Something passes between them—a silent conversation I’m too drained to interpret. Then Selene nods, gestures to the others, and leads them toward the exit. The door closes behind them with a soft click.
I’m alone with the dragon who has every reason to hate me.
He doesn’t speak. Just moves to the chair beside my bed and sits, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable. The quiet stretches between us, thick with everything neither of us is saying.
“The Crown.” My voice comes out as a rasp. “Where?—”
“Selene has it. Locked in warded storage until we decide what to do with you.” His tone is flat. Clinical. “It responded to her Fire-Bringer signature, but she couldn’t open it. Couldn’t even sense most of its power. She said it felt... waiting.”
“Waiting for me.” I close my eyes. “It only fully responds to someone with both bloodlines. Witch magic to seal it. Fire-Bringer flame to open it. Both to wield it.”
“And you have both.”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
I open my eyes and find him watching me. Not with the blazing hatred from before—something colder. More controlled. More dangerous.
“You don’t trust me.” Not a question.
“Should I?” He leans forward slightly, and the temperature in the room drops. “Your sister murdered mine. Your bloodlineallied with the Shadow Clan. And now you arrive at our gates, conveniently carrying the most dangerous Relic in existence, claiming to be the only one who can stop the very enemies your family empowered.” His lips curve into something that isn’t a smile. “If this is a trap, it’s an elegant one.”
“If this is a trap, I’m the bait.” I hold his gaze even as my body screams for rest. “And the trap already closed on me. Valdoria is gone. My family is dead. I have nothing left except this—” I press a hand to my chest where the Crown’s echo still pulses. “—and the power to make sure Morrigan and Ulrik don’t win.”
“Pretty words.” He echoes what he said at the gate. “But words are easy. Your sister was good with words too.”
Something snaps inside me.
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharp despite my weariness. “Don’t compare me to her. I am not Morrigan.”
“You share her blood.”
“Blood isn’t destiny.” I push myself up on trembling arms, ignoring the way my vision swims. “If blood was destiny, you’d be exactly like every dragon who came before you. Good and bad. Kind and cruel. Every choice already made by ancestors you never met.” I meet his stare—really meet it—and let him see everything I’m feeling. The grief. The fury. The desperate, burning need to make him understand. “I watched Morrigan change. Watched the sister I loved become something I couldn’t recognize. And I’ve spent years trying to figure out what I could have done differently. What I missed. How I could have stopped her before?—”
My voice breaks.
I hate that it breaks. Hate showing weakness in front of him. But three days of running and hiding and not letting myself feel anything have taken their toll, and the cracks are spreading faster than I can patch them.
“Before she killed your sister.” I force the words out. “Before she destroyed both our families. Before she became the monster that Ulrik uses as a weapon.” I sink back against the pillows, suddenly too tired to hold myself up. “I would die before helping her. And if you can’t see that—if your hatred is so complete that you can’t tell the difference between a monster and her victim—then kill me now and get it over with.”
Nothing. No response. No movement.
Auren stares at me. I stare back, too drained to guard my expression, too empty to do anything but wait for him to decide whether I live or die.
The moment stretches. Grows. Fills the space between us with everything neither of us knows how to say.
Then he stands.
“Sleep.” The word is clipped. Final. He moves toward the door without looking back. “The war council convenes in the morning to decide what to do with you.”
“Auren.”
He pauses. Doesn’t turn.
“I’m sorry.” The words feel inadequate—impossibly, painfully inadequate—but I say them anyway. “About Lyric. About what Morrigan did. I know sorry doesn’t change anything. I know it doesn’t bring her back. But I need you to know that I’ve carried the weight of my sister’s crimes since I found out what she did. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to balance the scales she tipped.”
His shoulders are rigid. His hands have curled into fists at his sides.
