Shadow-flame pours through the chamber doorway, tendrils of dark fire that seek out my curse and wrap around it. Not merging—complementing. Her fire doesn’t try to burn away my shadows. It stabilizes them. Gives them an anchor. Provides the warmth my darkness has been craving without knowing what it needed.
Nasyra appears in the doorway, blood on her face and fire in her hands and something fierce blazing in her mismatched eyes. The eyes that haunted my dreams, now looking at me with something I almost don’t recognize.
Love. She looks at me with love.
“You didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun, did you?”
The curse settles. For the first time in three centuries, it doesn’t fight me—doesn’t strain against my control, doesn’t hunger to consume and destroy. Her fire is feeding it, giving it something, and the relief is so profound, I nearly collapse from that alone.
“Selene?”
“Free. Aisling’s patching her up. Drayke is being dramatic about it—you know how he gets.” She crosses to my side,stepping over the debris of our battle, her hand finding mine with the ease of long practice. Her fire pours into my shadows with every point of contact. “The Relic is contained. The Fire-Bringers handled it.”
“All three of you?”
“All three of us.” Her smile is fierce, proud. “Turns out Fire-Bringer fire works quite well against ancient artifacts when you combine enough of it. Selene’s idea.”
“This is touching.” Lakhu’s voice drips contempt, but there’s something else beneath it—uncertainty. Fear. He’s watching our intertwined powers with something close to horror. “The cursed dragon and his resurrected lover, reunited for a final stand. Romantic. Futile.”
“Not futile.” I rise to my feet, Nasyra’s hand still in mine, our powers intertwined in ways that shouldn’t be possible. The curse that’s been trying to kill me for centuries now feels almost... peaceful. Settled. Like it finally found what it was looking for. “You spent centuries learning to fight my curse. You never learned to fight hers.”
“Her power came from the same source as yours. The same ritual. The same?—“
“The same love.” Nasyra’s voice is steady, unwavering. “You brought me back to use as a weapon. You never understood what you were actually creating.”
We attack together.
Not as two separate fighters, but as one force split between two bodies. Her shadow-flame wraps around my curse, stabilizing it, directing it, giving me control I’ve never had. Mydarkness shields her fire, protects it, amplifies it in ways that make her power burn brighter than I’ve ever seen.
Lakhu tries to target my curse again, but her fire intercepts—absorbs the attack, transforms it into fuel for our combined assault. He throws shadow constructs at Nasyra, but my darkness consumes them before they reach her. Every weapon he’s spent centuries preparing is useless against us.
We move in synchronization. When I strike high, she strikes low. When she advances, I cover her flanks. When his magic tries to separate us, our powers reach for each other and hold fast. Separated by death, and somehow we fight like we’ve been practicing this our whole lives.
Because we have, in a way. The bond growing between us—the one that will become claiming if we both survive this—has been building since the moment she tried to kill me in the shadow-territories. Every training session where our powers found each other without permission. Every shared meal where we sat close enough to touch. Every night she spent in my arms, her fire warming my shadows while we slept.
All of it leading here. To this moment. To the prince who tried to use our love as a weapon, finally learning what that love can actually do.
Lakhu’s defenses crumble. His attacks grow desperate, wild, losing the precision that made him dangerous. He’s not used to fighting two opponents who move as one—isn’t prepared for powers that complement instead of conflict.
I drive a blade of shadow into his shoulder. Nasyra follows with a lance of dark fire that takes him in the thigh. He staggers back, bleeding, his beautiful face twisted with disbelief.
“This isn’t possible.” He stumbles backward, shadow magic flickering and failing. “You can’t—the curse doesn’t work that way—my father designed it to consume, not to complement?—“
“It does now.” I advance, shadows and fire moving around me in a dance that feels like breathing. “Your father created the curse to punish me for loving a Fire-Bringer. He never considered what would happen if that Fire-Bringer loved me back.”
Nasyra’s hand tightens on mine. Her fire flares brighter, feeding my darkness, completing something that’s been broken. I feel it—the curse transforming, shifting from punishment to something else. Something that doesn’t want to destroy me anymore.
Something that wants to protect her.
Lakhu doesn’t stand a chance.
I killhim with my bare hands.
The same way I killed her brother. Close and personal and savage, my fingers wrapped around his throat as his shadow magic sputters and fails. He claws at my arms, tries to trigger the curse one last time, but Nasyra’s fire blocks every attempt.
“She was supposed to be mine.” Lakhu’s voice comes out strangled, desperate. “My weapon. My tool. The key to bringing my mother back?—“
“She was never yours.” I squeeze harder, feeling cartilage give beneath my grip. “She was never anyone’s. That’s what you never understood. Fire-Bringers aren’t weapons to be wielded. They’re warriors who choose their own side.”
