I watch her until dawn breaks over the mountains, painting the sky in shades of rose and gold. Watch her stir, stretch, blink awake with confusion that melts into something softer when she sees my face.
“You didn’t sleep.” Not a question.
“I didn’t want to miss this.”
She doesn’t ask what I mean. Just reaches up to touch my face, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw, the curve of my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth.
“I slept,” she says quietly. “Really slept. No nightmares. No fire. Just peace.”
“Good.”
“It’s because of you.” She holds my gaze, and there’s something in her expression I’m afraid to name. “Whatever this is between us—whatever we’re becoming—it makes me feel safe. For the first time since Lakhu brought me back, I feel like I might actually be okay.”
Safe. She feels safe with me. The cursed dragon, the one everyone fears, the one who carries darkness that consumes everything it touches—she feels safe in my arms.
Hope. Fragile and terrifying.
But real.
“Stay,” I hear myself say. “As long as you want. As long as you need. Stay.”
She smiles—a real smile, the first one I’ve seen from her that isn’t edged with suspicion or grief. And she curls back into my arms, her fire settling against my shadows, two broken things finding shelter in each other.
Outside, the sun rises over the mountains, painting the sky in shades of fire and gold.
For the first time, I let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—I might get to keep something I love.
TWENTY-ONE
NASYRA
The dream starts the way dreams do—without warning, without logic, slipping from warmth and safety into something darker.
One moment, I’m in Zyphon’s arms, his shadows wrapped around me, his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek. The next, I’m standing in a forest I haven’t seen in three centuries.
But this isn’t like the fragments that have been surfacing—hazy images, disconnected feelings, impressions that dissolve when I try to examine them. This is clear. Vivid. Real in a way that makes my skin prickle with dread.
I know this place.
The trees are ancient, their canopy so thick that only slivers of moonlight reach the forest floor. The air smells of pine and something else—something metallic and wrong. And walking beside me, his hand gentle on my elbow, is Balroth.
My brother.
He looks younger than I remember—or younger than I’ve been remembering, at least. His smile is warm, reassuring. The same smile he gave me when I was frightened as a child, when storms shook the manor and I crawled into his bed for comfort.The same smile that made me feel safe in a world that didn’t always welcome Fire-Bringers.
“Just a little further,” he says. “I found something you need to see.”
I trust him. Of course, I trust him. He’s my brother, my blood, the only family I have left since our parents died. We grew up together. Fought together. Protected each other from a world that didn’t always want Fire-Bringers to thrive.
Why wouldn’t I follow him into the dark?
The clearing opens before us,and the wrongness hits me like a physical blow.
There’s an altar at the center—flat stone carved with channels that gleam in the moonlight. Figures wait in the shadows, their forms indistinct, their presence radiating a cold that has nothing to do with temperature.
Shadow Clan. I recognize their magic even before I see their faces. The same darkness that Lakhu wielded, the same cold hunger that drove him to resurrect me.
I try to pull back. Try to retreat into the forest, to run, to get away from this place that feels like death given form.
