He moves past me, breathing fire of his own at the spreading flames—not to feed them, but to somehow absorb them. Theconflagration dies as quickly as it started, leaving scorched stone and the acrid smell of burnt straw.
I stare at the destruction, chest heaving, hands still shaking. “That was?—“
“A beginning.” He turns back to me, that grin still in place. “A very explosive beginning, but still a beginning. Again.”
The next houris a masterclass in humiliation.
I scorch three training dummies to ash. I nearly set Rurik on fire twice—the first time, he dodges with a laugh; the second time, the flames catch the edge of his sleeve, and he extinguishes them with a casual pat that does absolutely nothing to diminish his apparent delight.
“There we go! Now we’re cooking!”
“I nearlyburned you alive.”
“Please. This is the most fun I’ve had in decades.” He rolls up his singed sleeve, revealing forearm muscles that I absolutely do not notice. “Auren’s experiments are boring. Drayke’s strategy sessions are boring. You?” He gestures at the smoldering wreckage around us. “You’re chaos incarnate. I love it.”
Chaos incarnate.I want to argue, but the evidence is damning. Training dummies reduced to ash. Candle rack destroyed. Scorch marks radiating across the courtyard like a blast pattern.
And through it all, my hands won’t stop shaking.
“Your fire responds to fear.”
The voice comes from the shadows near the wall. I spin, heart lurching, fire flaring unbidden at my fingertips before I register the source.
Zyphon.
He steps forward, shadows writhing around his shoulders like living things. His scales seem to absorb the light, and his gaze pins me in place with unsettling intensity.
“You’re trying to control it the way you control everything else.” His voice is ice and darkness, ancient in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Logic. Force. The same mechanisms you use to compartmentalize trauma and maintain function.”
Compartmentalize trauma.My jaw clenches. “I don’t?—“
“Fire isn’t logical.” He moves closer, each step deliberate, those violet-shadowed eyes never leaving mine. “Neither is trauma. Stop fighting yourself.”
The words land like blows, precise and painful. My fire flickers at my fingertips, responding to the anger rising in my chest.
“I’m not fighting?—“
“You’ve been fighting since the moment you woke in that infirmary.” He stops, close enough that I feel the cold radiating from his cursed form. “Every list you make, every schedule you create, every attempt to impose order on chaos—it’s all a fight. Against your fear. Against your power. Against the parts of yourself you can’t control.”
Silence stretches between us. The fire at my fingertips pulses with my heartbeat, unstable and dangerous and entirely too accurate a reflection of my internal state.
“What do you suggest?” The question comes out sharper than intended. “Let the fear take over? Let the fire burn everything down?”
“No.” Something flickers in his expression—not warmth, but understanding. “Accept it. The fear. The fire. They’re part of you. Fighting them only makes them stronger.”
He turns and walks back toward the shadows, leaving me with Rurik and the wreckage of my control.
“Well.”Rurik rocks back on his heels, studying me with an expression I can’t read. “That was intense.”
“He’s not wrong.” The admission costs me more than I want to acknowledge. “I am fighting. All the time. Every minute of every day since?—“
I stop. Can’t finish the sentence. The memories are right there, pressing against the walls I’ve built to contain them, and if I let them through?—
“Hey.” Rurik’s voice softens, losing that manic edge. “I get it. I do.”
I look at him, past the grin and the restless energy and the apparent inability to take anything seriously. Something shifts in his expression, a crack in the performance that reveals something raw underneath.
“You think I don’t know about fighting yourself?” He runs a hand through that wild red hair, for once not fidgeting just to fidget. “I’ve been at war with my own dragon for three and a half centuries. Every day. Every hour. The beast wants to burn, and I have to keep it contained.”
