And then—
Blue.
His own blue.
Blazing back through the storm.
The battlefield blurred.
He saw the cot again—Westport dusk, Adamar’s chest rattling shallow, the weak rise and fall of lungs that could not keep the breath they stole. Viktor had held his brother’s hand until it cooled, powerless, his own body thrumming with a fire that had not yet awakened.
Never again.
The vow ripped through him as the dragon’s scream shook the air. His hands clenched harder on the blades, lightning crawling down the steel.
His gaze locked with the dragon’s.
His twin, chained in fire.
Breath broke.
Molten.
Merciless.
Past collided with the now. Struck an arrow into the future.
His voice split the storm:
“Elysium cannot hold me.”
Viktor’s vow scorched the sky, lightning answering in kind.
Chains rattled in his marrow—his brother’s prison echoing through his bones.
For one impossible breath, he felt them align.
His fire. Adamar’s fury.
Two halves of a soul, straining against the same cage.
Vorathen screamed beneath him, hooves tearing glass, but Viktor barely heard. The storm bent, pulled, dragged him toward those eyes.
Adamar was not lost to death.
He was bound in fire—waiting.
Viktor raised both swords, the promise searing every scar, every breath.
“I’m coming.”
Chapter One Hundred Six
Live… Or Die
The Ruakite fell in fire—the storm itself breaking on his body.
Ashakar’s roar split the sky, fire-rocks shrieking down like the wrath of a broken world. Lines scattered. Mirrors flared. The smell of burning men clung like pitch.
