“She’s got more than teeth.” Drayke’s voice comes from behind me, and then his arms wrap around my waist, pulling my back against his chest. He nods at Rurik. “Don’t you have patrols?”
“Don’t you have boundaries?”
“Not when it comes to her.” He presses a kiss to my neck, right over the pulse point, and I feel his smile against my skin when my breath catches. “Go away, Rurik.”
Rurik goes, but not before making a rude gesture that makes me laugh and Drayke growl.
Zyphon’s lessons are quieter. More dangerous.
He teaches me defensive techniques in the shadowy corners of the fortress—how to use fire as a shield rather than a weapon, how to create barriers that can stop claws and blades, how to sense approaching threats by the way they disturb the heat in the air.
“You feel everything,” he observes during our third session, shadows curling around his shoulders. “Every shift in temperature. Every breath of wind. Fire-Bringers are attuned to heat the way dragons are attuned to magic. Use it.”
“How?”
“Close your eyes.” His voice drops to a murmur. “Extend your awareness. Feel the fortress around you—the warmth of bodies, the cold of stone, the fire in the hearths. Everything alive generates heat. Everything dead doesn’t. Learn to tell the difference.”
I try. At first, there’s nothing—just darkness behind my eyelids, the sound of my own breathing. But slowly, incrementally, warmth begins to bloom in my awareness. Points of heat scattered throughout the fortress. Four burning bright—the dragons, their fire impossible to miss. Others dimmer—servants, guards, the living pulse of the stronghold itself.
“I can feel them.” The words come out hushed. Awed. “All of them.”
“Now you’re starting to understand what you are.” Zyphon’s approval is quiet, but real. “Fire-Bringer. Heat-seeker. You’ll never be caught off guard if you learn to trust that sense.”
Auren teaches me tactics—battle strategies, formation movements, the cold logic of warfare that’s kept the Brotherhood alive for centuries. He spreads maps across the war room table and quizzes me on terrain advantages, supply lines, retreat routes.
“You think like a tactician,” he admits grudgingly after I correctly identify three flaws in a historical battle plan. “Not what I expected from a human civilian.”
“I played a lot of strategy games growing up. And I read too much history.”
“Hmm.” It’s the closest Auren gets to being impressed. “Continue studying. You have potential.”
“Coming from you, that’s practically a marriage proposal.”
His expression doesn’t change, but I swear I see his eye twitch. “Don’t test me, Fire-Bringer.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
By the endof the third week, my fire stabilizes.
It doesn’t happen all at once. There’s no dramatic moment where everything clicks into place. Just gradual progress—fewer accidental flare-ups, better control during combat, the ability to call and dismiss flames without conscious effort.
I’m sparring with Drayke when it hits me—how far I’ve come. He’s attacking with full force—claws extended, dragon strength behind every strike—and I’m keeping pace. Blocking with flame shields. Counterattacking with precise bolts. Moving with him instead of against him, anticipating his strikes before they land.
We break apart, both breathing hard. He’s got a burn mark on his forearm where I caught him with a flame lash. I’ve got bruises blooming across my ribs where he landed a hit I didn’t block fast enough.
But I’m smiling.
“We’re good at this.” I wipe sweat from my forehead, gesture between us. “Fighting together. Training together. All of it.”
“We are.” He closes the distance between us, catches my chin, tilts my face up. His thumb traces my lower lip, leaving heat in its wake. “Better than I expected.”
“Is that a compliment? I can’t tell with you. Your impressed face looks exactly like your plotting-murder face.”
His mouth curves. “It’s a compliment. I don’t give them often.”
“I’ve noticed.” I lean into his touch, let the warmth of his skin soothe the ache of training. “What happens next? After Veylor. After we stop him.”
“More enemies.” His voice goes serious, but not grim. Just honest. “More artifacts. More threats. The Relic we sealed wasn’t the only one—there are others, scattered across territories. Veylor was trying to wake one. Someone else will try to wake another.”
