I did that.
Idid that.
The battle callsme through the breach.
I should stay inside. Should wait for the danger to pass, let the Brotherhood handle the remaining threats. That would be the smart choice. The safe choice.
I climb through the rubble and into the courtyard.
Chaos greets me. Dragons wheeling overhead, fire blazing against the pre-dawn sky, the crash and shriek of combat echoing off stone walls. Rurik’s red-gold form dominates the center of the fighting—a whirlwind of claws and flame, tearing through enemies with savage efficiency.
A rogue spots me. Breaks from the main battle, wings beating hard as it dives toward the vulnerable human standing in the debris.
My fire rises to meet it.
The barrier forms instinctively—a wall of flame that springs up between me and the diving rogue. Not controlled, exactly. Not the precise single candle from yesterday. But intentional. Purposeful. Fire responding to my need instead of my fear.
The rogue crashes into the barrier and recoils, scales smoking. I don’t give it time to recover. Another burst of flame—aimed this time, concentrated—and the rogue’s wing membrane tears, sending it spiraling toward the ground.
Rurik finishes it before it lands. Claws through the throat. Quick. Efficient. He doesn’t even slow down.
But his head turns. Those blazing dragon eyes find mine across the chaos, and something passes between us. Recognition. Approval. Something deeper that I’m not ready to name.
Then another rogue attacks, and we’re moving again.
We fallinto a rhythm without discussing it.
My fire creates barriers—walls and shields and bursts of heat that drive enemies back. His flames cut through whatever gets past my defenses. I block; he strikes. I burn; he destroys. The synchronization shouldn’t work. We’ve trained together exactly once, and that session involved more property damage than actual technique.
But something in my fire recognizes something in his. Responds to it. Reaches for it.
A shadow-creature materializes behind me. I feel it before I see it—cold and wrong, a void in the heat I’m learning to sense. My fire whips around, forming a dome of protection, but the creature is already reaching through the flames with claws that don’t burn.
Rurik’s bulk crashes into it from above. Dragon fire pours into the darkness, and I add my own flames to the assault. The creature shrieks—that bone-deep sound of wrongness—and dissolves under our combined heat.
We stand in the aftermath, breathing hard. His dragon form towers over me, scales streaked with blood and ash, flames still flickering from his wings. I should be terrified. Should be overwhelmed by the violence, the death, the sheer inhuman power radiating from every inch of him.
Instead, I feel something else entirely.
Safe.
The battle continues around us. More rogues falling to the Brotherhood’s coordinated defense. More shadow-creatures dissolving under Zyphon’s darkness or the Fire-Bringers’flames. The tide has turned—what started as an ambush is becoming a rout.
A wounded rogue drags itself across the courtyard, leaving a trail of blood on the stones. Its scales are shattered, one wing torn completely away. It should be dead. Should have given up minutes ago.
Instead, it’s crawling toward me.
Rurik growls—a deep, territorial sound that vibrates through the air. But the rogue doesn’t seem to notice. Its dying eyes fix on my face with something that looks almost like triumph.
“The Queen wakes.” Its voice is a wet rasp, blood bubbling on its lips. “The Fire-Bringer’s blood calls to her. She felt you. Tasted you. And she’s coming.”
Valdris. The Crimson Queen. The monster who ordered my capture, my torture, my blood drained into channels that fed ancient artifacts.
“What does that mean?” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “What did my blood wake?”
The rogue laughs—a horrible, gurgling sound. “Everything. You woke everything, little flame. And now she’s?—“
Rurik’s claws tear through its throat before it can finish.
