“You were unconscious. As your next of kin, I had every right.” He straightened his cuffs. “And now I have a responsibility to make sure you don't hurt anyone ever again.”
The room seemed to shrink. But he just continued. “To ensure you do not end your own career by accident,” he said. “Or kill someone a second time with carelessness.”
“I didn’t—”
“Read the report again.”
My hands shook against the restraints. “Father,” I whispered, “please. Just tell me what you want.”
“I want you safe,” he said simply. “Contained. Corrected.” He said it like a blessing. “Your binding is failing,” he went on. “You’re leaking heat in public environments. No one can protect you—” A cold laugh.
My throat closed.
He dropped his voice to a near-whisper. “Let me fix this, Cole. Let me make it all quiet again.”
Quiet. Like after the first binding. When the dragon went still as a grave.
“No,” I breathed. “I— I won’t go through that again.”
“You will.” He straightened. “Or you will never play again.”
My chest heaved. “You don’t have that power.”
He smiled without warmth. “I already filed a preliminary safety report with the league. Pending medical stabilization.” Medical stabilization. Suspension. Career ending.
“You can’t—”
“I can do anything necessary to protect our interests,” he said calmly.
The warmth in my chest twisted, frantic. The dragon’s tail lashed inside my ribs, demanding I run, fight, something.
A knock at the door broke the thick silence. My father looked toward it, serenity sliding back over him like a mask. “Right on time.”
The door opened.
A man stepped inside—tall, crisp white coat, gray beard trimmed with surgical precision. His eyes were the color of wet stone, and they flicked over me with academic interest. “Mr. Armstrong,” he said to my father. Then, “Cole.”
My skin crawled, and I remembered him immediately.
“This is Dr. Hartshorne,” my father said. “Our specialist.” Like I would forget. He'd aged, but not by that much.
Hartshorne stepped closer. His hands were clasped in front of him, and faint sigils shimmered along the insides of his wrists like scars dipped in starlight, and I did my best notto vomit. “I’ve reviewed your previous binding from years ago,” he said in a low, unhurried voice. “But degradation is evident. Stress cracks. Leakage. Quite dangerous if allowed to continue.”
I forced my lips to move. “I don’t want another binding.”
Hartshorne’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your physiology is unstable. The anomaly on the ice proves this.”
That word again. Anomaly. As if I weren’t a person. Was I a monster like Father had said? But Taranis, Keegan. They weren't. But then they'd never hurt anyone…
My father’s hand tightened briefly on the folder, then released. “Begin whenever you’re ready, Doctor.”
The dragon clawed at my chest. Heat flared behind my eyes.
Hartshorne opened a drawer beside the bed and removed a tray: Glass vials of shimmering fluid. A thin brush. Metal cuffs etched with runic lines. My breath hitched. “Very well,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Let’s begin.”
The lights hummed. The room shrank. The dragon roared, silent and furious beneath my skin. And I realized—I was alone. Truly, terrifyingly alone.
No Ignatius. No team. No Phoenix. Just me. A stranger preparing to cage the last piece of me that still belonged to myself.
