Selene’s grip on my hand has become almost painful. I appreciate the anchor.
“There was something else.” Auren’s voice has gone strange. Too controlled. “Beyond the physical procedures. Describe it.”
“A presence. During the rituals, when the blood was flowing—I could feel her. Not see her, not exactly. More like... sensing heat from a fire in another room. She was never physically there, but she was watching. Through the blood. Through whatever connection the Relic energy created.” I search for the right medical terminology. “She called herself Queen. Impressed that into my mind—not words, exactly. More like commands burned directly into my thoughts. She was very interested in the strength of my fire.”
The temperature in the room drops.
Auren goes completely still. Behind me, I hear Drayke’s sharp intake of breath. Even Rurik’s constant restless energy freezes into something watchful and wary.
“You didn’t mention direct contact before.” Drayke’s voice is carefully level. The kind of level that means anything but calm. “That means...”
I turn to face him and his unfinished thoughts, and what I see in his expression makes my stomach clench. “ I need some air.”
Selene rises with me, but I shake my head. “Alone. Just for a few minutes.”
I don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait to see if Rurik’s going to follow despite my request. I walk out of the research chamber with my spine straight and my hands steady, and I keep walking until I find a door that opens to the outside.
The garden is small and overgrown, tucked into a corner of the fortress where sunlight filters through breaks in the ancient stone. Herbs grow in wild profusion—some I recognize from my training, others that look like nothing that should exist in nature. The air smells green and growing. Alive.
I make it three steps before my hands start shaking.
FIVE
RURIK
She walks out with perfect posture.
Too perfect. Spine rigid. Shoulders squared. Head held at exactly the angle that suggests calm without actually achieving it. I’ve seen that walk before—on soldiers coming back from battles they survived but didn’t win. On dragons returning from losses they can’t admit.
On myself, more times than I want to count.
I give her a head start. She asked for alone, and I’m trying—I’m really trying—to respect the boundaries she’s erected around herself. But my dragon has other ideas. It’s snarling with an urgency I can’t ignore.
Follow. Protect. She’s breaking.
She’s not mine to protect. Not yet. Maybe not ever, given the way she flinches from touch and retreats behind clinical detachment every time something threatens to make her feel.
But I follow anyway. Because, apparently, I’m incapable of making good decisions where she’s concerned.
The garden is easy to find—I’ve spent centuries in this fortress, know every corner and hidden passage. She’s standing among the overgrown herbs, shoulders no longer squared, hands no longer steady. The shaking has spread from her fingersto her arms, visible tremors that she’s staring at with something between horror and resignation.
Clinical detachment.
That’s what Auren would call it. What the healers would note in their charts. Dissociation. Emotional suppression. Perfectly normal response to trauma that will become perfectly abnormal if it continues long enough.
But I watched her in that examination room, answering questions about her own torture with the precise language of a medical professional documenting someone else’s case. Describing violation like it were happening to a stranger. That careful, practiced distance from her own suffering—was somehow worse than if she’d screamed.
She’s retreating into facts because feelings are too dangerous.
I know something about that. I’ve built a whole personality around avoiding the feelings that might destroy me if I looked at them directly.
Selene brushes past me before I can decide what to do. Her hand touches my arm—brief, purposeful—and her expression carries a clear message:Stay back.
I stay back. Watch from the doorway as Selene crosses the garden and sinks down beside Aisling. Not touching. Just present. Close enough that Aisling could reach out if she wanted to.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time.” Selene’s voice is soft but carries in the quiet.
“Yes, I do.” Aisling’s response is immediate. Automatic.
