I close my eyes. Focus on Rurik’s body beneath me. On the steady beat of his wings. On the memory of his touch against my cheek—and on the promise of more waiting on the other side of this nightmare.
I’m not yours,I think fiercely.I’m not anyone’s tool. And I’m not alone anymore.
The voice in my blood laughs.
We’ll see.
TWELVE
RURIK
The mountain is wrong.
I’ve flown over battlefields soaked in centuries of blood. I’ve descended into caverns where ancient magic pooled thick enough to taste. I’ve faced rogues driven mad by isolation, their minds shattered by forces they couldn’t comprehend.
None of it prepared me for this.
The fortress rises from volcanic rock like a wound in the earth—black stone that swallows light, jagged spires reaching toward a sky gone bruised and heavy. Wards shimmer in my peripheral vision, layers upon layers of protective magic woven so dense, they make my scales itch. And beneath it all, beneath the wards and the stone and the wrongness pressing against my mind, somethingbreathes.
Ancient. Hungry. Waiting.
My dragon recoils with a snarl that vibrates through my chest. Every instinct screams at me to turn around, to grab Aisling and fly until this place is nothing but a bad memory. The magic here is old—older than the Brotherhood, older than anything I’ve faced in three and a half centuries of fighting.
Aisling’s grip tightens on my neck. Her thighs press harder against my scales.
I land on a ridge overlooking the fortress, the other dragons settling around us in a protective formation. Drayke touches down beside me, and I catch the look he exchanges with Selene.
The grim set of his jaw says everything.
This is worse than we expected.
I shift the moment Aisling slides from my back, bones cracking and reforming as I take human shape. The cold mountain air hits my bare chest, but I barely notice. My attention is fixed on her face—on the way her skin has gone pale, her breathing shallow, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
She’s remembering. I can see it in the way her gaze unfocuses, tracking something that isn’t here. Something that lives in nightmares.
“Hey.” I move into her line of sight, blocking her view of the fortress. “Still with me?”
Her gaze snaps to mine. For a moment, I see the terror lurking beneath her careful control—raw and bleeding and too close to the surface. Then she breathes out, and the walls slam back into place.
“Still here.” Her voice is steady. Steady enough.
Drayke approaches, Selene a step behind him. The Guardian King’s face is carved from granite, every line radiating the kind of tension that means he’s about to give orders no one will enjoy.
“Assessment?”
I glance at the fortress. At the shadows moving along the ramparts—guards, at least a dozen that I can count. At the way the wards pulse with a sickly rhythm, feeding on something I don’t want to identify.
“Heavily guarded. Multiple ward layers. And something underneath that’s making my dragon want to turn tail and run.”I flash a grin that feels more forced than usual. “So, typical Tuesday.”
Drayke doesn’t smile. “Selene and I will create a distraction. Draw the guards to the eastern approach. Rurik, you take Aisling in through the old drainage channels on the west side. Get inside, find what we need, get out.”
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“Anything that tells us how close Valdris is to breaking free. Structural integrity of the prison. Evidence of recent rituals. Whatever her forces have been planning.” His gaze shifts to Aisling. “And anything she remembers that might help us understand the layout.”
Aisling nods. Her jaw is set, her shoulders squared. She looks like a woman walking into battle, not a victim returning to the place where she was tortured.
Brave. So fucking brave.
