Not pushing. Not demanding I listen. Just... talking. Filling the silence with information I didn’t ask for but find myself absorbing anyway.
“The Brotherhood has protected this territory for centuries,” he says as we climb a ridge that will give us our first view of our destination. “Four brothers—not by blood, but by choice. Drayke leads. He’s the Guardian King, though he’d tell you the title is ceremonial.”
“A dragon king.” I can’t keep the skepticism from my voice. “How reassuring.”
“He’s claimed. Mated to a Fire-Bringer named Selene.” Something in his voice shifts when he says her name. Warmth, maybe. Respect. “She’s... remarkable. Stubborn as hell, refuses to be intimidated, once set his cloak on fire for being overprotective.”
Despite myself, I feel a flicker of interest. “She set him on fire?”
“Just the cloak. Though I suspect she’d have aimed higher if he hadn’t apologized.” The ghost of a smile crosses his face.“They’re good together. He’s softer with her. She’s fiercer with him.”
“Softer.” The word tastes strange. “Dragons don’t get softer.”
“These do. When they find the right partner.”
He tells me about the others as we walk. Rurik—the one I met during the escape, all fire and chaos and inappropriate enthusiasm. His mate Aisling, a Fire-Bringer who survived torture by Valdris’s forces and came out fighting. “She’s dry,” he says. “Sharp. Doesn’t suffer fools. She and Rurik shouldn’t work, but somehow they do.”
Auren, the cold one. No mate. No interest in finding one, from the sound of it. “He watches,” Zyphon says. “Calculates. You’ll feel his attention before you see him. Don’t take it personally—he does it to everyone.”
“And you?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Where do you fit?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “I’m the executioner. The one they send when something needs to die and stay dead.”
“That’s a role. Not an answer.”
“It is what it is.” His voice has gone flat. Closed. “The shadows made me what I am. I serve the Brotherhood because they’re the only ones who’ve ever accepted what that means.”
I want to push. Want to demand more. But something in his posture warns me off—a tension that speaks of wounds I’m not ready to probe.
“These Fire-Bringers,” I say instead. “Selene and Aisling. They chose this? Chose to be... claimed?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not possible.” The denial comes automatically. “Fire-Bringers don’t choose dragons. We’re—“ I stop. What had Balroth told me? What had Lakhu reinforced? “We’re meant to be used. Power sources. Tools.”
“Is that what you believe?” No judgment in his voice. Just curiosity.
“It’s what I was taught.”
“By whom?”
By whom? By Balroth, who Zyphon claims betrayed me. By Lakhu, who locked me in a cell when I questioned him. By people who had every reason to want me believing I was less than I am.
“That’s not fair,” I manage.
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t. But it’s worth considering.”
We crestthe final ridge as sunset paints the sky in shades of fire.
The fortress steals my breath.
I expected something cruel. Something that matched the monster I believed Zyphon to be—all sharp edges and dark shadows and the promise of violence. Instead, the fortress feels... old. Weathered. Built into the mountain itself as if it grew there, ancient stone worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain.
“Welcome to the Brotherhood,” Zyphon says quietly.
Gates open as we approach—massive things, sized for dragons in their shifted form. Guards watch from the walls, their attention sharp but not hostile. No one reaches for weapons. No one sounds an alarm.
They were expecting us.
