“There’s something you should know,” she says. “About your quarters.”
“What about them?”
“They’re in the east wing. Near the Fire-Bringer rooms, like I mentioned.” A breath. “Also near Zyphon’s chambers. Three doors down.”
I go still. “That wasn’t a coincidence.”
“No. Drayke’s orders. For your protection, officially.” Selene meets my gaze directly. “If Lakhu’s forces find this place, if anyone tries to get to you—Zyphon would be closest. Could reach you fastest.”
“Or it’s surveillance.”
“Maybe.” Selene doesn’t flinch from the accusation. “I won’t pretend Drayke isn’t strategic. He is. It’s part of what makes him good at leading. But I also know Zyphon refused the assignment at first. Said it wasn’t fair to you, being watched like that. Drayke overruled him.”
“Zyphon didn’t want to be placed near me?”
“Zyphon didn’t want you to feel trapped.” Selene’s expression softens. “He knows what Lakhu did to you. How you were kept. He said he’d rather sleep in the training yard than make you feel like you’d traded one prison for another.”
I don’t know what to do with that information. Don’t know how to reconcile it with everything I thought I knew about the dragon who killed my brother.
“I’m telling you because you deserve to know,” Selene continues. “Not because I want you to feel any particular way about it. Just... information. Do with it what you will.”
“Thank you.”
She nods and turns to go. Then stops.
“For what it’s worth,” she says over her shoulder, “I think he’s terrified of you. Not because of what you might do to him—but because of what you might not feel. He’s been hoping for three hundred years, and hope is the cruelest thing of all.”
She leaves before I can respond.
I stand in the hallway for a long time, three doors down from a dragon who’s been hoping for most of his life, and try to figure out what I’m supposed to feel.
Sleep doesn’t come easily.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the day. Selene’s claiming mark. Aisling’s dry humor. Rurik’s chaotic welcome. Auren’s silent assessment. The way the claimed pairs moved around each other, gravitating together as naturally as breathing.
And Zyphon. Always Zyphon, circling at the edges of my thoughts like a shadow I can’t shake.
Eventually, I give up on sleep and move to the window.
The fortress is quiet at this hour, but not dark. Torches flicker along the walls. Guards patrol the ramparts in steady patterns. And below, in the courtyard?—
Movement. Two figures, wrapped around each other in the moonlight.
Rurik and Aisling. I recognize his wild hair, her practical braid. They’re dancing—no, not dancing. Just swaying together, her head on his chest, his arms wrapped around her as if she’s the only solid thing in a shifting world.
He says something. She laughs—that dry, reluctant sound I’m learning to recognize. He presses a kiss to her hair and pulls her closer, and even from this distance, I can see the tenderness in the gesture. The reverence.
This isn’t a dragon claiming his property. This is a man holding the woman he loves as if she’s the most precious thing he’s ever touched.
The ache in my chest intensifies. Recognition, I realize. That’s what this feeling is. I’m recognizing something I’ve seen before, something I’ve felt before, even if I can’t remember where or when.
And then?—
It comes without warning. A flash of memory, vivid and sharp, slicing through the fog in my mind.
A garden at night. Moonflowers glowing silver in the darkness. Arms around me, holding me close, swaying to music that exists only in the space between two heartbeats.
And a face. His face. Zyphon’s face, but younger. Unburdened. Looking at me with an expression I’ve only just learned to recognize because I saw Drayke give it to Selene tonight.
