“No heroics.” Drayke’s attention returns to me. “In and out. If something goes wrong?—“
“I grab her and run. Yeah, I got it.”
“I’m serious, Rurik. If you have to choose between gathering intelligence and getting her out safely?—“
“There’s no choice.” The words come out harder than I intend. “She’s the priority. She’s always the priority.”
Something flickers in Drayke’s expression. Understanding, maybe. Or recognition.
He claps my shoulder once, a gesture that carries three centuries of brotherhood behind it. “Let’s move.”
The drainage channels stink.
Centuries of volcanic runoff have coated the stone walls with residue that makes my boots slip and my stomach clench. The passage is narrow—too narrow for my dragon form, which is probably why Drayke chose this route. Wards flicker overhead, but they’re weaker here, neglected. Whoever built this place didn’t expect anyone to willingly crawl through ancient sewage to gain entry.
They didn’t expect Fire-Bringers, either.
Aisling walks ahead of me, her hand tracing the wall for balance. She hasn’t spoken since we entered the tunnels. Hasn’t looked back. Just moves forward with the kind of single-minded focus that tells me she’s holding herself in check through sheer force of will.
The passage opens into a wider corridor. Black stone walls. Iron doors every few feet, rusted hinges suggesting they haven’t been opened in years. And carved into the floor?—
Blood channels.
The grooves run the length of the corridor, converging toward the mountain’s heart. They’re dry now, but the staining tells me everything I need to know about what used to flow through them.
This is where they drained her. Where they cut her open and collected her blood for their fucking ritual.
My dragon roars against my control, scales threatening to erupt across my shoulders. I force it down, force the shift back, force myself to keep moving instead of burning this entire place to ash.
Aisling stops.
Her hand hovers over one of the channels, trembling visibly. I can see her throat working as she swallows.
“I remember this.” Her voice comes out flat. Clinical. The voice she uses when she’s too close to breaking. “They would—“ She stops. Starts again. “Twice a day. Morning and evening. Someone would come with a knife and?—“
“You don’t have to.”
Her head turns. Those green eyes find mine, and for a moment, the mask slips. Underneath is grief and rage, and a terror so deep, it makes my chest ache.
“I do. You need to understand what we’re walking into.” She straightens her spine, pulls her shoulders back. “The cells are ahead. Then the ritual chamber. Then...” a shuddering breath, “then her.”
I close the distance between us. Don’t touch her—she hasn’t invited it, and right now, she needs control more than comfort. But I stand close enough that my body blocks the corridor behind us. Close enough that she knows I’m here.
“We do this at your pace. You want to stop, we stop. You want to leave, we leave. Whatever you need.”
“I need this over.” Her chin lifts. “I need to see that she’s still trapped. That she can’t reach me out there.” Her voice cracks on the last word, just barely. “I need to know.”
“Then let’s find out.”
We move deeper.
The corridor branches, and Aisling chooses the left path without hesitation. She knows this place. Every turn, every junction, every iron door with its horror waiting behind. Her body moves on autopilot while her mind is somewhere else entirely.
The cells appear around the next bend.
Rows of them. Dozens. Iron bars thick as my wrist, stone floors stained with patterns I don’t want to identify. Some still have manacles attached to the walls—magic-suppressing chains that would have devoured any fire she tried to summon.
Empty now. But the residue of suffering clings to every surface. My dragon can taste it in the air—pain and despair and the slow, grinding cruelty of systematic torture.
