I find myself fighting a completely unexpected urge to laugh. This woman—this Fire-Bringer with her claiming mark on display and her casual command of a dragon king—is nothing I was taught to expect. Nothing I was told existed.
“You’re not what I imagined,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Neither are you.” Selene’s grip on my arm loosens but doesn’t release. “I expected someone who’d turned him inside out to be, I don’t know, taller? More intimidating?”
“I tried to kill him.”
“Oh, I heard.” She sounds more impressed than concerned. “Multiple times, apparently. And he just stood there and took it. That man has been a locked vault for as long as I’ve known him, and you cracked him open in minutes.” A pause. “I’m not sure if that’s romantic or deeply concerning.”
“Concerning. Definitely concerning.”
“Probably both.” We’ve entered the fortress, the massive hallway swallowing us in warmth and torchlight. “But here’s the thing about concerning situations—they’re a lot easier to handle on a full stomach. So let’s start there and work our way up to the existential crisis, yeah?”
I don’t have an argument for that. Don’t have the energy for one.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “Okay.”
The food is,as promised, incredible.
I eat until my stomach aches, barely tasting what I’m shoveling in but unable to stop. Selene keeps up a running commentary—who cooked what, which dishes Rurik will fight over, the time Auren nearly killed a servant for rearranging his spice rack. Her words wash over me, requiring no response, filling the silence without demanding anything.
Zyphon is there somewhere. I feel his attention on me—that awareness that’s become constant since the escape—but he keeps his distance. Let Selene handle the introductions, the settling in. Gives me space I didn’t know I needed.
Later, alone in a room that’s bigger than my cell in Lakhu’s fortress, I stand at the window and stare out at the mountains. The moon is rising, casting silver light across peaks that seem to go on forever.
I should feel trapped. Should feel the walls closing in, another cage disguised as hospitality. But the door isn’t locked. The window isn’t barred. No one has told me where I can and can’t go.
It doesn’t mean I trust them. Doesn’t mean I believe the picture Zyphon painted on the road—Fire-Bringers as partners, not property. Dragons who claim but don’t consume.
But Selene’s claiming mark wasn’t hidden. Her commands to Drayke weren’t punished. Her warmth didn’t feel performed.
What if they’re telling the truth?
The thought is terrifying. If they’re telling the truth about the claiming, about Fire-Bringers, then Lakhu was lying. If Lakhu was lying about that, what else did he lie about?
What if Zyphon is telling the truth about Balroth?
I crush the thought before it can take root. I’m not ready. Not yet.
But as I finally crawl into a bed that’s softer than anything I’ve slept on since my resurrection, one thing is clear:
I don’t believe them yet. But I want to. And that, I’m learning, is how it starts.
NINE
ZYPHON
She’s laughing.
Not a full laugh—nothing that unguarded—but something close. A startled sound pulled from her by something Selene said as she steered her toward the great hall. I can’t hear the words from where I stand in the courtyard’s shadows, but I can see Nasyra’s expression. The surprise. The confusion at finding something funny when everything should be terrible.
The sound hits me harder than any blow she’s landed.
I remember that laugh. Three hundred years ago, it came easier—rang through castle halls and across moonlit gardens, bright and warm and free. The woman who made that sound set fire to pompous lords and argued philosophy with dragons and looked at me as if I was something worth keeping.
This version is quieter. More guarded. But it’s there. Somewhere beneath the fear and the manipulation and the hatred Lakhu planted, the real Nasyra is still fighting to surface.
I watch until she disappears through the hall’s entrance, Selene’s hand light on her arm, guiding without pushing. Then I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and lean back against the cold stone wall.
