The second tries to flank me. Aisling puts her blade through his back before he gets close.
“Thanks.”
“Fire-Bringers protect each other.” She pulls her blade free and wipes it on the dead guard’s cloak. “Also, I hate being flanked.”
We fight through three more groups of guards. Zyphon handles most of them, his shadows reaching out to consume attacks that should have killed us, his blades finding targets with supernatural accuracy. But Aisling and I hold our own—her with clinical precision, me with shadow-flame that cuts through enchanted armor like paper.
“You know,” Aisling observes as we step over the latest pile of bodies, “when I was a veterinary surgeon in Cork, my biggest worry was emergency horse colic cases. Now I’m stabbing shadow cultists in underground tunnels.” She pauses. “My life has become extremely strange.”
“Welcome to dragon territory.” I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “It doesn’t get less strange.”
“Perfect.” She readjusts her grip on her sword. “At least it’s not boring.”
The ritual chamberopens before us, and my heart stops.
I know this room. Know the carved stone floor, the channels etched into rock, the altar at the center where power flows into darkness. It’s not the same chamber where I died—that was in a forest clearing, under open sky. But it’s the same design. The same purpose. The same cold hunger radiating from every surface.
The same altar, with a Fire-Bringer chained to its surface.
Selene.
She’s conscious, her gray eyes wide with a combination of fear and fury. Blood runs from cuts on her arms, flowing into the carved channels, feeding the Dominion Heart that pulses at the altar’s base. The Relic glows with hungry light, awakening power that makes my own shadow-flame recoil.
For a moment, I’m back on my own altar. Feeling the blade bite into my flesh. Watching my brother smile as my blood drained into channels just like these.
“Took you long enough.” Selene’s voice snaps me back to the present. Hoarse but steady. “I was starting to think I’d have to rescue myself.”
“We got distracted.” Aisling is already moving toward the altar, medical instincts overriding caution. “Hold still. Let me see those cuts.”
“Wait.” Zyphon’s hand catches Aisling’s arm. His gaze sweeps the chamber, shadows stirring with unease. “It’s too easy.”
He’s right. The chamber is empty except for Selene. No guards. No Lakhu. Just the altar and the Relic and a Fire-Bringer waiting to be rescued.
A trap. Obviously a trap.
The Dominion Heart flares.
Pain explodes through my skull.
It’s not physical—not exactly. It’s deeper than that. The Relic’s power clawing at something fundamental, something that was put inside me when Lakhu dragged me back from death. Hooks buried in my soul, now being yanked without mercy.
I collapse to my knees, shadow-flame erupting uncontrolled. Distantly, I hear Zyphon calling my name, feel his hands gripping my shoulders. But I can’t respond. Can’t think. The Dominion Heart is screaming through my blood, demanding obedience, trying to drag me back under Lakhu’s control.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Lakhu’s voice echoes through the chamber, though I can’t see him. Can’t see anything except the red haze of pain and the darkness trying to swallow me whole.
“The Relic remembers you, Nasyra. It brought you back. It owns you. And now...” The pain intensifies, and I scream. “Now it’s bringing you home.”
My shadow-flame turns against me. I feel it trying to break free of my control, trying to attack the people I care about. Zyphon. Aisling. Rurik. The Relic wants me to destroy them—wants to use my power the way Lakhu intended from the beginning.
No.
The word rises from somewhere deep inside me. Not a thought—a declaration. A refusal so absolute, it burns through the Relic’s chains.
I am not your weapon.
Lakhu brought me back to be used. To be aimed at the Brotherhood and fired. He twisted my memories, made me hate the man who loved me, shaped me into a tool for his revenge.
