She notices. Doesn’t comment on it. Just settles deeper into her chair, creating space for whatever comes next.
“I hated him at first,” she says, voice shifting to something more conversational. “Drayke. All that growling and ordering and deciding things without consulting me. I threw a candlestick at his head once.”
“Did you hit him?”
“Glancing blow. Very satisfying.” Her expression softens beneath the humor. “But eventually I realized that the things driving me crazy were the same things keeping me alive. He wasn’t trying to control me. He was trying to protect me the only way he knew how. Which was—admittedly—a very annoying way.”
“How did that change?”
“He learned to ask instead of demand. I learned that accepting help isn’t—“ She pauses. Chooses her words carefully. “Accepting help isn’t the same as being helpless. Letting someone protect you isn’t the same as being weak. It took us both a while to figure that out.”
I turn the words over in my mind. They don’t quite fit—not yet—but I can see how they might. Eventually.
“Selene,” I set down my cup, “the war council yesterday. I heard fragments through the walls—Valdris, the Relics, something about my blood being a beacon.” I meet her gaze. “I need to understand what I’ve been dragged into. Not the sanitized version. The truth.”
Her expression shifts. The warmth doesn’t leave, but something harder settles beneath it.
“The truth isn’t pleasant.”
“Neither was having my blood drained into stone channels for three weeks. I can handle unpleasant.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then she nods, setting down her own cup.
“What do you know about dragon history?”
“Nothing. A month ago, I thought dragons were a myth.”
“Fair enough.” She draws a breath. “So. Crash course. Dragons have existed for millennia—longer than human civilization. Most of them live in hidden territories, following their own laws, staying out of human affairs. The Brotherhood—Drayke and his brothers—they’re Guardians. Protectors. They maintain the balance between dragon territories and keep the peace.”
“And the ones who took me?”
“Rogues.” The word comes out flat. Hard. “Dragons who’ve rejected the Guardian system. Some are exiles—criminals banished from their territories. Others are true believers who think dragons should rule, not protect. They answer to no one except whoever’s powerful enough to command them.”
“And someone is commanding them.”
“Yes.” Selene’s hands tighten into a fist. “Valdris. The Crimson Queen.”
The name hits me like ice water. I’ve heard it before—whispered in that mountain, spoken with reverence by the creatures who held me down while blades opened my veins.
“She’s the one who wanted my blood.”
“She’s the one who wants all Fire-Bringer blood.” Selene leans forward. “Two thousand years ago, Valdris ruled dragon-kind as empress. Not a benevolent ruler—a tyrant. She treated Fire-Bringers as livestock, breeding us for our blood, using us as batteries for her power. Dragons who defied her were executed. Humans were prey. She believed dragons were gods and everyone else existed to serve them.”
My stomach turns. “What happened to her?”
“The founders of the Brotherhood rose against her. Drayke’s predecessors, and others who believed dragons could be more than conquerors.” Selene’s voice carries the history she’s clearly learned recently herself. “They couldn’t kill her—she was too powerful. So they imprisoned her instead. Created four artifactscalled the Dominion Relics and used them as locks on her cage. Sealed her in a volcanic mountain with chains made of solidified lava.”
“But she’s not dead.”
“No. She’s been sleeping for two millennia. Waiting. And recently—“ Selene stops. Swallows. “A rogue general named Veylor started the process of waking her.”
“He was Valdris’s most devoted general.” Selene’s jaw tightens. “A true believer in her vision of dragon supremacy. He spent decades hunting Fire-Bringers, gathering blood to weaken the Relics that keep her imprisoned. He found me first—tracked me to my grandmother’s cabin in the mountains. Used my blood to crack the first seal.” She pauses. “And then they found you.”
“And used mine too.”
“Both of us. Together.” Selene’s voice goes flat. “Our combined blood opened the first Relic enough for Valdris to communicate through it. And apparently—“ She looks at me. “She could speak to you too.”
I think about the stone altar. The channels carved into rock, always hungry, always pulling. The voice that called meusefullike I was a tool rather than a person.
