"And look where that got us," I spat, turning to face them. "Chained in the dark for a millennium. Because I let myself believe that her choice meant loyalty. I let myself believe that love was stronger than politics."
I looked up at the ceiling, imagining them up there on the ledge, outlined by stars I hadn't seen in centuries.
"Aria is different," Elias said. "You know she is different."
"Is she?" I asked, the doubt uncoiling in my gut like a cold serpent. "She has Pandora’s blood. She almost has Pandora’sface. And she may as well have Pandora’s heart, divided among us."
"She is more than Pandora ever was," Elias said, his voice gaining that harmonic resonance again. "Pandora was a victim of her time. A woman trapped between gods and men, trying to please everyone. Aria broke the Gate. She enslaved a monster of the deep. Pandora wept for us; Aria bleeds for us."
"And yet," I said, gesturing vaguely toward the ceiling, "she seeks comfort in the arms of the one brother who stood neutral when the betrayal happened. The one who didn't fight back."
"That is low, Kaelen," Flynn warned, a growl threading through his voice. "Thane carries more guilt than all of us combined. Don't use his nature as a weapon."
"I am not using it," I said, scrubbing a hand over my face. "I am analyzing it. Why him? Why now?"
"Because she is tired, you idiot," Flynn snapped. "She is carrying a magical weapon of mass destruction in her blood, she has a goddess hunting her, and she just wants to close her eyes and not feel like she has to lead an army for five minutes. Thane lets her rest. You... you make her want to conquer."
I stared at him. Was that true? Did I push her? I thought I was protecting her. I thought I was empowering her. But maybe Flynn was right. Maybe my version of love felt too much like war.
I closed my eyes and reached for the bond again. I needed to feel her. Not just the echo of the kiss, buther.
The connection was there, a golden thread humming in the dark. But as I touched it, as I let my doubt and my fear bleed into the line, the thread flickered.
It didn't break. It didn't snap. But it dimmed. It faltered, like a candle flame caught in a draft.
My heart hammered a warning rhythm.
Did she feel that?
If she felt my distrust, my comparison of her to the woman who had destroyed us... it would poison the well. We needed absolute trust to perform the binding. We needed her to open herself completely. If she sensed that I was waiting for the knife in the back, she would close off. She would build walls.
And then we would all die.
"I am damaging it," I whispered, opening my eyes. The realization was colder than the void. "My doubt... it’s fraying the line."
"Then stop doubting," Flynn said, as if it were that simple.
"It isn't a switch I can flip, Wolf," I snarled. "It is a thousand years of muscle memory. I expect betrayal. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is how I survived."
"But we aren't surviving anymore," Elias said, stepping into my personal space. He placed a cool hand on my arm. "We are trying to live. Survival keeps you alive in a cage, Kaelen. Living requires you to step out of it."
He squeezed my arm.
"Look at the pattern," Elias urged. "Aria saved you from the frost and pulled you through the breach. She came back to the Sanctorum when she could have run. Does that look like betrayal to you?"
I thought of her face in the Sanctorum, soot-stained and fierce, screaming at the Sentinel. I thought of her hand in mine, guiding the Skal. I thought of the way she had looked at me when I fed her, trusting and open.
"No," I admitted, the anger draining out of me, leaving me hollow. "It looks like hope."
"Then hold on to that," Elias said. "Let Thane be the earth. Let Flynn be the wind. You are the fire, Kaelen. But be the fire that warms, not the fire that destroys."
I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. I tried to push the jealousy down, to lock the dragon back in its cave. Focusingon the bond again, I intended to send a wave of apology, of reassurance.
But before I could form the thought, the bond didn't just flicker. It screamed.
It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. A sudden, violent spike of pure adrenaline and terror that tore through the connection like a physical blow.
It came from both of them. Aria and Thane.
