Fire—not the warm fire I’ve learned to master, but something cold and corrupted andprimordial—burns into my skin. I scream. Can’t help it. The sensation is a brand, a claim, a mark being seared into my flesh through psychic will.
“Now I’ll always be with you, little flame.” Valdris’s voice echoes in my skull as well as the cavern. “Run if you wish. I’ll be watching.”
She releases me.
I crumple, clutching my wrist against my chest. The mark throbs—a design I can’t see clearly through the tears blurring my vision, but I canfeelit. Feelher. A door ripped open in my mind, a window through which those burning eyes now peer.
Mine. Always mine.
“Aisling!” Rurik catches me before I hit the ground. His hands cup my face, force my gaze to meet his. Heat radiates from his palms—dragon heat, nothing like the cold violation still searing my wrist. “Look at me. Stay with me.”
But I feel her. In my blood, in my bones, in the hollow spaces behind my thoughts. Valdris. Watching. Always watching now.
The mountain shudders.
RURIK
The brand on her wrist glows.
Not with the gentle warmth of Fire-Bringer power—this is cold, emanating a sickly red light that makes my dragon roar with fury. Valdris marked her. Claimed her, in some twisted way that predates mating bonds by millennia.
I want to burn the world down. Want to tear through dimensions until I find wherever the real Valdris is hiding and rip her apart, scale by scale. Want to?—
Another tremor rocks the cavern. Cracks spiderweb across the ceiling, dust and debris raining down around us.
“Her rage is destabilizing the prison!” Auren’s voice cuts through the chaos. I didn’t even hear him arrive, but he’s there, gold-white scales gleaming as he analyzes the collapsing structure with cold precision. “We need to leave. Now.”
Valdris’s projection flickers violently, her smile never wavering despite the instability. “Run, little flames. Run back to your fortress and your delusions of safety. I’ll be free soon enough. And when I am—“ Her gaze finds mine, contemptuous and amused. “—you’ll burn out before you ever matter, reckless one. Just like all the others who thought they could stand against me.”
“Looking forward to proving you wrong.” I scoop Aisling into my arms—she protests weakly, but I ignore it. Her body is lighter than it should be, the scent of her hair filling my lungs as I pull her close. Even terrified, even trembling, she fits against my chest like she was made for it. “Let’s go.”
We run.
Drayke’s bronze form crashes through a collapsing archway, clearing the path. Selene rides between his wings, her fire blazing to incinerate falling debris before it can crush us. Zyphon’s shadows race ahead, consuming obstacles, creating darkness we can move through unseen.
Aisling shivers in my arms. Her skin is too cold where the brand touches me, though the rest of her radiates the familiar warmth I’ve grown addicted to over these past weeks. The wrongness of that contrast—her fire fighting something foreign in her blood—makes my dragon snarl with renewed fury.
PROTECT. CLAIM. MAKE HER OURS SO THAT THING CAN’T HAVE HER.
The dragon’s demand echoes through my skull, and for once, I don’t argue with it.
The tunnel opens onto the ridge where we landed. Morning light spills across the volcanic rock, and I shift without slowing—bones cracking, wings erupting, my body stretching into dragon form around Aisling until she’s cradled against my chest in a protective cage of scales and flame.
“Move!” Drayke roars.
We launch into the sky as the mountain behind us groans.
The fortress tookthree days to reach at normal flight speed.
We make it home in one.
Drayke pushes us harder than I’ve ever seen him push—no rest, no stops, just endless hours of beating wings against cold mountain air. Auren and Zyphon flank us, watching for pursuit. The other dragons from our original party have scattered to their posts, carrying word of what we found.
What we woke.
Aisling doesn’t speak for the first six hours. She sits between my wings, her damaged wrist cradled against her chest, and stares at nothing. I can feel her shaking. Can feel the way she flinches every few minutes, as if someone is speaking directly into her ear.
Valdris. The brand is letting Valdris into her head.
