The penalty for spying on a closed Council session was severe, public censure and forced penance at best, permanent exile from the Order at worst. I'd seen it happen once, to an overly curious acolyte who'd pressed her ear to the wrong door. They'd stripped her of her robes in front of the entire assembly before casting her out into the winter storm.
But Master Theron's death had shattered any remaining faith I had in their justice, in their righteousness, in their sacred duty.
They'd murdered him.
Not in the heat of battle or the chaos of an emergency. But deliberately. Coldly. All for the crime of asking questions and showing me fragments of truth they'd wanted to keep hidden. Now I needed to know what they planned next. What they intended to do with the dangerous, corrupted Keeper I'd become in their eyes.
The shaft was barely wide enough for my shoulders, forcing me to edge forward on my stomach like a snake through stone. Dust lay thick enough to choke on if I breathed too deeply, centuries of accumulated grime that spoke of how rarely these passages were used anymore. Spider webs caught at my face as I inched forward, their sticky strands clinging to my hair and eyelashes, the sensation making my skin crawl. But my enhanced hearing, one of the many changes the princes' influence had wrought in me, made eavesdropping almost too easy. Every word rang clear as if I stood in the chamber itself, every nuance and inflection perfectly audible.
"—cannot continue like this!" Ethan's voice, normally so precisely controlled, was sharp with barely contained panic. "The Gate deteriorates daily. The seals crack wider with each sunrise. And she grows more corrupted with each passing hour! Can you not see the danger?"
Wood scraped harshly against stone, a chair being pushed back violently, the sound echoing in the chamber's vaulted ceiling.
"The corruption makes her effective." Laura's voice, smooth as oil, calculating as always, each word chosen with the precision of a chess player moving pieces across a board. "Did you not see what she accomplished at Oakhaven? The Order of Khaos's forces completely obliterated. Their attack repelled sothoroughly that survivors fled back into the wilderness. She did more in one afternoon than our entire garrison has managed in months."
"She channeled divine fire!" Ethan's voice cracked on the words, his composure fracturing at the edges. "Multiple witnesses saw her wreathed in golden power that could only come from them. From the princes themselves! She's not maintaining the prison anymore! She's fraternizing with the prisoners! She speaks to them, learns from them, draws power from them like a supplicant at an altar!"
Through a gap between stones, a space no wider than my thumb, I could see them arranged around the ancient oak table that had witnessed countless such debates over the centuries. Ethan paced behind his chair like a caged animal, his usual rigid control crumbling at the edges, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Laura sat perfectly still across from him, fingers steepled beneath her chin, watching the others with the infinite patience of a spider waiting at the center of her web. And Gideon...
Gideon wept.
The elderly Keeper, who I'd always known as stern and unyielding in his faith, made no attempt to hide his tears. They ran freely down his weathered face, cutting clear tracks through the dust and age lines, catching in his white beard like morning dew on spider silk.
"The signs are clear," he said, voice thick with grief and terror, the words of a man watching his entire world crumble. "The prophecies speak truth. The End Times approach on swift wings. The daughter who chooses chains of love over chains of duty…she stands before us now. The Gate will fall. The princes will be freed from their ancient bondage. Everything we've built, everything we've sacrificed, all the lives given over generations, will turn to ash and bitter memory."
"Superstitious nonsense," Laura said dismissively, though something flickered in her eyes, a shadow of doubt, perhaps, or recognition that even she couldn't quite suppress. "Prophecies are just patterns desperate people impose on random chaos. Comforting narratives to explain the inexplicable. We make our own fate through action and will."
"Then what do you suggest?" Natalia's voice cut through the arguing like winter wind through autumn leaves, cold and final. She sat at the table's head, still as carved stone, a monument to absolute authority. Those grey eyes took in everything while revealing nothing, cataloging every gesture, every tone, every hesitation. "The girl presents a problem that grows more complex with each passing day. What solution do you propose?"
"Kill her."
Ethan's words fell into sudden, absolute silence. Even through stone and shadow, I felt the weight of them, the way the air itself seemed to freeze around that casual suggestion of murder.
"Kill her and find another of Pandora's line," he continued, warming to his theme, his voice growing stronger. "There must be distant cousins, forgotten branches of the family tree. Someone with enough of the bloodline's power to maintain the Gate. Someone who can be properly trained from childhood, properly controlled, properly indoctrinated before they ever lay eyes on the prisoners. Someone without her... complications."
